Y’all. I’m in Paris, dipped in vintage manfredthierrymugler , and I am having a moment. When I was little, I watched my mom come home tired—working the assembly line at Rolm (later IBM), stuck in these ugly uniforms that erased every bit of the woman she was. She didn’t come all the way from Vietnam just to be invisible. And every morning, she’d see these polished women in the front offices—shoulders squared, suits sharp, power radiating off them. She wanted to know how they got those jobs. So she went to her boss and asked. And this man had the audacity to laugh in her face, look her up and down, and say, “They want people who attract to the building, not scare people away.” Whew. If you know themamamai , you already know—that was all she needed to hear. She scooped me up, took me to every vintage store in San Jose, and found the suit. A #thierrymugler . She put that blazer on, and hunnay, the transformation. Her back straightened. Her waist cinched. She saw herself the way she alw...