Every time a poet or a painter finds themselves in an artistic rut, they call this the writer’s/artist’s block. During this deafeningly suffocating time, all of one’s innovative ideas are squeezed out of them prematurely, leaving their canvas parched of some much needed creative juice.
When someone experiences this, the typical solution is to take a step back to gather all their bearings and dive back into the project once they get some inspiration.
But as someone whose drive for success is tangled with a whole lot of stubbornness, the idea of taking a break felt like an insult to my work ethic. The moment I began feeling out of touch with the content I was creating, I knew I was running straight into that dreaded rut. But instead of hitting the breaks, I pushed too hard until I fell right through.
When I started blogging back in 2015, it was nothing more than just an outlet for practicing my writing and publishing my slightly-better-than-average outfits. I had a lot I wanted to talk about, and because I knew people didn’t really have the time to hear all of it, I put it down on a website that could never say I talked too much. Back then, my blog had gone by various aliases (mustachemagic on Tumblr, meltedbutter and alphabelles on Wix, etc.) until I finally settled with a name that I felt perfectly described me the most: Haute Headed. I was a girl that was steaming with thoughts and ideas about the luxury fashion industry, much like an emotional hot head just waiting to burst any second.
In the beginning, I reveled in the way Haute Headed made me feel like I was saying something worthwhile. I wrote things that hadn’t been covered on the media yet, so it definitely seemed like I was contributing something importance to the style scene. It was during this time that I felt I had reached the pinnacle of my fashion blogger persona. “Influencer Fran” with the thousands of followers had all the latest style trends and quirky DIYs. Things were great.
Until they weren’t.
Little by little, I became consumed by the desire to reach a level of “influencership” that seemed to be the only logical next step. I posted twice weekly, sometimes even when the inspiration ran thin. I accepted nearly every (often unpaid) brand deal just for the novelty of being an ambassador, and I wore my own self posting pictures I no longer put my heart into crafting.
I didn’t want to admit it, but the truth was staring at me right in the face as the like count gradually went down: Influencer Fran had lost the passion in her content, and she took everyone’s momentum with her.
I had become overexposed, oversaturated, and just plain inauthentic. I stopped taking pictures because they made me happy, but because the narrative of Influencer Fran was something I believed I needed to keep up as not to disappoint myself or confirm the doubts others had about me.
Haute Headed’s goal was to create an artistic space for broke gals like me to channel luxury fashion within a budget. But admittedly, as my reputation for loving designers items proliferated, I became blinded by the pressure to prove that this exaggerated and highly stylized version of myself was real.
I finally reached a point where I could no longer recognize the person I saw when I opened my profile. Who was this girl? Definitely not me.
Instagram is not real— this is the lesson I was consistently reminded of when I started this journey, but eventually grew desensitized to the higher the follower count racked up. I promised myself that Influencer Fran was only supposed to be a character that portrayed the boujee and most stylish parts of me, but was never someone that should overshadow the Fran that was really underneath.
Yet, there I was, a living irony that showed what it meant to masquerade as yourself.
I have a long— and I mean long— list of responsibilities attached to what I do. I can’t just up and quit, so I’ve decided that to save the integrity of both Haute Headed and my own being, I’ll be taking an indefinite social media break.
I need to step back and remember that I started this whole journey on the basis of allowing creativity and fashion to give us our best lives even without the 4-5 figure price tag. In order to do that, I need to learn how to experience life without chasing the 4-5 figure like count too.
Here’s to truth and authenticity.
Sending you all the love and light,
Fran