The past few days of fashion week have struck me with a sense of awe and humility. There are many reasons for this but the most poignant was also the simplest: Last week, when I entered the Avelon show (the most beautiful fashion show I have ever attended) and gave my name, I was placed on the front row.
WHAT?!? ME???
My experience here continues to blow my mind. I sat there on the front row with Olivia Deters and Gerardo Larrea of Skin Magazine, and I wondered about all of this... about a little nothing kid from Mishawaka, Indiana... on the front row of a fashion show in Paris. I know that is cliche, but it gathers within me a deep sense of gratitude for all of my dear friends and family members who have fought long and hard to get me to this place... not that this place is my end-goal, or even was ever one of my goals... but is still feels amazing. Allow me to explain:
Whenever I have an achievement it is because someone dear to me helped me to get there. It is because Asna Diani risked her own reputation to introduce me to just the right PR people at a party, and because my mother purchased my plane tickets even before I had the funds to pay her back, and because Mike and Megan Gilger made me get an instagram account knowing that it would become an essential networking tool for me, and because Jill Devries flew to Paris to shoot some little project I had been dreaming up. I could go on and on forever about all of the people who are building into my life and career... the number is staggering... and it all sounds so cliche to express. I hate being cliche... but I love sharing the credit. When I build Culture Keeper, or have new adventures, I really don't think of them as mine- I consider them shared. I hope that you do as well. My wish is that everything I experience will be a shared adventure and a communal source of inspiration. The foundation has certainly been communal... each of you reading this have been a source of encouragement and inspiration to me... and I hope that this gratitude I feel, and the work I create- will somehow repay you for all you have invested in me.
Jonathan Randall Grant // Culture Keeper
