‘Feeling Like A Phoney’: Deni Todorovič On Their Experience With Imposter Syndrome

The following is an edited exclusive extract from Deni Todorovič’s book Love This For You. 

I was three months shy of my eighteenth birthday when I found out I had been accepted into the Paris Institute of Fashion to study fashion design. Upon graduating high school and completing a two-year course at TAFE in the same subject, I  had made the decision that four years of uni was not to be my destiny, but I remained hungry for more education and also wanted to travel.

So I came across a school in Paris that offered a summer course in fashion to international students. It seemed like a faraway dream, to move halfway across the world to live and study in the city I had been obsessed with since I was six: the birthplace of fashion, where only people like those I’d read  in Vogue would visit. 

I sent off my application and short of three months later I received my letter of acceptance. I still have it, in a shoebox in my closet. The tuition fee was the next hurdle. Nine thousand dollars. The largest sum of money I had ever comprehended in my life thus far, and frankly the two cafe jobs I worked wouldn’t even begin to cover it. So, with my parents’ hands in mine, I made my way to the bank and applied for a personal loan to  cover the full amount. 

Just like that, Deni was going to Paris. In the lead-up to my departure, my parents took me to Melbourne on a shopping trip  to buy some essentials. At the top of our list was a good suitcase.  Once we made our way to Melbourne, I told my parents I wanted to take them to the designer stores I had spent my whole teenage  life reading about and soak in some inspiration for what was to be a fashion-filled summer ahead. We reached the corner of Collins and Russell streets in Melbourne, and the Louis Vuitton store beckoned, in all its glory, across the intersection. It had fast  become one of my favourite labels. 

As we entered the store, the lights glowing the most perfect amber hue, I talked my parents through the history of the house, its luggage origins and the humble beginnings of its namesake  founder, Monsieur Louis Vuitton.

"You know a lot about our brand," noted a sales assistant. 

"I’m a fashion student," I replied, beaming with pride. 

"Deni’s getting ready to go study in Paris," my dad exclaimed, with even more pride than myself. 

Upon inspecting the suitcases, I explained to my parents the house’s iconic monogram logo designs. 

"Deni, these suitcases are beautiful. Do you want me to buy you one?"

Bless my unknowing father. These suitcases cost more than his and Mum’s combined weekly income.

"Tata, they’re way too expensive. It’s okay, we’re just appreciating their beauty."

His cheeks started to get red. "Well, how much are they?"

When the sales assistant advised him of their four-figure price tag, I watched as my dad’s head and shoulders dropped. He remained silent and as we made our way out onto Collins Street he began to cry quietly.

"Tata, what’s wrong?" I asked. 

He turned to me and told me he was upset that he couldn’t afford to buy me this luggage from my favourite fashion designer for my special trip to Paris. I wrapped my arms around him and told him I didn’t need fancy luggage and that, regardless, one day we would be able to afford it. Today was just not that day. We made our way to Myer instead, buying a more than adequate suitcase for a fraction of the cost. 

I’ll never forget how much my heart hurt watching him. A grown man, crying because his job did not allow him to buy this thing his son so desperately had longed for. My dad was crying as a result of the trappings of the capitalist world we lived in, which stacked the odds against working-class migrants like him. A world that told me, via advertising, that Louis Vuitton was the height of luxury, while I also knew from my own lived experience that this world wasn’t one I belonged to. I didn’t know all of this then, but I know it now. 

The following week, I realised that perhaps a backpack might come in handy, and so I borrowed one from my cousin. A proper ‘backpacking’ backpack. Around the bag’s front zipper, I  wrapped a navy-blue Prada store ribbon. I don’t remember how I acquired the ribbon, maybe someone I knew gave it to me, maybe it was from a fragrance purchase, I can’t be sure. But hey fucking presto, I had a 'Prada' backpack to travel with. This  silly little logo on a ribbon that surely cost less than a dollar to  produce suddenly made me feel like I was part of the luxury world of fashion. 

Have you ever felt simultaneously way out of your league but also as though you belong? That was the paradox I lived in when I attended fashion school in Paris. That feeling has never really gone away.

It was there when I started interning at magazines like Cosmo UK and British Vogue. It was there when I got a job as an assistant stylist at the house of Burberry. It was there when I landed my fashion ed role at Cosmo, and it continues to rear its ugly head to this day, even now as I write this book.

It’s called 'imposter syndrome' and it’s a feeling many of us will experience  many times over. 

If you’re unfamiliar with this term, to put it simply, imposter syndrome is the experience of feeling like a phoney. You feel as though at any moment you are going to be found out and those around you will realise that you do not, in fact, have the right or the privilege to occupy the space in which you live and work.

Imposter syndrome is likely the result of multiple factors, including personality traits like perfectionism, as well as systemic causes like family, cultural and class background. 

The first time I heard this term I couldn’t escape it. It’s become a global buzzword but isn’t always clearly defined, so for that reason I think it merits a bit of a deeper exploration here. 

Imposter syndrome is loosely defined as doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud. It disproportionately affects high-achieving people, who find it difficult to accept their accomplishments.

If we dig a little deeper within that category of person you’ll find it ever-present in women as well as minority groups, including BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ people. If you belong to any of these groups, this will likely be no surprise to you.

When you experience systemic oppression or are directly or indirectly told through cultural messaging that you don’t deserve success, you will come up against imposter syndrome. 

Perhaps you’ve been given a platform or a space that you never thought you’d occupy: a promotion, children, a partner; I mean, the list is as varied as it is long. 

If this resonates with you, let’s sit with that for a moment. And then let’s start thinking about how we can start trying to combat imposter syndrome within ourselves. 

You are wherever it is you are for a reason. Have you stepped into a new phase of professional success? Found a partner you might not think you’re truly worthy of?

Honey, these things have been given to you because your actions have made them happen. So it’s time to own your efforts. 

That snow queen knows what’s up. It is your idealised concept of what the person in that space you currently occupy should look like that is holding you back from allowing yourself to occupy it. Let. It. Go. 

Compassion is such an underrated quality: the nice guy always gets a bad rap. I want you to direct that compassion you feel towards others back towards yourself. At the heart of imposter syndrome is a tendency towards self-criticism, so honey, let’s switch that out for self-compassion. 

It is your ‘failures’ that are likely informing the way you currently feel, but you’re not the only person who feels this way, so don’t be afraid to be vulnerable with the people you trust.

A negative feeling shared is a negative feeling halved, and I’ve found that, in sharing my own insecurities I’ve had around imposter syndrome, I’ve opened up space and ‘given permission’ for others to do the same. 

Take the time to properly celebrate YOU. Celebrate the moments, big and small, because life is too precious not to, and the more time you spend sitting in your imposter syndrome, the less you have to enjoy the moment.

And please, for the love of God, stop talking things down. You didn’t ‘just’ get a promotion. You didn’t ‘just’ start your own business. You earned a promotion through your achievements; you’ve done the hard yards of starting a fucking business; so queen, now go get your crown. 

Text from Love This For You by Deni Todorovič. Pantera Press RRP $32.99, available in bookstores across Australia.