A Quote by Riccardo Tisci

I didn't have many friends. I was very shy ... And, then, even worse, when I was 14 I became Gothic. I had long, black hair. I was going to school with makeup. Because I was trying to find my language, to scream to the world that I felt so closed in a box where I was living.
Eleanor Roosevelt was painfully shy, painfully shy. So she overcompensated. In the same way that Nancy Reagan felt unattractive and unlovable and so everything had to be - hair had to be perfect, and the makeup and the clothes. Because she thought, "They don't think I'm pretty."
When my family first moved to Hempstead in the 1960s, they were one of the first black families. It used to be an all-white neighborhood, but there was white flight when the black people with money started moving in. When I was, like, 13 or 14, Hempstead had just become all black, and the poverty became worse and worse.
Looking back at old-school pictures, I never had a hair or makeup person. I wasn't required to wear a lot of hair and makeup. I was never really allowed to do that because it was the image.
Junior high is so much worse than high school because at least in high school different is more accepted, celebrated actually: all the girls with blue hair and gothic Hello Kitty backpacks.
For so many years, I was trying to beat my hair into submission, trying to get it to look like someone else's hair, and I didn't know how. I remember going through a phase where I even put beer in my hair, because I was told that would make it smooth and curly.
My mom is Jamaican and Chinese, and my dad is Polish and African American, so I'm pretty mixed. My nickname in high school was United Nations. I was fine with it, even though I identify as a black woman. People don't realize it hurts my feelings when someone looks at my hair or my eyes, and says, "But you're not actually black. You're black, but you're not black black, because your eyes are green." I'm like, "What? No, no, I'm definitely black." Even some of my closest friends have said that. It's been a bit touchy for me.
I was not ambitious as a child. My father encouraged me to enter competitions and contests, which became very much part of my life. I was not the typical teenager. I was very closed, shy and didn't hangout with my friends at disco's. My parents wanted me at home. Singing became my life, I traveled a lot on the job, and my job became my dream.
I remember so clearly, in the early days, if I had to do a piece of press, they'd phone for me and say, 'Oh, we're going to bring hair and makeup, it'll take about five hours.' And I said, 'Well, if it was Ian McEwan, would it take about five hours? Would there be hair and makeup? Cause if that's not the case, then don't bring the hair and makeup.' So, it's fascinating that they just assume: it's a young woman, she must want to be photographed for five hours. She must have nothing better to do than delight in trying on all your shoes. But it's not the case.
I think there were so many times that I just felt so overwhelmed by school and by my relationships with my friends and I felt like I was going to be stuck in high school forever and I was never going to achieve my dreams.
My husband and I have known each other since kindergarten. I had a crush on him in school, but we never dated. Then we saw each other again after high school, and there was something instantly familiar about him. I'm a very shy person and was very closed off. But he allowed me to be myself. And there's a safety in that.
I did know that I could do scream very well. When I was in high school, I got a very strange job one Halloween filming screams for a radio station. I would just go into a soundstage and scream and scream and scream, and everybody would put on ear plugs, so I had an inkling.
When I was in school, I got there on the first day and everyone had long, blonde, straight hair, and I had short, dark, curly hair. I immediately felt I didn't fit in and started growing my hair. But I've learned that I'm only happy when I am truly me and feel comfortable and confident in myself.
I've hidden behind my hair more than clothes. Sometimes having long hair with a fringe is very useful when you don't want to look at people. I used to have very short hair, but long hair is my thing - a black nocturnal shield.
In grammar school some of the girls had problems with me. My face was too light. My hair was too long. It was the black-consciousness period, and I felt really bad.
When I think back, I felt like I had the life that a lot of white American kids grew up with in the suburbs in the States. I started noticing, as Apartheid's grip weakened, that we had more and more black kids at school; I had more and more black friends. But I never really saw a separation between myself and the black kids at school.
I didn't have that many friends my first few years of high school. It was very cliquey and I'm super shy, so it was hard to make friends.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!