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，洛杉矶时装造型师、偶尔当卡巴莱歌手的苏西•克莉朋(Susie Crippen)认为，她的事业已到尽头。当时40岁的她曾在一家酒吧工作，而后做过各种各样的造型师工作。尽管她梦想过在时装行业大展拳脚，但她怀疑自己能否实现梦想；和她年龄相仿的人事业都已定型。“我那时觉得自己的人生没有方向，”她最近向我解释，“我没有（医疗）保险，没有存款，我欠了5万至6万美元的信用卡债务。我不知道我该怎么过。”