WHAT. Salmon and turquoise reversible Columbia jacket, yellow mesh sweater with pink stripes, orange animal print pants, hiking boots, sweet undercut
Who is your fashion icon?
Any of the weirdos that are doing what they do in the world. The people who find self expression in the way they dress, and don't let the drab style of the professional adult life wear down their love to wear lots of colors, patterns and strangeness that ends up being a walking work of art, made of textures, colors, shapes and movement.
Actual names? Well, I don't have any. I am influenced by the initial idea behind the punk movement. The first punk out there was a rebel against the normative way of popular fashion as a symbol of their anti-lifestyle of not doing drugs, not senselessly partying, not following the popular ways of being, and of choosing to search beyond what we are all fed in our respective societies of what is the truth of life and of being; they read, dissented, created their own truth, and decided to be well-informed and politically and socially active. They manifested with their clothing. They also showed their personal creativity and reality by how they dressed.
The combination of grunge-iness and style, or trailertrash-iness and style, is my favorite!!! I guess a modern rep of dat style is Die Antwoord.
At the end of the day, it just simply gives me a lot of pleasure to wear conflicting patterns and colors, match, or not, and be creative with fashion. But I do like to put some deeper meaning behind it all too; my style also is a symbol of the exploration and creation that I do, that tried to go beyond that what our societies already offer and profess. If I dress crazy one day, like in this photo, it just means that on that day I have a little extra vitality, conscientiousness, self-respect and creativity.
What is the inspiration behind your outfit?
Well... I guess the inspiration for this outfit comes from the idea of a futuristic post-hipster post-punk neon 80s-90s revival streetkid teenager that is trying to be rebellious and radical as if she lived in a distopian future, even though the world she lives in isn't thhhhaaaaaaaattttt bad in terms of social strife.
How has your style change since studying in Chile for a year?
Well, honestly in Chile is when my style went down hill, so to speak. I remember getting ready for my trip, packing up my bag, and thinking, "Do I really want to stand out when I'm in a foreign country whose culture and norms I know nothing about?" I had no idea how cool and fashion forward the people would be in Valparaiso, a decent sized port city on the coast of Chile. Either way, I was pretty sure I didn't want to stand out that much. I didn't bring my favorite zebra pants, I left the velvetines at home, the stripes and patterns and loud colors stayed in the closet, and the weird hats and accessories stayed in boxes. I packed a very conservative bag. Honestly, I really didn't want to scare my host family and I just wanted to be accepted easy, to fit in.
Chile was fun, and in Valparaiso exceptionally cool-looking people were walking around. Portland, OR (where I’m from) style is very similar to the style of Valparaiso. Notably, the Chileans were stuck in the 80s, but there was definitely the same looks and feels of Portland's 90s grungey beginnings of hiptserdom. Of course, there were the actual hipsters too there, grounded in a strong culture of alternative living styles, that focused on intellectual, socio-cultural and artistic pursuits. Anarchy seemed to be super popular there and so always at night and day there'd be people dressed in all black with animal print, patches, piercing and pseudo punk outfits. There were plenty of skaters going around sporting the typical skater look. There was also a strong classic punk and street kid scene, not only because of the love for punk music, but also because there were lots of community houses that were occupied and so some of these people lived for free. These occupied houses belonged to wealthier people who left them empty and unused, and amazingly there's a law in Chile that says if a house is left unused for 5 years, then the people can take it back. And so there ya have it, it created the possibility for a lot of people of diverse alternative lifestyles to thrive, and from lifestyle comes fashion and style. (All in all, Valparaiso had everything that Portland has).
The only real different styles down there were the flaytes (sketchy peeps) or the reggaetonero girls and boys. They dressed up in addidas track suits, had specific futbolista type hair cuts, always had multiple piercings and walked around with their music (reggaeton) playing on their cells phones. The boys were quite efeminate and plucked their eyebrows and put a lot of work into how they looked. They were known socially as delinquents, robbers and assaulters; basically rebels in a socially negative type of way. But for me, any sort of rebel and rebel style is attractive because of the strong statement in makes. I definitely came back to the US with fantasies of making my own addidas track suit with pant legs made super tight and "skinny." However while I was in Chile, I decided to get a hair cut that would be unavoidably be labeled as flayte, even though I was just copying Yolandi's (of Die Antwoord) mullet.
Returning stateside, I was certainly invigorated by the Chilean weirdness to get back to wearing my weird shit and having fun with clothes!
Do I have style advice for Oberlin students?
Well, my advice is that the most important thing at the end of the day is how the clothing fits and how you feel wearing it. That's always central to feeling good and to wearing alternative styles around town. Either way the point is to get adventurous, and college really is the best time to get funky cause its often the last stomping ground until adult sobriety tightens all your loose screws into normalness. Colors, patterns and textures are not only pretty, but hedonistically satisfying in a way. Share your clothes with your buddies n get funky with it! Get weird with it! You can build self-respect and self confidence while you go at it, and even strengthen friendships and build communities. My sister in her college coop had a sweater library where everyone shared their fabulous, funny and freaky layers. It was cool and it worked because everyone cooperated.
Where do I get my clothes? How do I choose them?
I get my clothes from actual crappy store-stores (I'm embarrassed to admit), from artisans (the more beautiful clothing I have), from second hand thrift stores (the best of the best), online from time of time, or in free boxes or picked up from the ground (usually to be fixed and re-sown) or as hand-me-downs from friends and family. For example in this outfit, the jacket was a $2 reversible Columbia jacket from a Eugene thrift store, the sweater was from a thrift store in Hawai'i, the shirt underneath it was from H&M, the pants a present from my sister online around $70, and the shoes are legit hiking shoes from trekking. Truth is, is that I do own some expensive pieces of clothing, that are either well made or just freaking awesome textures, colors and patterns. Everyone has their sort of budget for these things, and mine is defined by how awesome something is and how much I want it and really will use it (you know, just to rationalize paying so much).
But really how I go about choosing the clothes I like are first of all based on fit. I always go for skinny jeans, and tops that are well fitted and have shape. I fix up a lot of my clothing so that they mark curves or so that they just fall better on the body. Second thing I always look for are textures and patterns, which can easily bypass the importance of shape and fit, that is if the piece of clothing is that legit. Then comes the consideration of price, which is always the final choice maker.