Seeing Red

Jung Hoyeon, the first East Asian model to receive a solo cover on American Vogue

Tom Ford LA Woman lipstick (discontinued, similar)

Chanel Desert Rouge (No. 36) eyeshadow

Holika Holika x Sweet Peko eyeshadow palette, which unlocked happy childhood memories (the milk candy tins were precious to me)

Jacquemus Le Sac Minho bag (similar)

Clairefontaine notebook + Deborah Lippmann Little Red Corvette nail polish (discontinued, similar)

I’ve always been drawn to the color red. It may have been instinctual—red is the first color humans recognize after black and white—or the product of conditioning; after I first discovered horoscopes and learned that Aries were fiery, singular spirits emboldened carnelian (our birthstone), I suddenly wanted (or felt compelled to?) have red surround me. I loved the gilded red envelopes handed to me on Chinese New Year (I cared more about these thin packets than the carefully folded bills inside, a sign of a stationery hoarder), and found magic in the firecrackers hung outside temples in Keelung. Red in chili peppers were vibrant signs of a good meal to come. A rouge, cloth-bounded hardback? A delicious read, no doubt.

Somewhere along the way, though, red became too bold—too Chinese—for me to love. Blue (which I’m still drawn to, to be clear) felt more modern, American, cool, acceptable. Black was easy. Safe. Rejecting red was the simplest way to draw a clear line between my identity and self: a first of many visual proclamations that I was different from them. Pick me.

But red is conflict and power; struggle and passion; love, luck, and an acute hypersensitivity to the world around it. Red cannot be ignored—it stains all that it touches—and makes its way back in. Re-learning heritage with newfound respect and wonder has been a journey I was bound to take eventually; 2019 became the start, 2021 was the year, and here we are, at the cusp of another new beginning.

This is the Year of the Water Tiger: celebrate directness, usher in potential, embrace prosperity, and do it all with bravery.

Happy Lunar New Year—虎年大吉。

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xx