A new book written by fashion consultant Farah Liz Pallaro is equipping students and industry professionals with the tools to safeguard their mental health. Fashion. Business. Spirituality. is a unique guidebook, part memoir and part self-help, taking you from choosing a fashion school, to finding a job, to managing the pace of the industry and beyond.
Its timing couldn’t be more appropriate. In the wake of the tragic suicides of both Kate Spade and a student at the Royal academy of Fine Arts earlier this year, not to mention the well-known mental health issues that plagued Lee McQueen and John Galliano, the fashion world is starting to ask serious questions about the toxic environments and work cultures it has created.
The book is autobiographical, reflecting on Farah’s experiences studying fashion in Madrid and London before working in-house and freelance as a designer for numerous brands including Dolce & Gabbana. She went on to work as a trend researcher at WGSN before moving into consulting, of which she has run her own consultancy business since 2009. Her client list includes Yoox, Polimoda, Bottega Veneta and Luisa Via Roma as well as speaking at several international fashion schools. Her wide-ranging experience has helped to create an honest portrayal that many will identify with.
This isn’t just a survival manual though, it’s also a call to arms for the people who embrace the ideas in her book to be the ones to bring about change. In the final chapter she addresses the strapline of her book, “a call to the light workers of the fashion industry”, a term used to mean those creating positive impact, in which she says, “I think the time for healing and improvement has arrived for the fashion industry.”
What led you to write the book?
Farah Liz Pallaro: Around three years ago I started thinking that companies should add spirituality and self-development and a more holistic approach in their environment and I also think we need to start doing that in schools. So, it was an idea that started growing in my head and as I started writing the first chapter of this book, life pulled me in front of the situation of meeting people in the editorial industry. I never planned to write a book so I just let myself go with the flow and I started writing it. It’s been a beautiful process because I decided to put myself out there in a very honest way because I wanted to create empathy with someone that is reading and is finding him or herself in the same situation. My goal with this book is really to help people overcome the same struggles that I had by applying spirituality, self-development, self-awareness, however we want to call it. I thought that the good thing is allowing a very simple way of saying things. I’m very happy because the book is having huge success and I didn’t expect it. People love that, people love that you’re not writing things from the place of other gurus. I’m not a guru. I’m someone like you.
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