Senior Column – Lilah Faye

June 21, 2016 marks the day I completely rebranded myself. My name, my clothes, my soundtrack, my color palette – all rethought, designed and presented to 1800 people I had never met in my entire life. Those 1800 people soon became the faces I saw every day in the hallways of East.

I walked into freshman year no longer Eli – I was Lilah. Having spent the prior eight years at Catholic school confined to the version of myself outlined in my yearbook photo, I thought it would be an easy, creative task. But I soon realized that finding a way out of even that small of a box was challenging. 

I quickly realized that I wasn’t creating a brand, I was giving myself a new story — the story of the person I wanted to show the world. Someone who has never turned down a chance to create whatever posters, social media post or yearbook spread I was tasked with. Eventually, I wasn’t just telling my own story, but telling those of others — it took up every free moment I had. And still does. 

I’ve learned that when the future comes, I want to find new ways to create stories, immerse myself in every possibility and every medium and look for ways to incorporate them into my passions, hopefully finding new ones along the way too. I want to continue to collaborate with others and be given problems to solve — even if it means making mistakes. They teach me about myself and who we are as people. But most of all, I want to live and find new ways to rebrand myself again and again. Learning how to evolve is one of the most important things an artist should know. 

In the past 48 days since lockdown, our world has gotten a little weirder, and so have its inhabitants. Some of us are living it up while others are preparing for the worst. But everyone has their own story, unique to them and them only. And no matter what, we all have an equal opportunity to change — we just need to find the story we were meant to.

That’s what a good brand does. It tells a story. And that’s what the world needs right now — now more than ever.