So life is weird right now. I don’t think any of us envisioned our lives taking this turn, and now we’re kind of scrambling to adapt to this new, yet somewhat temporary normal. So when I thought about what this looks like for my blog, I was really at a loss.

The whole point of this thing was to highlight USC students with cool sense of style, so what happens when I’m home on the Upper East Side, far away from the creative fashion choices of my classmates?

After thinking long and hard about how to solve this problem and give the fans one last post, I realized something. I am a USC student. I’ve been interviewing other people this whole time, but not once did I consider myself as a student on campus who has an interest in fashion.

I’m going to warn you, I’m not that interesting in terms of fashion. I’m truly just using myself as a last resort. I know you’re probably thinking, well why don’t you just tell us your favorite Internet sales happening right now or how to do more cool things with our clothes, but I don’t want to. I like the theme of my blog and I’m not a quitter so I’m sticking this thing out till the end.

Okay, enough of this, let’s get to the good stuff. I personally love fashion. Not so much in a what new trend can I spend my money on way, but in the expression of varied personalities type of way. Fashion is a tool people can use to show who they are or how they want to be perceived. I touched on this in the first post, where I described what the purpose of fashion and self-expression really is. So how do I like to express myself?

If I could be like cartoon-character Mark Zuckerberg and pick my one t-shirt and pants to wear everyday, I’d be more than happy in a nice fitting pair of jeans and a white t-shirt, Stan Smiths on my feet. I would always prefer simplicity; clean lines and minimal pattern. Chic and sophisticated, but not overly formal.

It wasn’t until this year that I understood the role that appearance has in self-esteem. When I get dressed and put on a bit of makeup, I feel so much more confident, happy, and put-together in all aspects of my life. I also realized that wanting to dress myself well doesn’t necessarily mean I’m vain. In fact, it means I care about myself enough to want to be a person that is outgoing and excited to communicate with others. Maybe you’re trying to connect high fashion with altruism, but that’s not my point. My point is that in order to be a useful and positive member of society, sometimes it best suits us (no pun intended) to put a little more effort into the mental and physical composition behind our decisions.

In all honesty, I had no intention of turning this into a self-help, philosophic spiel about feeling good about ourselves and yada yada. But hey, this is my last post so why not end it off on a slightly cliched note. Aren’t we all a little in our feels these days, anyway?

So now you know a little bit more about me. I hope you appreciated or even liked my attempt at vulnerability, but if you didn’t, that’s okay too. Take care, be healthy, and maybe put on a pair of pants if you feel like it.

So, as you could probably tell from current events, it’s not physically possible to find cool outfits on campus these days. At first, I wasn’t exactly sure how to upkeep this blog with the whole international health crisis thing, since I don’t have any style superstars on reserve in my arsenal.

But then I realized, just like your favorite influencers, it’s time to modify my content to be more applicable to all of our new work-from-home lifestyles. So I figured I would highlight some of my friends who are doing some fun, easy fashion-related crafts! Shoutout to them and anyone else for using this weird social-distance time warp to give their wardrobes a little upgrade. Here are some ideas for your boredom if you’re looking for a creative outlet.

Tie Dye – Back in Style

By now, you may have seen girls on Instagram posting pictures in their tie-dye sweatsuits or even noticed this trend in your classes (haha, back when we had classes). Whether you like this look or not, I’ll let that be your call, but one thing’s for sure — it is trendy.

One of my best friends, Sydney, who has an affinity for crafts, was excited by the idea of embellishing her normal clothes and using her free time for a style overhaul. She has a small, Instagram-based denim company, @hellodenimusa, so she knows what she’s doing. Her latest project is tie-dying and bleaching different lounge wear. To me, this is the perfect Zoom outfit because it’s put-together yet super comfy. If you’re not trying to drop bills on Aviator Nation or some other overpriced sweatpants, just decorate your own!

Not Your Grandma’s Embroidery

If you’re more detail-oriented or you want to practice your fine motor skills, try out some embroidery for a fun pop of color on your clothes! My sweet friend Sammy has been sewing some summer camp string to her cotton t-shirts to add cute little sayings and designs. Now, her tops look like something you would probably spend way too much money on, but she actually just made them on her couch! Genius.

Try it yourself, but if you don’t want to, no worries. Just comment below if you want Sammy to decorate a shirt and she’ll donate all the money to No Kid Hungry! So if you’re looking for a reason to treat yourself to some new clothes, you’ve never had a better reason.

So although you might be bored and anxious just sitting in the isolation of our off-campus housing or your parents’ basement, there are some crafty, fashion-forward ways to take your mind off things! If you want to talk to any of my friends that I mentioned about their projects, let me know in the comments and I’d be so happy to connect you.

And in the spirit of keeping up with normal routines, as every blogger and news outlet has recommended, I asked my friends the usual lightning round questions.

quick questions

sydney
who is your style inspiration?
nitsan raiter

what’s one article of clothing you can’t live without?
my thrifted long sleeve basic-yet-perfect white tee.

heels or flats?
heels!

if you could only shop at one store for the rest of your life, where would it be?
for love and lemons.

quick questions

sammy
who is your style inspiration?
arielle charnas and danielle bernstein.

what’s one article of clothing you can’t live without?
my Levi’s 501 cropped & ripped jeans.

heels or flats?
flats.

if you could only shop at one store for the rest of your life, where would it be?
zara!

“It’s just a fun little expression.”

To Hailey, that’s exactly the point of fashion — a way that we can express ourselves without being too blunt or out-there. Fashion is less about wearing brands or showing off and more about all of our unique qualities and tastes.

“I love the quirky little subversive pieces that are normal but have a slight twist.” This statement is pretty much the epitome of Hailey. It seems like everything she wears is in the realm of ‘normal’. What I mean is, you wouldn’t be absolutely shocked if you saw her on the street because her outfit was incredibly loud or flamboyant. But when you look a little deeper, that’s when you notice the features that make Hailey stand apart from all of us other basic white girls at USC.

Not that she never experienced this type of uniformity. When she was growing up in an affluent area of the Bay, all of the girls would come to school in their honeycomb textured Free People tops. “Why would I spent $90 for what everyone else had?!”

And she has a point — why do we all want to conform to these expensive items and brands that are suddenly deemed “cool”, or more so, we are deemed “uncool” if we don’t have them. Instead of giving in to the mass-consumed products and pieces that other girls had, she turned to her grandmother’s old sewing machine and started to do her own thing.

“Everyone would ask me where I got that cute shirt from and I’d be like ‘oh, I made it!'” But this doesn’t seem like a deliberate flex. Actually, Hailey is quite the opposite–humble and relaxed. She made the clothes not because she was fishing for compliments or looking for attention, she made them because she was sick of the same old same old.

Fast forward a few years, and her interest in fashion hasn’t stopped. In fact, she deferred transferring to USC after her freshman year at another school to take an opportunity working for Vogue in San Francisco. Casual. When she tells me this, though, it’s the farthest thing from a brag. She laughs when she tells me this, following up by saying that she learned that she definitely does not want to go into the fashion industry. For a big picture thinker, high-end fashion is a little too nuanced for her. “All these textures and colors, they all look the same to me.”

With fashion, specifically men’s style, being something near and dear to her heart, but a simultaneous disinterest in luxury brands, you’re probably wondering where that leaves her — at least I was. What you don’t know about Hailey, though, is her love for sports. Until an injury ruined her career path, she was on track to playing D1 volleyball at USC.

“I’ve always been a tom-boy,” she divulges, sharing that she pretty much exclusively wore athleisure in high school due to her early morning practices. So you’re guessing, like I did, that she probably wants to work for Nike or Lululemon or something up that alley. Nope. “I think the hybrid of sports and fashion, my ultimate dream, would be alternative jersey design for the NBA.”

For someone who doesn’t really deal with nuances, that seems awfully specific to me. But hey, someone’s gotta make those jerseys, right? But the mere creativity in this job description fits her personality perfectly. There’s so much to Hailey that we can’t see from far away– her individuality, her creativity, and most importantly, her warm sense of humor.

The girl has an adorable giggle and this cool spunk about her that makes you want to know more. The mismatched fly on her jeans and her vintage denim biker jacket just represent the quirky, “just a little subversive” character that is Hailey.

quick questions

who is your style inspiration?
i would say for men’s style i love harry styles and bruno mars, their funky silk shirts. i don’t really look to women’s style — i dont even follow fashion bloggers.

what’s one article of clothing you can’t live without?
moto jackets, i have a whole collection of them.

heels or flats?
heels — i can do anything in heels from vogue. i’m so good at sprinting up and down the stairs now!

if you could only shop at one store for the rest of your life, where would it be?
for everyday wear it would be aritzia. but if i had all the money in the world… vetements.

Talia is a friend of mine that I really wanted to show off to the world–or at least my writing 340 classmates–because she’s hilarious, beautiful, and creative. Last semester, Talia decided to launch a fashion-oriented Instagram account separate from her personal page. Personally, I’ve always admired her minimalistic yet funky sense of style from afar, so getting to see it on my Instagram feed is a real treat.

I asked Talia to come over and talk to me a little bit about her interest in fashion on a Saturday morning, to which she showed up excitedly in her pajamas. That’s exactly what I love about her. Yes, she loves to put together cohesive and expressive outfits, but she also knows that pajamas have a time and place, too. I find sometimes that when people are “into” fashion, there’s no off-switch. They feel this pressure to be dressing cute or fitting an ‘image’ at all times, even when they’re just lounging around. I think that’s nice for them, I guess, but to me it seems ingenuous.

As we sprawled out on my couch, decked out in groutfits*, she shared a little bit about her experience working sales at Aritzia. “I learned how to be confident,” she told me. She reminisced on her day-to-day tasks of pulling outfits for customers and trying to understand their styles in order to create personalized looks for them. “Sometimes they’d like them and sometimes they wouldn’t, but I would start getting customers coming back and asking for me. That just feels so special.”

Clearly these people are going to come back asking for Talia–her clothing taste is impeccable. Even if it’s just a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, she manages to put it together in a way that looks polished and fun at the same time. It’s hard to describe what she does with clothes, but she definitely has a vibe.

Instead of me trying to put her fashion aesthetic into words, just take a look at her Insta: @taliasimon.e. As someone who was always into fashion, Talia was pretty excited when she started working at Aritzia and got to ball out on clothes with that employee discount. Soon after, she began receiving more compliments than usual, often followed with a suggestion to start a YouTube channel. “A YouTube channel is so much effort,” she says. So instead, she created a second account on Instagram, this one solely devoted to her clothes.

“People were so supportive… I only got one comment that said it was weird,” she laughs. Outfit creation is to Talia is the same as painting or sculpting to an artist. Fashion acts as a creative outlet, one that allows her to assemble specific pieces to form something bigger than each of its parts. It’s a passion that comes naturally to her. She notices that when she preemptively decides to shoot videos or take photos on a certain day, it never turns out as well as when it just comes to her organically.

Besides giving her a platform to express herself, her Instagram account has also done wonders for her self-confidence. Going out and taking photos of herself is something she takes pride in now, no longer a source of embarrassment or discomfort. When she first posted on the account, she was nervous of what the reactions were going to be, but she’s found them to be overwhelmingly positive. “People will come up to me, surprisingly a lot of guys–and I was expecting a lot of guys to be like ‘WTF is this’–but instead they’re like ‘it’s really cool that you’re doing this.'” Her friends and classmates see @taliasimon.e for its true value–a showcase of her artwork.

“Fashion and art, they’re one and the same,” she said. “You’re putting something together to show how you feel to someone, and I think that’s so cool.”

*groutfits=grey outfits. (GWTP-get with the program).

quick questions

who is your style inspiration?
i have a few… Allegra Shaw. she’s a canadian fashion blogger and i love everything she wears. and the Hadid sisters, obviously.

what’s one article of clothing you can’t live without?
mom jeans. i love mom jeans. i just got a new pair and the fly is diagonal.

heels or flats?
okay, the practical in me says flats. i don’t feel like i’m old enough to wear heels very often, but i’d choose heels.

if you could only shop at one store for the rest of your life, where would it be?
aritzia. oh, but if i had all the money in the world, alexander wang.

Tanner is truly unique to anyone I’ve ever met. I know that’s a really bold statement and you’re probably sitting there thinking everyone is unique, Katie but shhh. Tanner is a freshman here at USC who wants to go into costume design for TV and film. Yes, he literally goes to class everyday learning about how to create the outfits for the people that you see in those Netflix Original series with gazillion dollar budgets just for clothes.

While I was whining to my friend about how nobody that I see on campus wants to talk to me, she brought up Tanner, who did a program with her friend’s sister this past summer. She put us in touch, and after the usual schedule-maneuvering, Tanner and I found ourselves at a table in the USC village just before sunset on Friday.

When you first see Tanner, you instantly get the impression that he’s someone with a loud personality. I mean, he pulled up wearing a graffiti-printed silk scarf and a beret for crying out loud. But this isn’t the case at all. Tanner is very articulate and poised; he speaks slowly and with caution as he explains his background as an actor-turned-designer at his performing arts high school in Dallas.

“I tried to force style on myself,” he said. “Until high school, it was like, wear whatever the rest of the boys were wearing…Nike everything.” He auditioned for a performing arts high school in pursuit of his childhood dream of becoming an actor, and once he got in, he felt pressure to be artsy and different like everyone else. In retrospect, he realizes the irony in this statement.

Over the course of his high school career, his sense of style evolved with inspirations ranging from Victorian beauty to Avant-garde aesthetics to Western flare. When I asked him how he would describe his style, a word instantly came to his mind: bold.

Instead of summarizing his own style, he threw out a few phrases at me, and they kind of did the trick. Wide-leg pants, color clashing, bolo ties, silk scarves, gold. From these assorted puzzle pieces, I feel like I can assemble some image of who Tanner is stylistically.

He loves the idea that smaller, supporting elements can come together to make one beautiful whole. Some of his favorite outfits are just plain turtlenecks or t-shirts with a good pair of pants, as long as its accessorized properly. Adding a front-tuck of the shirt or an eye-catching hat are some of the weapons he keeps in his accessory arsenal. zhuzh-ing up an outfit with these little things is an imperative lesson in good fashion.

Now knowing what I know about Tanner, it’s only logical that his biggest pet peeve is blandness. “I’ll walk into Zara now and all the men’s clothing looks the same,” he tells me. Finding fun and flattering men’s clothing has become difficult for him in popular stores that he once frequented. “I feel like we’re at a spot in society where men are willing to care more about their fashion and leave that heteronormative look.”

It would be a dream of his to see those beautiful patterns pieces in the women’s section adapted to fit the male form. He tells me that one day this will be a side project of his, on top of his costume design brand and dressing celebrities for the Met Gala, of course.

quick questions

who is your style inspiration?
can i name a brand? gucci.

what’s one article of clothing you can’t live without?
silk scarves.

heels or flats?
heels; a kitten heel.

if you could only shop at one store for the rest of your life, where would it be?
gucci.

I feel like I should be fully transparent with you guys, so I will admit this week’s feature is someone I know and didn’t just stop on the street. In retrospect, that was a cute idea of me to think that I’d romantically stumble upon people on campus who have the time or desire to speak to some random girl who wants to ask them a bunch of personal questions that have to do with clothing…

Now that I’m realizing that pretty much everyone has headphones in and simply cannot be bothered to even make eye contact with another human being, I’m going to have to start being a little less *spontaneous* with my subjects.

Anyyyyyyway, this week I’m showing off my wonderful, creative, brilliant, not to mention, stylish, friend Carola Sacchi. Carola is a business administration major here at USC after she transferred from Chapman after freshman year.

Carola basically has fashion in her blood–her grandmother started her own clothing line and then subsequent department store in the 1970s when she immigrated to Argentina from Italy. This financial independence was pretty much unheard of for a woman in a Latin American country at this time, so these values of hard work and fortitude have been ingrained within Carola since she was a child. With her mother and grandmother always having an eye for style, Carola has felt comfortable talking fashion from a young age.

Starting in college, though, Carola began to develop her own personal sense of style and a career-focused mindset. Besides likening herself to the women in her family, she started to understand the purpose of dressing up and the messages that outfits can convey. “It’s a really tangible way of showing who you are,” she shares. “Whether you care about fashion [or you don’t], every single person wakes up in the morning and puts clothes on their body. These clothes reflect how you see yourself or how you want other people to see you.”

Her style is simple, elegant, and classic. She sticks to neutral colors and likes a tailored, but not too-polished look. If you ask her, she’d describe her fashion personality as “European vibes”.

Carola thinks of fashion as the underdog of the art world. And she’s really right, when you think about it. Look back on history in terms of the cultural pieces that represent time periods. There’s television, movies, music, paintings, sculptures, but fashion is omnipresent. When you think about a particular era (the 20s, the Renaissance, Victorian period), you imagine the people of the time in the context of their appearances. So by typical standards, fashion is the new player on the field who everyone forgets about but continues to have a prolific impact on the game.

Besides the creativity and aesthetic beauty of clothing ensembles, fashion has created a complex industry in a business sense. “Clothing is a financial investment,” she explained. “No one is going to buy clothes they don’t like, right?” Fashion is an unavoidable part of our lives, and although people like to tag it as frivolous or a waste of time, they are forced to come face to face with it.

Instead of just embracing the prevalence of clothing and glamour in our day-to-day lives like most fashion-focused people do, Carola actually internalizes it. Each article of clothing she wears genuinely means something to her. When you talk to her, you can tell that each of the garments she puts on her body have a story, and all of these individual stories come together to form her identity. She bought her button-down top while aimlessly strolling through stores during a layover in Milan. Her distressed jeans are the “only kind she wears”, since tight pants are a huge no-go for her. Her shoes? Not just basic Air Force Ones, but a specially made pair that features reworked vintage designer pieces.

To Carola, fashion is a part of who she is. It won’t be long until she forges her own unique spot in the industry.

quick questions

who is your style inspiration?
audrey hepburn.

what’s one article of clothing you can’t live without?
black leather boots. right now from zara, but i always have a pair because you can dress them up or down!

heels or flats?
heels, i’m 5’1″!

if you could only shop at one store for the rest of your life, where would it be?
chanel — i don’t have anything from them yet but one day i’ll buy myself my first piece, hopefully soon!

To understand who I am, you should first know that I’m from New York. I’m not the annoying kind of New Yorker who drinks her caw-fee and takes people down as I’m walking down the street. I am clearly a New Yorker, though, when it comes to my sense of style. If you looked at my closet, you’d see exclusively black, white, grey and denim. That’s probably why I was so struck by Kayla.

Kayla Howard, a freshman from New Orleans, Louisiana is the first person I’m choosing to highlight on my blog. Kayla and I are in the same design class, and every Tuesday and Thursday she adds a pop of color to the against the white studio walls. I was lucky enough to catch up with Kayla one afternoon, and I learned that her brightness on the inside is what’s seeping through to her spunky exterior.

Kayla’s looks are almost always the product of her thrift store scavenges. A few weeks ago, during a trip to a shop on Melrose, Kayla spotted the skirt and top she’s pictured wearing. “That would be a cute outfit!” she thought to herself and bought them for a total of about 6 dollars.

This girl is truly gifted when it comes to finding hidden gems amongst the piles of worn-out garments in Goodwills and My Sister’s Closets.

“I am so cheap with clothes,” she told me, confessing that she refuses to buy any item for over 35 dollars. “I always think ‘well, I could just make that at home.’” In high school, she begged her parents to buy her a sewing machine and has been making clothes since. Now that she’s older, she finds that she rarely has time to sit for hours upon hours sewing fabric together when things like schoolwork, friends, and other hobbies are more pressing. 

These days, she’s more interested in producing her own music or sketching tattoo designs. “I should probably be more patient,” she chuckles to me, “but I like seeing what I’m making come to fruition.” 

Maybe her eagerness is what drew her away from studying medicine after just one semester at USC. Kayla is trying to escape the scary world of Pre-Med by running as fast as she can in the other direction. She is currently waiting for a response from the Iovine and Young Academy (a.k.a. the Dr. Dre school), where she hopes to explore topics that she didn’t even know she could study. When she found out that there was a place at USC where she could literally study art, business, and technology in one place, she decided to listen to her inner creative urges that once characterized her tween-age self.

In fact, middle school Kayla was arguably the coolest version of her to date. “I remember I used to wear Sprite cans in my hair and flowers that I’d pick right from my mom’s garden.” She recalls that her middle school self was a badass who never cared what anyone thought about her clothing choices. In high school, self-consciousness got to her, like it does most teenage girls, and she completely toned down her outfit choices. 

“My goal for future me is to be like me when I was young and small and didn’t care what anybody thought.”

quick questions

who is your style inspiration?
can’t choose one, but definitely something i’ve seen on tumblr.

what’s one article of clothing you can’t live without?
my nameplate necklace.

heels or flats?
neither heels nor flats, just my tevas!

if you could only shop at one store for the rest of your life, where would it be?
my favorite thrift store: jet rag.

There’s plenty of places your brain could go when you think of fashion. You’re probably envisioning runway models, sultry advertisements, and price tags far out of the range of a typical college student’s wildest dreams. Faraway dreams of a Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle are easy to get wrapped up in when you believe that dressing “fashionably” is unattainable. 

It’s not unattainable for everyone, as I learned pretty quickly when I came to USC. Here in the land of $200 sweatpants, it’s pretty safe to say that dropping names in conversation is just as popular as plastering them to your clothes. 

But I’m not here to rant about the spoiled kids who have no sense of value. Actually, I’ve grown to look past labels that signify more worth than my life savings. 

Another thing I’ve learned in the past two years is that this isn’t fashion at all. I mean, yes, it is. But there’s so much more to the term than the immediate connotation of the 1 percent. 

Fashion is literally everywhere. We all have our own fashion. Our individual senses of style. And there’s probably someone out there reading this who’s scoffing at thinking ‘yeah, right. I truly could not care less about what I put on my body.’ But that’s just it. Regardless if you care or not, our appearance dictates others’ first impressions of us. 

We all wake up and make a choice what clothes we are going to put on our bodies. Maybe, as we rummage through our closets, we have the intention of presenting ourselves to fit a narrative or create a personality. We might aim to look polished, mature, elegant, spunky, dark, athletic, creative. Or maybe we don’t have this intention. Maybe we don’t care about the way we look. It doesn’t matter what the clothes look like, as long as they’re comfortable, practical, appropriate. And maybe we don’t realize that this is also a choice we are making about how we bare our thoughts and values on our skin for the world view. 

So while some of us think little about our senses of style, others are opposite. Dressing ourselves is an artform—and our bodies are the canvases. There are so many individuals on our campus who use fashion as a way to express themselves and their creativities. I want to use my blog to chronicle these people and their styles that I see in passing on the way to class or as I drink my coffee at Starbucks in the morning. I want to share with others how beautiful fashion can be, but more importantly, the personalities behind the clothes.