#2: Lighten Up, It's Just Fashion!

A winter fashion mini-zine, how to make your own, plus recent work

Ever since my teen years, I have loved cultivating a closet. Now that I am long past my black and monochrome teenage New Yorker phase, I cherish a bold, colorful winter wardrobe to ward off the cold weather blues. Through a mixture of vintage, fast fashion, and higher-end threads, I collect clothes I will cherish and rediscover through different styling for years to come. I made a mini-zine of some garments that will see a lot of wear this season. What do you put on every winter without fail?

You can peruse bigger images and the final page with footnotes here.

Make Your Own Mini-Zine

Several of you have asked me about how I make these mini-zines. They are a great, low-stakes way to collect your thoughts on topics both mundane and serious. The most you have to lose is a sheet of printer paper and some pen ink, but the fun is limitless!

This is a useful tutorial on how to fold up and cut your paper. From there, think about a story you can craft in 8 pages.

Here’s a fold-out of the winter wardrobe mini-zine so you can see how to lay it out. Shout out to the taped on new cover I made because I didn’t like the first one I did.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

- How to make your favorite soup
- Lessons from friends that will always stick with you
- Some of the best books you've read in the past year

Here’s another one I made for inspiration (I think this zine may have inspired one of these cafes to change their dog treat policy. Oops!) If you make one, please show it to me - I would love to see what you devise.

A Bit of Press

I shared how my mom re-learned her mother's pasteles recipe with the help of Youtube for The LA Times Latinx Files newsletter. In response, I received emails, DMs, and Instagram comments from strangers and friends reminiscing about family and the ways they’ve carried on ancestral food traditions. Connecting with you through art is truly the life force of my work, and I’m so grateful to you for sharing your stories with me.

Read the full comic here. 

Do you or someone you know have a story you'd like illustrated? Give me a shout and let’s see if we can collaborate!

With all my best to you in this new year,
Cindy