Where I teach, we offer our students the possibility of receiving an international education, aimed at developing the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills needed to live, learn and work in a globalizing world. At the end of their 5 years with us, each one of our IB students is asked to present a long-term project – their personal project. In grade 10, knowing that they have this big project coming up, the students run around the school looking for a supervisor. And that’s where I, as a teacher, come in.

Except that every year, I dread this moment. Don’t get me wrong: I do want to help out and it is somewhat of an honour to be asked to supervise a student’s work… but I dread it nevertheless. I dread it because I would love to be the teacher they go to when they’re doing a project on Hannibal Barca – 3 years of latin made me quite skilled in the history of Ancient Rome! I dread it because even though I am dying to review a book based on a school that’s run by a admirer of Kim Jong-il, I am never asked to supervise such projects. I dread it because I’m the one students go to for their fashion-related projects; for their, gasp, fluffy projects… I dread it because it makes me have to confront this uneasiness I have in regards to my love of fashion and all things pretty.

Is fashion a lesser art? Does it make me less than the science teacher or the sports aficionado at my school? And ultimately, does it make me less than an history major or an accountant? These are questions I’ll ask myself when I have to discuss my hobbies, when I have explain what makes me me. I often catch myself searching for a better answer than “my love of fashion” – any other answer is better than fashion, right?

The thing is I don’t have answers to any of these questions – I don’t even think that there are any. So I always end up answering “my love of fashion”.

And yes, this year again, I’ll probably be  supervising another fashion-related personal project, because really, who else will tell them that, just like Rome, a design collection cannot be build in a day?

 “Everybody is so passionate about this, there’s a resistance to fashion, an idea that to love fashion is to be stupid. I think this is for two reasons. One is because clothes are very intimate. When you get dressed, you are making public your idea about yourself, and I think that embarrasses people. And two, I think that fashion is seen as women’s work. My conclusion is that because fashion touches your intimate life, it embarrasses people.” – Miuccia Prada (Ph.D. in Political Science – oh and, fashion designer)