Introducing "Young, Dumb, & Well-Dressed": Who is Nich Navani?
And why you should care.
As a twenty-year-old fashion and lifestyle vlogger who only just last year broke into this secret society of unspoken social cues that is the fashion and art world, I feel it in my veins that my mission is to demystify this illusive industry. While many may jump to the conclusion that I am a fashion writer, I prefer to see my work as a probe into the brilliant minds shaping the creative landscape in Cambodia. However, I believe that solely focusing on established industry figures is merely scratching the surface of the great big fashion “machine" and quite frankly, would be a disservice to a very curious and very lonely twelve-year-old Nich, whose biggest passion in life was to dig out loopholes in the school’s conservative dress code so that she could have a place for her DIY ripped tights, black floor-length cape, and beat up Dr. Martens 1460 boots in her frumpy middle school uniform, despite the murmuring of her classmates stealing side-eyed glances that were followed by snooty snickering.
A recent social media trend, particularly on TikTok, revolves around the idea of "finding your personal style." To me, personal style isn't just the clothing you wear. As the fashion editor of 032c and the internet’s beloved tastemaker, Brenda Hashtag, noted in the "Let's Get Dressed" podcast, “personal style is so many things. It's how you treat your friends, your table manners, how you carry yourself, how you're sitting, how you're speaking. It's so many things. It's all of your life experiences whether that's positives or trauma. It's who you look up to," she continues, “it's sometimes unfair to tell young people that you need to find your personal style when you really haven't found yourself yet."
If you’re anything like me: when you are on your journey of self-discovery in your twenties, you will find yourself pondering on topics of identity, personal branding, career goals, and maybe even your purpose in this world. In a futile effort to answer your questions, you will indubitably sign yourself up for random classes you think you need, watch self-help videos sent to you by a caring but unfortunately clueless friend, read books you see #booktok influencers rave about, listen to podcasts in hopes of extracting some flicker of wisdom from famous people who seem to be so sure of themselves and know exactly what they’re doing, and get dragged to networking events where you’re surrounded by social cliques of full-time industry players whom you admire but are too afraid to approach. But even after all that, what truly matters is that you tried, and I believe that these individuals like yourself, who are mindfully present in their chaos, are vibrating at their most beautiful frequency — so full of life, with so much to give and so much to say. You, yes you, are an essential voice that is more often than not passively contributing to this community.
I vividly recall staying up past midnight, following a day of exploring the bustling streets and anarchic metro of springtime London, to have a long-overdue heart-to-heart with my cousin, Bong Daly. At the time, I was running a small online beauty shop, which I had temporarily closed for my month-long European adventure to “find myself". Bong Daly, a successful entrepreneur and wonderful mother of two cheeky English primary schoolers, welcomed me into her loving home even after almost a decade of my unintentional self-isolation from my relatives. Being the only person among my bloodline to be born at the dawn of the new millennium, I had myself convinced of the generational and cultural gap between us, leading me to pull away during moments of personal crisis. Even so, Bong Daly’s gentle persistence and warm presence tore through the walls I had built up.
Through tears and exhaustion from the busy day I had had, I blubbered my frustrations to Bong Daly. I felt lost, uncertain about my passions and talents, and where the two intersected. I told her that I knew I was very capable and that I could do anything if I would just set my mind to it — yet I was struggling to determine my true calling.
“ I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. "
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
I was facing my very own "fig tree" dilemma. Bong Daly’s response struck a chord in me. She explained using a powerful analogy: every day, we carry with us a coin purse, and in this world, the currency is the values we offer the world, or in simpler terms, our skills. When lost in life, we fear spending this "money." It's easy to become complacent, strutting around and boasting the sound of coins clinking in our purse. But without ever opening it to check, you may never realize that some of your jingles are just pebbles.
Bong Daly's analogy led me to two profound realizations:
My biggest fear all along was failure. I was so terrified of committing to a passion and falling short that I would rather bask in the comforting rattle of my purse, the illusion of success that kept me idle. I had shut my eyes from my metaphorical bank account.
My new-found greatest fear in life was birthed at that moment: never committing at all and somewhere down the line, my pebbles would tear through the lining of my fabulous Frida Giannini era Gucci purse to reveal that my remaining coins had expired at some point during my blissful ignorance.
If I haven’t made it clear enough, what I do is all about pushing past your indecisiveness, embracing your passions, exploring the Self, and taking mindful steps toward your aspirations whilst using art and fashion as the chosen medium of your lifelong experiment and inadvertently creating art and fashion as a serendipitous side effect of your deliberate self-cultivation. My hope is that through my work, both my readers and I will one day, discover our personal style.