Chic Interview: What is Reality Anyway

October 26, 2009 | Tags: Chic Interview 

Its been a while since we last posted a Chic Interview, but we promise our latest interviewee is worth the wait.  Currently running around between NY and Cali, this bohemian blogger oozes talent.  Twenty-seven year old Krystal Simpson is the girl to keep your eye on.  With a stint on an MTV reality tv show, collaborations with a t-shirt designer and fashion label, and a knack for writing that leads to full on blog stalking, Krystal proves that talent can take you places.  Read what she had to say below and then check out her inspiring blog.

Chic Intuition: I’m going to start off by being quite honest about my first encounter with your blog.  I stumbled upon a link in someone’s sidebar, and was in awe of the photography, let alone the exquisite, and honest, expression of words.  But while I was scanning your blog, I couldn’t help but think “This girl looks damn familiar!?”  A little Googling later, I realized the girl from ‘that Rolling Stone show on MTV’ had undergone a fashion transformation.  New haircut, new makeup, new Krystal.  What influenced the change?
Krystal: That’s s flattering, thank you. But really, I change on a daily basis; I cut my hair all the time, and I’ve always collected vintage clothing, and been into fashion. When I was on the show [I’m From Rolling Stone], the focus was on writing, so they really didn’t show my love for the fashion world all that much. As for the new makeup thing, it is really more like the little to no makeup thing. Women are so beautiful with no extras, they don’t need all that camouflage to hide what they really look like every day. I just don’t understand that standard in the fashion world, women and makeup makes no sense. I just know what we are naturally is so far away from our perceived image, fashion sense, and style. Were just wearing our preferences, we are what we choose to be every day, why not have fun and change it up, or not–it’s all up to the individual.

Chic Intuition: I’d like to think your blog is a form of artistic expression.  How did you come up with the theme?
Krystal: My favorite writing jobs have been the ones that allow me carte blanche, any time I have a restriction of any kind placed on my work, I tend to back away from it–now thankfully I don’t have to take those kinds of jobs at all. But I wanted my website to be a place to post anything and everything I could possibly dream up. The title “What is Reality Anyway” is double in meaning, both from my time on reality TV, but more-so from my love of quantum physics and the science of creating your own reality. I’ve been a writer for a while, and my mentor, the poet and writer Maria Garcia Tabor always encouraged me to start a blog in addition to my various writing gigs. I should have listened to her and started one years ago, knowing now how blogging is the future of publishing, and all the opportunities I’ve received just from having a blog. If I didn’t start a blog would I still have a jean with Quiksilver? A t-shirt? I’m quite thankful for all of it though, the dream continues.

Chic Intuition: Music, music, and music.  From the titles of your posts, one realizes how big a part it has in your life.  Does it affect your style as well?
Krystal: Oh yes, music was my first conscious style influence, the male rock stars specifically–they are just the coolest dudes, full of swagger, and could care less what anyone thinks about them. Why would you want to be the groupie when you can be the rock star? I love the toughness their fashion, all the boots, leather, the beading–those boys can wear women’s clothes the way I love to see them worn, a little bit ragged. I like things in fashion to be a little off, disheveled. Anything too perfect makes me want to mess it up before I can go on. I never walk around looking like a too girly porcelain doll, it just isn’t me to be cutesy like that. Teetering around on heels that really shouldn’t be made for any sort of healthy foot, and piling on makeup, hair, all that extra crap makes me nervous.

Chic Intuition: Let’s not sidetrack here, how can we forget that you are a literary genius, prize winning poet and writer.  What do words mean to you?
Krystal: Words are great; so many different ones  that mean the same thing, but they are all there to flow in prose, so beautiful that certain pieces can bring people to tears because of the way the writer captured a moment and expressed it. It really isn’t the words, it is their perceived meaning that hooks us.

Chic Intuition: So we have to ask, how did you get to be on MTV, and did the experience of starring in a  reality show help launch your career?
Krystal: Basically I sent my writing samples in for the casting process, and after a few interviews that was it. And yes, of course being on TV helped my career, although I never had any set career. People probably think I was just on a TV show and that was it, but I’ve been writing for various papers and other publications since right after high school, and also done other things in fashion and photography. I never wanted to have real job, and I have done very well at not having one. I made a lot of great friends and business contacts when I did the TV show, and it opened a lot of doors. It was one of my dreams, to work for Rolling Stone, and the wave that followed it; going to Fashion Week, sitting front row at some shows, going to these crazy events. I mean, I am from a pretty small town, there is no grand events happening there, no fashion, nothing outside of the regular golf tournament, so I had always wanted to find out what else there was out there that was exciting and fresh.  When I decided I wanted more, all my dreams came true in record time, I had to consciously conjure up new fantasies, since all the ones from my past came true.

Chic Intuition: How does it feel to be immortalized on a t-shirt?  Surreal?
Krystal: The Ediot tee, I love her brand, it was so flattering, and of course surreal. I’m glad someone thinks I warrant that kind of display, haha!

Chic Intuition: Finally, philosophical q time: If you had to choose one, would your rock or would you roll?
Krystal:  Hmm, I could get really deep and philosophical on this one and say that like consciousness and energy, they {rock and roll} are inextricably combined, and one simply couldn’t exist without the other. At least that’s how it goes in my world.

*Images courtesy of whatisrealityanyway.com.  Graphics courtesy of Chic Intuition LLC.

Comments