When Giovanna Silvestre was 27, she was a bit lost in life. She had moved to Los Angeles from San Luis Obispo to work in the entertainment industry. And she decided that wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life.
“I felt like it was kind of eating my soul. And you’re like, I don’t even. Who am I? What am I doing with my life? Where is it going?" Silvestre said. "I went into a bit of a depression.”
So Silvestre was meditating and doing yoga to help herself with this anxiety. And then, she decided to start a video blog -- a vlog to those in the YouTube community.
“I said, you know what? I’m going to start a blog called Confused Girl in the City," she said. "Because that’s what I am right now.”
She wanted to use her own voice to help confused people like her.
So Silvestre started this vlog four years ago to help herself and others. And her videos are pretty popular. One of her videos has close to 44,000 views.
And then she met someone who would end up having a big influence on her future decisions.
“And so I met this healer. This is going to sound so hippie-dippy," she said. "And he gave me these two crystals.”
Silvestre took these crystals home. She put them on her dresser. And then one day she was meditating, and this idea came to her.
“I was like, 'oh my gosh.' I am going to create an active wear line that is inspired by these crystals,” she said.
Yep. Healing crystals and yoga pants.
“So what I do is I take a high-res image of a healing crystal and we print the best part of that image onto fabric, and then we cut and sew,” she said.
And these crystals are more than just pretty -- they have meaning, too. And Silvestre says that brings meaning to these yoga pants, and to those who wear them.
“So our abundant pair, it’s inspired by a malachite stone," she said. "And that helps with good fortune.”
Silvestre often likes to come home to the Central Coast to find inspiration in her clothing line.
“There’s a hill behind my house, and it’s in Edna valley. I was running up this hill. And I was like, oh my gosh. I’m goning to design a line of zodiac tops. And that’s where I came up with that idea," she said. "It just came to me.”
She took about a year to save all the money to get it started. She met with a bunch of manufacturers, and then she started making these yoga and exercise clothes. And she’s having some success with it. She’s been picked up by a few stores in LA, and she was recently on the cover of Yoga LA.
But it all didn’t come easily. Silvestre initially faced some criticism about the name itself, Confused Girl. And people just didn’t get it.
“One lady actually told me you should call it ‘grounded girl.’ And I was like, you know, because grounded girl doesn’t need the help that Confused Girl needs," she said. "I think that when we are confused, and we’re lost, there’s a lot of shaming. We shame ourselves instead of just accepting. ‘Okay, I’m confused right now. I’ll figure it out. It will be okay.’”
And after all this soul searching for herself and trying to help others, I was wondering if Silvestre is still confused.
“Of course. Aren’t we always confused?" she said. "I would say I’m confused in a different way. Like, before, I was confused about everything. And now I feel like I have more tools in my toolbox to be able to deal with life in a more productive way.”
Giovanna Silvestre is the creator of Confused Girl, a video blog and active wear clothing line. You can find her products and videos at confusedgirlinthecity.com.