Identity Crisis Solved! Who IS FashionMista?

You don't know this, but I've been having an identity crisis with FashionMista because I created the name on a whim one day while working. Sometimes words just pop into my mind and I don't know why, but I like them and keep them. So, the name FashionMista was born.

But I've been trying to figure out what Mista meant, and why I did it. Originally, a friend of mine had created a blog called New York City Mouse. My other friend had a similar mouse-like name for her online identity, so in my mind, to hang with them in mouse-land, Mista meant mouse, but in German (my version of German anyway). Well, years later, I looked it up, and it turns out I made that up and was totally wrong. Hehe.

Long time followers of this blog may also remember that sometimes I try to do redesigns of the blog, since it is a template after all, and I am a website designer/developer, so wouldn't it be fitting if my own blog was custom designed? But then I design it in circles and can never follow what I'm doing. Why? Because there has been no identity.

THEN, for the past few years, I've wanted to graduate this blog into a blog shop - yeah that's right, where you buy from this blog because I do love featuring other designers. Haven't done it for a while because all of that type of energy goes to promoting people on Collective-E in new and exciting ways, but I'm getting back to my roots over here to drum it up again. So I've been trying to pin down the name - do I keep it? What would it change to? What the heck does Mista mean?

Google searches tell me that "fashionmista" is now associated with a male fashionista. And I'm not a boy, so I wonder if this giant sign that says "Male Fashionista" for all of this girly stuff is a bad thing? But I loved nicknaming people So and So Mista, and I just love the word Mista.

Then yesterday, I was having a co-birthday lunch with my best girl Dental Mista from Chicago, and we were down in Soho having lunch in an Italian restaurant on Thomson Street, and voila! Right there on the menu in the Insalata section was: "Insalata Mista".

Rejoice! When I went to Italy my Junior year of college, Insalata Mista was what I always ordered to follow every pasta meal! So it means "mixed salad", (and wikipedia backs me up here, and even Google is going there) and Mista, I guess, would mean "mixed".

So...FashionMista basically means "Mixed Fashion", which I kind of like! This blog has always been about curious forms of art and design, among other things like beauty and personal. A big mix.

Question is: Should I keep it on, even though it has been meaning Male Fashionista, or should I delve into an old pen name that my College of Charleston Mistas will remember: Dear Trudy, which was my love advice column. I can see how a shopping blog could work under a title of Dear Trudy and I could make it J Peterman like...thoughts??? Or I could make Dear Trudy a series on it with special worldy finds, kind of like Conversations with Emerging Designers was a series. Hmm. Please comment! I really need your help on this one!