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Going To Great Lengths For Fashion …

It was fabulous. It was expensive. And I had to have it. I have gone to great lengths for fashion. Have you?
Going To Great Lengths For Fashion ... - Lioness Magazine
What can I say? My brother had good gear. Here I am in third grade with a sweater of his I stole. It had these really cool pockets on the sleeves with a matching one on the chest. I was determined to wear it for picture day.

When I was 14 years old my brother had this navy and green Nautica spring jacket that I was absolutely obsessed with. I asked to borrow it repeatedly and he’d always give a resounding hell-to-the no.

It was a vintage Nautica sailing jacket with a hideaway hood in the collar and two front slit pockets. It was fabulous. It was expensive.  And I had to have it.

I have to gone to great lengths for fashion

So I came up with a scheme to pilfer it. My brother was always a heavy sleeper. So I woke up super early, carefully opened his bedroom door and Army crawled along his floor. Using one of my mother’s nursing penlights, I fished through his clothes in the dark, found the jacket and escaped without being caught.

I rocked the hell out of that coat. I strutted to my bus stop like John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever” feeling like a million bucks. I stole it on several occassions, often snatching some of his cool shirts to create an ensemble. My BFF and I even went to one of those mall photobooths that were popular at the time and I got photographed in it (if I manage to dig it out of an album I’ll totally come back here to repost it).

The point is fashion is like that sometimes. When you find a piece you have to have and you finally get it on, you feel unstoppable. I recently asked women entrepreneurs a similar question: “What do you wear that makes you feel like a lioness?” It was exciting to go through their responses and see them photographed at their best. They all looked dapper and ready to take on the world and there is something to be said about feeling confident in our skin.

As you peruse our digital fashion issue, I implore you to think about what makes you feel good. When we get lost in the daily grind of entepreneurship, it is easy to forget to tend to ourselves. Tell me, what makes you feel beautiful and when was the last time you pampered yourself?

And yes, my brother eventually caught me in his jacket. And yes, he threatened to kill me. However, it didn’t deter me from my early-morning Army crawls. He never figured out exactly when I was stealing the items and didn’t think to lock his bedroom door. A girl has to know how to get what she wants.

Until next time …

Unleash the Lioness Within!

Natasha ♥

About the author

Natasha Zena

Around age eight Natasha Zena was told it was a woman’s job to take care of the home and since then she has built a career out of telling women they can do whatever the hell they want to do. She is the co-founder of Lioness, the go-to news source for everything female entrepreneur. Natasha was recognized as an emerging leader in digital media by The Poynter Institute and the National Association of Black Journalists. She has mentored women entrepreneurs and moderated panels at a number of national accelerators, Startup Weekends and conferences such as The Lean Startup Conference, the Massachusetts Conference for Women, Women Empower Expo and Smart Cities Connect. Natasha is also the author of the popular whitepaper, "How To Close The Gender Gap In Startup Land By 2021." In her spare time, she writes short fiction and hangs out with her son, Shaun.

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