3 of 30: Happy Chinese New Year!

red cardi (worn backwards): thrifted, Rickis // brown pencil skirt: thrifted, The Limited // gold pen necklace: 1928 Jewelry Co. // navy tights: Joe Fresh // black pumps: Seychelles

I studied China a fair bit at university, including a modern Chinese development class and two years of Mandarin. During that time, I fell in love with the country: the people, the culture, the food, and the Mandarin language. I miss my Mandarin class a whole lot, even though I found it very challenging and wasn't very good with it. My professor was excellent and my classmates were a wonderful and diverse group of people, some of whom I still keep in touch with, years later.

Since then, I always take notice of the Moon Festival in the fall and Chinese New Year, which one of my old classmates often uses as an excuse to host a dumpling party. To commemorate the beginning of the year of the hare (which are nice and peaceful after the tumultuous year of the tiger preceding it), I decided to wear some auspicious clothes to give me good luck in the new year. Red and gold are both considered to be lucky and are the main colours used for this holiday's decorations.

Red scares away evil spirits, has plenty of positive symbolism attached to it, and welcomes luck, happiness, and prosperity into one's life. Gold, being the colour of money, is an obvious pairing, since money is a big focus of the holiday: you eat dumplings shaped like coins and give or receive red envelopes filled with money, depending on whether or not you're married. I'd highly recommend reading up on the holiday if you're interested in learning about traditions and other cultures.

My only wish for the lunar new year is that by wearing my cardi backwards, I'll have a year in which I improve my remixing skills by doing fun and unexpected things with my clothes. Xin Nuan Kuai Le!