Meet Monica!

[Meet Monica! (and Miki)]

Welcome to In the Curious City! I'm excited to have dreamt up this adventure with my best girl friend, Monica. You'll get to know her better (or for worse) in the coming weeks, but just to kick it off, we interviewed each other. After 12 years of friendship, I still learned plenty of new things about this fun girl!

Describe your design aesthetic in 3 words.

I am affected easily by what I see. If I see something and I like it, it will definitely influence whatever aesthetic I already have. My design aesthetic is absorbing other design aesthetics. For example, I am not a minimalist but I can appreciate minimalism. I’m not at a point in my life where I have an aesthetic yet. At this point, it’s ever changing.

I  know you love shopping, but I also know you limit your budget. What is the most valuable thing you own? Where did you get it & how much is it worth?

Wow. I’m totally visually scanning my closet right now. The most expensive thing I own is not my favorite. It's this blazer that was $1000 but I bought for $100. I only wear it on special occasions. Right now, the most valuable to me are these boots that I recently bought for $150, originally priced at $350. I wear them every other day. These boots are my favorite things I own right now. Unfortunately I don’t have any treasured vintage items, but hopefully I will find something... maybe at the Rose Bowl Flea Market.

[Miki + THE shoes]

Take our readers for a walk in your shoes. What is the best and worst part of being Monica everyday?

The worst thing about being me on a weekday is that I have to drive to work in the morning in the worst traffic on earth. It should take me 20 minutes to get to work, but it takes me an hour. Then after a long day of work which is usually 12 hours, I have to drive home into the ghetto where there's always police on my street (Since the interview, Monica has moved into a new place). The best thing: Every morning when I wake up Miki is waiting for me, purring, being cute, wanting food. On good days, I get to stretch my design muscles at work. And then when I come home, which is usually late, I look forward to eating dinner so much that I usually go out to eat somewhere really good. That’s an expensive hobby but I need it after the long day. (Monica’s tongue is really lucky - in a non-gross way.)

Where is your favorite place in the world?

I’m super attached to memories, so it would have to be my home... but I don’t really have a home. I guess I'd say Berkeley, because it was my home for 4 years. Now LA is my home, but I haven’t liked the actual places that I’ve lived. I do like LA, the city. My favorite place would have to be California.

Define your personality with 3 designers and their iconic pieces, what would they be?

1. Comme des Garçons by Rei Kawakubo: Her aesthetic is always counter to the trend. Her runway shows might seem weird, and the clothes she designs might not look like they fit properly, look torn or like you're wearing pants on your face. But she’s trying to create something new. A lot people say that she is more of an artist than a fashion designer because of that. What she makes doesn’t have to be confined to the body.

2. Ai Weiwei: He can take the most mundane, simplest objects that we have associations with and turn them into something we wouldn’t have expected. The meaning of his work is so powerful. It's always a commentary on government, stupid politics in China, or human rights.

3. Diane Arbus: She always photographed “oddities” or weird things… like a nudist colony or people that have abnormal defects. But she photographed them in an unbiased, beautiful, true way. I find myself drawn to things that are abnormal when taking photographs, and I enjoy capturing that.

What are the blogs you read every day?

Dezeen, Designsponge, Nowness, Voguedaily, Stockholm Streetstyle, Luxirare, Refinery 29, Yoox, Artschool, The Selby.


Check back tomorrow for the rest of the interview with Monica!