Return to flip book view

LEAH she her before after Fashion Under the Influence THE EVOLUTION OF COLUMBIA STUDENTS UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF NYC By Leah Overstreet It s freshman year your first time leaving the hometown that you re totally too good for Eager to acquaint yourself with your new home you and your fresh out of the airport friends venture into the intimidating streets of Greenwich Village Suddenly you re dazzled by the eccentric ensembles strutting past you on the grimy city blocks Towering heels handmade jewelry and fresh dye jobs shove past you on the way to their next train leaving you awestruck Now this is New York The streets smell like piss and your train is delayed by twenty minutes but oh boy is the view mesmerizing But soon admiration morphs into envy as you begin to compare notes only to realize that your Hollister jeans and thrifted crop top aren t the fashion statements they were back home Being surrounded by runway ready passersby is exciting but you re starting to feel underdressed Or maybe I m just projecting This was how I felt in the fall of 2020 finally having escaped the quarantine hellscape formerly known as my childhood bedroom in Atlanta Georgia I didn t have on campus housing but I knew that I would rot away if I spent one more day living with my parents Luckily the pieces fell into place I was able to move to the city with a stranger I met on the internet and take up residence in a shockingly well decorated Airbnb Now I ve always been a slut for fashion Back in my high school where the next greatest fashion statement was a cold shoulder top and Lululemon leggings I was considered pretty fucking avant garde I d already had all of the necessary phases and childhood trauma to turn out gay and into alternative fashion and I was pretty pleased with myself in the style department That being said I was nowhere near ready for the kinds of looks I would encounter in New York People weren t just rocking what was on trend or even what was deemed alternative and cool they were wearing that weird shit New York was filled with the kind of people high end designers stole from so they could go on to inspire teenagers on Tiktok to thrift and DIY their way into internet fame People were wearing things that I didn t even know counted as clothing This kind of innovative fashion is especially characteristic of the queer POC spaces in Brooklyn that I ve frequented recently But at the beginning freshman Leah was blown away by the Demonia stomping girlies in Washington Square Park Baby steps www theblueandwhite org

I ve always wanted to dress this way I just couldn t you know I didn t really ever do rainbow or bright things but moving out of my mom s house in Texas really let me explore as many colors as I wanted before www theblueandwhite org

LUCAS THEY THEM before COMING TO NEW YORK HAS GIVEN ME THE INSPIRATION TO VIEW CLOTHING AS AN EXTENSION OF SELF NOT SOLELY FOR ITS UTILITY DIVING DEEPER INTO FASHION HISTORY HERE AT COLUMBIA HAS REALLY FUELED MY INTEREST IN FASHION AND MADE ME MORE AWARE OF STYLISTIC INFLUENCES MATERIALS AND ERAS THAT I PULL FROM All of this is to say that I felt waaay out of my depth As much as I had wanted to branch out in high school my dad and stepmom were pretty religious I could barely get away with wearing a dress without leggings underneath let alone a crop top or miniskirt Anything too outlandish earned a healthy dose of judgemental side eye Of course I was well practiced in the classic changing at school maneuver but the dress code at my southern public school didn t leave much room for creativity either Once I was on my own and had no one to police my styling choices I went full Bimbo fashion wise Bras became my top of choice my skirts as recommended by Paris Hilton shrank to the size of a belt I exclusively wore huge chunky platforms and my collection of thrifted fur coats thanks to L Train Vintage had me looking like a pimp I felt inspired to start experimenting with silhouettes and found myself rifling through the superior thrift in the Bronx Salvation Armies trying to replicate the street style looks of passersby I desperately wanted to emulate And I wasn t the only one Even after just a semester or two I observed my classmates fashion predilections transforming before my eyes The Columbia students that I d befriended were also striking out on their own for the first time many of them queer people who d never imagined that they would be allowed to attempt anything like the fashions they embraced With their families hundreds of miles away folks who had never before felt safe or encouraged to express themselves through their clothing were excited by the potential of fashion to affirm their gender and sexuality after after All around me people are undergoing massive fashion glow ups and citing New York City as the catalyst It isn t just the influence of the thrift savvy glamazons that is inducing personal style evolutions around campus it s the newfound freedom There is something incredibly liberating about being in a city where it s so easy to never see the same person twice it creates a sense of anonymity which can either inspire you to not give a damn or make you want to be seen It definitely helps that the people around you don t seem to be holding back Style inspiration is practically oozing out of the walls and chances are you aren t the most interesting person that someone has seen that day Whether they ve been recently liberated from the shackles of heteronormativity are fully realizing their fashion potential or have just been bullied into upping their game Columbia students are undergoing self inflicted movie makeovers With every day that passes another mullet is cut another signature coat is thrifted and another style metamorphosis is taking hold In Butler Library a fashion savvy freshman is ignoring their homework to make a Depop purchase that will change their lives On Low Steps someone has spotted the shoes of their dreams walking by In Hewitt Dining Hall someone is deciding that maybe they should get a buzz cut after all New York has been making its impact on all of us one thread at a time Another undeniable influence has been TikTok with creators providing a near infinite amount of What I Wear as a Nyc Fashion Student and Get Ready With Me videos There are hordes of wannabe stylists flooding the internet with style inspo thrift hauls and tutorials on how fillet a pair of nylon tights into the latest fashion statement And the thing is they are somehow ALL going to school in New York Maybe it s just the side of TikTok that I m on but nothing seems sexier and more romanticized than going to school in New York Between the gaggles of college fashion influencers and the overabundance of insane secondhand clothing shops it feels like you have no excuse but to join the ranks of the fashionable locals www theblueandwhite org

K they she I grew up in a small town where everyone pretty much dressed the same Moving to NYC to go to a Historical Women s College I was inspired by queer expression in every corner of campus and NYC As I became more in tune with myself and realized nobody had an expectation of how I could should look I started to genuinely dress however I wanted to everyday www theblueandwhite org