Rebecca Hearns and Suong Han
Ink Magazine Fashion Forecast
Consumption of New Doesn’t Equate to Style
Rebecca Hearns
Graphic by Ava Soong
Have you ever been in a store and seen an item of clothing or accessory you feel you absolutely have to have? Feeling as though if you walk out of the store without this item, you’ve missed out on something, and god forbid another individual were to gain this possession. Somehow, acquiring it adds to your closet’s currency, whether in actual dollar amount or societal status. This urge to buy, or what some minimalist activists call “consume,” is about hunger. Why do we get hungry for material things? This can be argued among philosophers, politicians, and influencers -– of which I am none. I am simply sharing my thoughts on the persistent fear of outfit repetition, how you can combat this by styling within the means of your closet, and what some people do to fight off the hoarding of textiles. Ultimately, it is not how many clothes you own, but the purpose you give to your items that equates to style.
There was a time when we didn’t have the option to go out and buy more. In the early 19th century, the only ready-to-wear clothing was made for people in the military. Eventually, the sewing machine became commercially viable in the 1850s, and the world experienced rapid growth in mechanization and the development of sizing systems. Worldwide, an estimated 1,291,959 factories are involved with garment supply chains, where over 75 million factory workers and 100 billion pieces are created a year. We have all bought into this industry. it’s one of the very few you can’t live without. As the ordinary individual worked their way out of a need for clothing and into a want for more, they had the opportunity to become creative in their outward appearance. Expression through apparel is nothing new, but ready-to-wear clothing means someone with less time on their hands could be just as nicely dressed as someone who may have all the time or money in the world.
One hundred billion pieces of garments is a lot. We are now at a point where we have too much clothing, not just in our closets, but everywhere. Ninety-two million tons of textile waste is created yearly. Outside of how detrimental this waste is to our planet, where do you come in? I’d like you to think of the last few items of clothing you bought. Did you have an intention when purchasing? Was it something you were scouting for? Did you have no real thought and bought something because it was cute? Were you amidst the practice of retail therapy? Whatever the reason you were shopping, where are the items you purchased now? Do you know who made them? The fabric? Do they pair well with what you already own? And how much use have you gotten out of it? Now that I’ve got you thinking, I hope you feel satisfied with your clothing’s purpose. But, if you aren’t, then you should keep reading.
This past January, I flew to London, where I studied for 5 months. My favorite book growing up was Fancy Nancy, and I still like to emulate her now, so you can imagine that packing was one of the biggest things consuming my mind. I realized I needed a dynamic wardrobe that could work for almost every occasion: travel, sunbathing, formal, exercise, school, and the temperature range of 30 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. I packed five pairs of pants, three sweaters, three blouses/tops, three sets of workout gear, one dress, PJs, two jackets, two hats, a scarf, gloves, and loads of jewelry. Everything I packed followed a color scheme of black, white, cream, red/pink, green, and blue, and I made sure the variety of fabrics was complementary. This is how I created my capsule wardrobe.
Inevitably, after two months, I was bored of my closet. Luckily, I packed hair ties and pins. If you haven’t ever experimented with pinning your clothing, you’re missing out! Let me introduce you to the safety pin. You can change the structure of a piece with a few pins, tying back a few bits, or folding over the fabric. What I did a lot was make one sleeve thinner than the other, cinch a knot into a blouse, or take one end of a dress and pin it up to my hip, making an asymmetrical top. One thing I had a lot of fun with was layering. It’s essential to ensure you have tops that can stand alone and sit under or over another. Layering adds depth to your outfit, making you look elevated and creating a personal design.
Understanding the clothing you have in your closet can help you solidify your style. If you’re continuously buying new or second-hand clothing, you aren’t experimenting with what you have. I challenge you to desert the idea that outfit repeating is embarrassing. You’re supposed to wear what you own! This is a classic way to have a distinct sense of personal style. If you find an outfit that makes you feel good, why wouldn’t you wear it again? You’re wearing it for yourself, no one else.
So, how do you combat the hunger of feeling like you need more? If you don’t know where to start, then building up the basics is your first step. Thrift some solid color turtlenecks and cotton t-shirts, and acquire that good pair of nice fitting jeans, maybe in black too. Don’t forget that quintessential sweater in your closet, and a dress that you could dress up or down — silk or linen are suitable bases to go off of. Finally, a blazer and pleated trouser, topped off with a classic coat; this could be a leather jacket, a trench, a puffer, whatever screams “you.” Building these staples may take a little while, but creating outfits will be a lot easier once you do.
There’s a side of the internet that takes anti-consumption to the next level, embracing modernity and following the style choice called “normcore.” Normcore embraces the fact that you will never be on trend; the cycles of fashion are so fast and vast that you can never stay current. “Right now a lot of people use fashion as a means to buy rather than discover an identity and they end up obscured and defeated,” says freelance stylist and fashion writer Jeremy Lewis, the founder of Garmento. I think the best way I can describe the normcore style is referencing the retail store Gap. If you’ve ever shopped in a Gap, you understand my reference of simplicity. For many, though, normcore is a theory. It isn’t about rebelling against or giving into the status quo, but instead making time for fulfilling activities other than shopping or spending time on appearance.
I am not anti-shopping, and I am very pro-outward expression through the channels of clothing and accessorizing. Styling is what that expression is. It is your aesthetic choice based on the vibe you want to encapsulate. The process is an act of mindfulness. Next time you’re staring at the racks in a store, I invite you to consider what you already own. Is there a purpose you can give a similar item in your closet? Decreasing the consumption of new products will increase your creativity with what’s already within your means.
Ink Magazine Fashion Forecast
Who is Chloe Allen and Maiden Name?
Suong Han
Graphic by Selah Pennington
Chloe Allen is a fourth-year fashion design student here at VCU. Her dedication to her craftsmanship has driven her brand Maiden Name. While designing for shape and fit, her priorities are functionality, comfort and the needs of her customers. We will also talk about her latest collection “Woman under Construction” and what Maiden Name will look like in the future. Working with Chloe, you can see she truly cares not just about her garments, but also how models feel in the garments. This is an ode to Chloe, rising fashion designers, and local creatives in RVA.
What is Maiden Name and what does it mean to you?
Chloe: “Maiden name is a brand where I try my best to connect with my customer and their needs, but still try to bring in the whimsiness and expertise in shape and fit. I typically specialize in dresses, but Maiden Name is evolving in the next year. I’m definitely going to be moving onto different things I’m interested in, such as leatherworking and menswear.”
Who inspires you to design?
Chloe: “My grandmother and my mom! My grandma was a seamstress but never got the opportunity to go to school or make a business out of it. She always told me about all of the outfits she would make for my mom and other people when they might not have had the money for department store clothes. But, either way, she was a great designer — she made sure my mom was always well dressed and comfortable in her clothing. My mom gave me that extra push to get my head where it needed to be to fully see my dream. In high school, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my creativity because art classes didn’t work for me. My mom told me about a fashion design academy program at Fairfax High School, and after taking that I didn’t want to do anything else. Recently I’ve been inspired by my whole family’s history. My grandfather was a composer and had an extensive record collection which has inspired my upcoming pieces. I’m also inspired by my great grandparents’ tenacity for hard work, to make it through hard times simply from their need to survive. In my head, if they can do it I definitely can. It’s not only a dream for me, it’s a responsibility to make the most of my career as a designer.”
Do you see fashion as a form of self expression or as social commentary?
Chloe: “I think there’s a push and a pull. I think there’s certain people who use fashion to fit in, and then there’s certain people who use fashion to stand out. I think that in seeing that, personal expression can be like a cry to fit in, but it can also be like, ‘oh, I want to look different from people’ or ‘I wanna put myself on the outside of my body. For me personally, when I get dressed every day, it’s more for comfort than it is for style. As a fashion major you’re supposed to, like, wanna look nice and stuff, but I’d rather look frumpy and not put together. I think, as a fashion designer, I’ve been able to try to find the medium of finding comfortable clothes that are also flattering.
What is “Woman under Construction”?
Chloe: “WOC came from the idea of ‘what does Black beauty mean to you?’ and it took me back to a time in my life where I didn’t feel as beautiful, mainly because of the restrictions I put on myself regarding what I could wear. In middle and high school I had to wear a back brace, and that itself was like, ‘oh it’s fine, I’ll just thug it out.’, but I guess I didn’t realize that it’d interfere with my clothing, like certain things you can still see through the clothing. You could see the ridges and bumps through, and with dresses you could see the brace. It was that restriction that influenced me because I couldn’t wear certain things and felt like I couldn’t fit into the standards and trends my peers were following around me. I just felt I wasn’t as good or as beautiful as them, and so I took that as inspiration and thought, ‘ok, what exactly are the things that made me feel that way?’ It was always the strict, stiff torso, and thinking about that made me think about the construction of the dresses, and how can I make something flattering to the body without corseting — the illusion of fit and shape without restricting the wearer. I use only knit fabrics for anything tight against the body, with seaming that’s flattering to pretty much any wearer.”
Suong: “AHHHH NO YOU ATEEE.”
Chloe: “NO LIKE THAT WAS THE VIBE LIKE GET COMFY.”
Suong: “RIGHT RIGHT.”
Chloe: “It just would adapt to the body in that way and so that was kind-of the thought process. I wanted to show the freedom that I feel now, where now I don’t have to wear the back brace. I feel like I can wear anything, but I still kind-of feel like it gives me an extra layer of skin because I really don’t care how I present to other people outwardly, I feel the most free just putting on something comfortable.”
Suong: “Chills are down my spine right now, this project really solidifies what you can do in your design principles. You’re just very thoughtful in the way you design, and it’s admirable to see how much you think about those specific things. I mean, you’re talking about the adaptability around the wearer with each dress, and I feel like a lot of times, um … that’s not really shown as much with brands, how things look with different wearers, if that makes sense?”
Chloe: “No it does. I feel like a lot of times you see the dress online, but they only sell it because of the model. At the end of the day, they’re clipping the back of the model to make the waist look a certain way or make it look like the ideal body, and when buyers buy it they think ‘oh that could be me,’ but when you get it, it’s not really what they’re selling you.”
Suong: “Coming back to the project, the visual representation was so good. What was the thought process behind this? I mean, you used so many knits, fabrics, lace and all this stuff, and somehow you turned literal words and experience into something so visually captivating.”
Chloe: “I think, as a designer, I try to break things down. I think the best way to tackle a problem is to think ‘what am I addressing? What are the problems? What are the reasons why I’m making this piece?’ With the knowledge that you learn, how different things work and are constructed, you can kind-of manipulate that and make it into something your own. I was thinking about the function of dresses and things that you can wear to formal events because that was another layer to it. I always felt like, when I had to go somewhere formal or nice, I wanted to wear this nice dress, but I couldn’t wear it because usually it would show the back brace as well. I wanted to stick to that formal, over-the-top, elegant vibe. Like, “what would make my inner child happy?” So, attacking those fit issues with the fabrics was a big thing. You can’t stretch a knit to its full capacity without adding gatherings to it, or gather the woven fabric that’s attached to it. In order to allow those different dresses to fit, all these different body shapes, body types, curves, contours, whatever the issue is, you have to have both of those things.”
If this collection were to evolve in the future, how might it look?
Chloe: “I feel like I would break it down even more. That’s what I’ve been trying to think about in my senior year. Fundamentally, What is the reason? What’s the function? What’s the purpose? What makes this, like, something that I wanna wear? I think I would maybe elevate the silhouettes in a way where I do more comfort and keep the colors that I used, but changing necklines, changing armholes, changing things to be more specific to the shapes of my back brace in an attempt to almost say, “if I wanted to wear it with my back brace, would it completely cover it, or is it accentuating certain parts of it?” Then, not only that. I feel like, maybe bringing in skills that I’ve been learning like leatherworking, so there’s gonna be pieces coming up with that.”
Art Direction: Suong Han and Selah Pennington
Designer: Chloe Allen
Stylist: Suong Han
Styling Assistant: Emily Mance
Photographer: Selah Pennington
Models: Daniel Lamonte, Jaylyn Johnson, Ryder Faunce