A decade ago, Susie Crippen, a Los Angeles-based fashion stylist and occasional cabaret singer, thought her career was dead. At the age of 40 she had been working in a bar, before turning to a motley collection of stylist jobs. And though she dreamt of making it big in the fashion world, she doubted it could happen; at her age most of her contemporaries were already settled into careers. “I felt like I was going nowhere,” she recently explained to me. “I had no [health] insurance, no savings, I was drowning in $50,000-$60,000 of credit card debt. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life.”
10年前，洛杉磯時裝造型師、偶爾當卡巴萊歌手的蘇西•克莉朋(Susie Crippen)認爲，她的事業已到盡頭。當時40歲的她曾在一家酒吧工作，而後做過各種各樣的造型師工作。儘管她夢想過在時裝行業大展拳腳，但她懷疑自己能否實現夢想；和她年齡相仿的人事業都已定型。「我那時覺得自己的人生沒有方向，」她最近向我解釋，「我沒有（醫療）保險，沒有存款，我欠了5萬至6萬美元的信用卡債務。我不知道我該怎麼過。」