Danielle Bernstein - This is Not a Fashion Story: Taking Chances, Breaking Rules, and Being a Boss in the Big City

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2020 by Danielle Bernstein

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

First Edition

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020901973

ISBN-13: 978-1-64112-017-3
ISBN-10: 1-64112-017-7

eBook ISBN: 9781641129428

This book depicts events in the authors life as accurately as present recollection permits. Some names and identifying characteristics have been changed to respect the privacy of certain individuals. Some dialogue has been re-created.

Dedicated to Poppy Ivan, who always believed fashion was more than a shopping habit. And to Poppy Dave, who threatened to break my boyfriends legs if they hurt me.

F ive years ago, on the kind of bright morning that reminds me why I want to live in Manhattan, I woke up beside a naked male model and decided to write a book.

His name was Elevator Hunk. Obviously thats not the guys legal namehis passport doesnt list Elevator Hunk above his birthdatebut it was the nickname my friends and I gave him during our many weeks of stalking. You see, Elevator Hunk and I happened to live in the same apartment building in the West Village of Manhattan. He was the first thing I had noticed about my new digs, aside from the luxury of finally having an in-unit laundry machine (the pinnacle of New York living).

The timing was fortuitous, because I moved into this particular apartment during the May of 2015at a time when I was recovering from a bad breakup and had decided to let myself enjoy the joys of sex without commitment. I like to call those months my Samantha Summer, so named after Kim Cattralls legendary character on Sex and the City. Samantha Jones lived and loved freely. She got what she wanted. And whats more, she refused to apologize for wanting it.

But back to that Saturday morning. I watched Elevator Hunks ass slip out of my cotton jersey sheets looking like two scoops of salted caramel ice creamthen swiped my phone off the bedside table. One extremely long text to my girls later, I detailed exactly how he got there. (Dont worry; youll read about it later.) My phone started pinging incessantly, receiving a gaggle of hilarious responses. The most popular opinion? That I would want to remember this movielike experience when I was old and married. A memorializing text simply wasnt enough.

Then I started to think. Why not put pen to paper and write about all the wild encounters from my Samantha Summer? Most likely no one else would want to read it, but Id at least have the memories.

Luckyor perhaps unluckyfor me, I had a six-hour flight to Los Angeles that very day. Once the plane took off, I applied my Dr. Jart+ sheet mask, grabbed my laptop, and started to chronicle. Every dirty detail.

By the time I returned to New York five days later, I was addicted to writing. I had already transcribed an additional four sex-capades while on the West Coast, stories that detailed the various men and experiences in my twenty-three years of life. I started to think that maybe, just maybe, it could be a book that people would actually want to read. This book.

I gave my project a working titleThe Samantha Storiesand spent every spare moment of the next weeks hammering on my keyboard. Of course, I am used to sharing the particulars of my life on WeWoreWhat, but my sex lifethat had always been private. Like many women, I was afraid of being judged for my sexuality. Theres a four-letter word wrongly reserved for women so transparent about their desires.

But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered why not bare it all? Why couldnt I be an influencer in the larger sense, helping to destigmatize casual sex for a new generation of women? In that way, I could truly become Samantha.

So I wrote. And I wrote. Then a few weeks later, I shared the sample chapters with some friends in my inner circle. I was ready to bask in their adulationto let their compliments wash over mebut they all told me not to publish the book. To stop writing immediately.

You should write about business, not sex, one of them told me over a late-night plate of duck confit at Hudson Clearwater. If you publish this, everyone is going to think youre a whore. Your family will be ashamed. Advertisers wont want to work with you. The public doesnt need to know that side of you.

Those words really stuck with me. What was so wrong with that side of me? The side that could divorce romance from sex? That enabled me to embrace my physical cravings without the confines of a relationship? It seemed as if my sexual liberation, if made public, would label me a slut and potentially even ruin my career.

Only now, years later, do I realize what a load of bullshit this all was. I am not a slut. Never have been, never will be. I am actually a serial monogamist who prefers to be in long-term relationships. Its only in between those boyfriends that I have given myself the freedom to explore casual sex. And whats so bad about that, as long as its always my choice and Im cautious and safe?

The answer became clear: if I was going to write a book, then that book would need to share everything. Give my readers more than how-to tips on making it in the fashion industry or becoming a successful social media influencer. I wanted to share the real me, the good and the bad, without fearing that people will forget I am still just twenty-seven years old and therefore prone to making mistakes. Over the past decade as I grew my brand on WeWoreWhat, I put myself out there for the world to see. I didnt just grow a business; I grew in life, learning and failing and succeeding in my own way.

Five years ago, I wasnt ready to write that particular book.

But now I am. So lets rewind.

___________

I, Danielle Bernstein, burst into the world sometime around 3:00 a.m. on May 28, 1992. At the time, my mom, dad, and brother were living with my grandparents while saving up for a house. Labor pains jolted my mom awake in her childhood bedroom, and she barely made it to the Long Island Jewish Hospital before I flew out. Its an ongoing joke with my mom that giving birth was the easiest part of raising me.

I grew up in a simpler time: the 1990s. Sure, we had the internet, but it was used for little more than email, Ask Jeeves, and MapQuest. Hell, this was back when Martha Stewart was the worlds first and only lifestyle influencer (not that wed yet created that term).

As a young girl, I was obsessed with clothes. I spent hours on my bedroom floor, cutting pages out of Vogue and taping collages to my walls. The only thing I loved more than fashion magazines was putting looks together. By the time I entered the sixth grade, I needed to change my outfit fifty times before I was ready for school. (I was really good at ignoring my mothers screams to get my ass in the car.) I think it actually took me longer to get ready for a day of middle school than it does now.

Everyone else already seemed to know where I was headed. (Just watch the VHS recording of my bat mitzvah, which is full of my friends professing that I was destined for a future in fashion.) I, however, had yet to dream about a career in fashion. I just figured that, like most girls, I really liked shopping.