Fashion is for everyone

By J N

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

This is one of the questions nearly every teen dreads hearing. Every teen except for Gina Pedroza. This senior from Yerba Buena high school has set her eyes on the fashion design industry, and she won’t stop at anything to get there.

The journey of discovering their passion was not an easy one. Pressure from family, teachers, and peers weighed them down for a long time. The desires to meet people’s expectations and to find fulfillment were clashing. Pedroza’s mom had mapped out their future and was not expecting them to veer off the path. “She had thought I wanted to do cosmetology. She had already figured out what school was best for cosmetology. But I told her that it’s not something that I want to do for the rest of my life.” It was only this March that they discovered their love of fashion. They had to jump through hoops to gain their mother’s support.

This experience is not unique to Pedroza. Many high school students feel expectations start to pile up as they reach the final years of childhood. The feeling of falling behind is paralyzing, but Pedroza has shown that persevering through the fear is well worth it.

Pedroza explains, “My life before realizing this is what I wanted to do was just so confusing… I felt lost. I felt like I wasn’t doing much with my life even though I was just 14 or 15. I felt like I was running out of time.”

Pedroza points to their aunt as a big inspiration behind their goal, “My aunt would always help people with stitching and making dresses for them. I remember her saying that she would make my quinceanera dress, but she passed away before that could ever happen. I want to make clothes like she did.” They have also said they admire the designs of famous fashion brands like Chanel or Mugler.

Since figuring out her dream, Pedroza has made many steps forward. She is the president of Yerba Buena’s Fashion Club and continues to make clothing designs on her own time. The teen could not pinpoint a solid inspiration behind their designs. “I don’t really know. It just pops up in my head and I draw it.”

“What I like most about fashion is the confidence that it gives you… When you find your style, just the confidence it gives you is just so empowering. It gives you so much energy to do what you want to do,” says Pedroza. She wants to help people feel comfortable with themselves regardless of how they look.

Pedroza dreams of creating a household brand, such as Gucci or Versace, that is inclusive of everybody. They state that their target market is “anybody that hasn’t felt like they had a place in fashion or like they didn’t belong because of how they looked or how they identified.”

However, like many others pursuing their dreams, Pedroza is held back by her financial situation. She wishes she could go to a fashion school right out of highschool, but she plans to attend community college instead and move onto another school with a better fashion program later on.

Inspired by her struggles, Pedroza eventually wants to have a company of her own that helps smaller POC and LGBTQ fashion designers get the recognition they deserve. She is very vocal about the discrimination in the fashion industry, “There’s a lot of people that are great designers who are just not known. They could be such big names, but the fashion industry is very competitive and white.” It is a well known fact that the fashion industry excludes many body types that do not meet society’s standards of beauty. The fact that it silences minorities like POC or LGBTQ is no surprise.

Pedroza has shown incredible perseverance and insight in pursuit of their dream. Hopefully, we can look forward to seeing their pieces on the runway soon.