Fashion and art are equally universal, unavoidable and vital. Whether we claim not to give our style any thought or spend hours crafting outfits, we all have a relationship to fashion. Maybe you leaf through a thrift store’s offerings or you endure the inevitable stab wounds of a sewing machine in an attempt to construct an image that expresses some part of you. Fashion is art, and it follows that the two intersect with and influence each other. In this B-Side, 13 arts writers investigate questions ranging from why luxury brands are adopting influencers to how music genre subcultures shape and are influenced by the fashions surrounding them. Many bring personal experiences — inhabiting other personalities using costumes, breaking free from the suppression of school uniforms, finding connection among strangers by wearing merch — to prove the profound impacts clothing has. Fashion is how we tell people about ourselves. It can be a political statement, a confirmation of one’s permission to take up space or. proof of a future connection before words are spoken. Like art, it is a language — one of individualism, visibility, politics, sexuality and beauty — that our writers put to words.
Senior Arts Editor Erin Evans can be reached at erinev@umich.edu.
‘Star Wars’ fashion moments with intergalactic influence by Daily Arts Writer Lola D’Onofrio
I love Star Wars because it’s visually fun. The brilliant planets and flashy space battles are eternally stunning, but my favorite aspect of Star Wars iconography is the costuming. The best characters are memorable because of their unforgettable clothing and accessories. From opulent gowns to cyborg appendages, Star Wars is stuffed to the brim with iconic fashion moments.
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I’m more worm than Klum by Senior Arts Editor Emilia Ferrante
As soon as I saw Heidi Klum’s worm Halloween costume, I was gripped by the icy fingers of inspiration. I simply had to write about it. For those who somehow missed it, Klum dressed up as an enormous pinkish worm for Halloween — and by “dressed up,” I mean she underwent a complete transformation.
How to describe the worm costume. It takes a second to even realize there’s a person in the costume, let alone that it’s Heidi Klum. If I didn’t hear her talking in interviews outside her famous Halloween party (and believe in her indomitable Halloween spirit), I could be convinced she got some poor schmuck to dress up in her place.
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Costume contemplations from a former theatre kid by Senior Arts Editor Hannah Carapellotti
When my middle school introduced its musical theatre elective by putting on “Beauty and the Beast Jr.,” I played Chip. Well, I played Chip once and only once, at a Saturday morning dress rehearsal. I had appointed myself the understudy — the speaking roles went to the seventh and eighth graders, and I wanted to feel important as one of the few sixth graders in the cast. The young actress who had (rightfully) earned the part of Chip hadn’t shown up that day, which meant that I not only got to say her lines but also got to wear the bulky teacup costume. It couldn’t have been more than some painted fabric sewn around a hula hoop, but I thought it was something straight out of the movie. I rode the high of playing what was, to me, a lead role, all morning. It was on that day that I first fell in love with being onstage.
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Why is Emma Chamberlain the new face of fashion? by Managing Arts Editor Lillian Pearce
At 18 years old, with no background in fashion, digital influencer Emma Chamberlain was an esteemed guest at Paris Fashion Week 2019.
“My first fashion experience was with Louis Vuitton … I don’t think I fully even understood how cool and life-changing it was going to be,” Chamberlain says in a video with Vogue. Vogue’s series “7 Days, 7 Looks” offers audiences a lookbook of our favorite celebrities’ go-to outfits. From Keke Palmer (“Nope”) to Japanese Breakfast, acclaimed actors and musicians show off their tried and true clothing items, shoes and accessories all while showcasing their original styles. While Vogue spotlights beloved stars like Sadie Sink (“Stranger Things”) and models like Winnie Harlow, they also make room for social media influencers — notably, Emma Chamberlain. Though Chamberlain’s original claim to fame was her YouTube vlogs, the fashion world has embraced her.
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Reforming the uniform by Daily Arts Writer Maddie Agne
For 13 years, I wore a school uniform. From kindergarten to fifth-grade things were pretty lax — jeans and a school T-shirt sufficed. In sixth grade, the uniform tightened up. Every day was a variation of polo shirts, button-downs, skorts or pleated skirts in yellow, gray, blue or plaid. My outerwear had to be a school color, and any logos could be no bigger than an index card. No boots, no sandals, no flashy socks. The shortest permissible skirt was the width of a dollar bill — 2.61 inches — above the bend of the knee — and trust me, teachers checked. At the time, the uniform wasn’t fun. For a kid desperately trying to figure out how to express myself, the school uniform seemed like the most restrictive thing I could have endured.
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The cardigan under my bed by Managing Arts Editor Sabriya Imami
I have a lot of merch.
My room is full of Funko Pop! figures, my laptop is covered in stickers sporting everything from the “Kim Possible” logo to “Hamilton” quotes and my closet is stuffed with superhero T-shirts and Taylor Swift sweatshirts.
My family members always shake their heads in exasperation when they see me buy yet another Avengers T-shirt or Disney sticker; they don’t understand why I would “waste my money” on something so materialistic and fleeting — after all, the clothes only last so long, the stickers wear away and what am I going to do with all those Pop figures when I’m a grown-up?
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Maize and blue; the epitome of high fashion by Daily Arts Contributor Irena Tutunari
I would rather stub my toe repeatedly than wear my high school’s merch in public. It’s not that I had a horrible high school experience or that my school colors were particularly unpleasant; my high school gear is just an eyesore that I would rather leave in the past. Why linger? In fact, I use the high school hoodies that I guiltily packed for college as makeshift hair towels on laundry day. I’m now trading out my faded blue and maroon for new, tags-still-on blue and maize — two colors that fit together much better.
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A Bad Bunny masterclass: Adding “sazón” to male style by Daily Arts Writer Graciela Battle Cestero
The year was 2016. I was in seventh grade, and it was a few days away from winter break. My sister and I shared the aux in our mom’s car on the way to school. My sister chose a song that would, nine months later, become a renowned Puerto Rican star’s breakout single: “Soy Peor” by Bad Bunny. The track is a sort of trap ballad that foreshadowed how creative and explorative Bad Bunny would become throughout his musical career. That passion for creativity wasn’t confined to the realm of his music — it extended to his personal style.
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A sculpture in flesh and bone — the intersection of haute couture and live music by Daily Arts Writer Cecilia Duran
On stage a figure dances — smoke surrounds her silhouette, and she becomes the negative of a silver print. Her shadow against the cloud of white is a terracotta orange, but the hues of the palette are bleary, leaving traces of her movements in the way images remain in your eyesight after staring at the sun too long. She is extravagant, effervescent, ethereal yet eternal. From the pit, a motionless crowd regards the scene in reverence. This, right here and now, is an encounter with the divine, a time in which the arts — music, dance and haute couture — align with the perfect chemical reaction of an open heart and a godless faith. Florence Welch is singing to us, and yet I can only stare at her dress. It is what I imagine Shakespeare’s Ophelia or Botticelli’s Venus would wear. I am devoted.
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The good, the bad, and the very very ugly: my fashion phases by Daily Arts Contributor Skylar Wallison
There I was, five years old and utterly enthralled by the animated story of a girl named Pinky Dinky Doo. Pinky, much like her name, had vibrant neon pink hair. “Pinky Dinky Doo” follows Pinky as she helps her brother Tyler through mundane life roadblocks — problems with a friend or even flipping the perfect pancake. Her wild and free-roaming imagination leads her to tell stories of animals in rock bands or to journey through time. As a 5-year-old, I was fascinated by her hair and assumed that “pink” led to adventure or independence. Choosing my clothing and assembling all-pink outfits (much to my parents’ chagrin) was how I found my first taste of independence. I was able to choose how I expressed myself and my imagination from such an early age. The autonomy that I found within this self-chosen pink wardrobe was unparalleled to any other “coming of age moment” that I had experienced.
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Genre and fashion: Learning how to embrace crowd wear by Daily Arts Writer Drew Gadbois
In high school, I spent one weekend in Chicago so I could go see a grindcoreconcert. My dad had planned to join me but inevitably decided that his yacht rock sensibilities didn’t quite line up with grindcore’s unrelenting desire to invoke auditory highs and lows by way of power tool texturing and lyrical obscenities. My older brother became came instead, and although he is by far the family member most outspoken against my music taste, I could ignore his persistent questioning looks in exchange for access to free beer.
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Aesthetic Anarchy in Fin de Siècle Paris by Daily Arts Writer Jaden Katz
When French novelist Joséphin Péladan returned to Paris in 1882 to establish his career as an art critic, it was quite a different Paris from the one where his family had lived in the late 1840s.
Many of the old, winding streets had been replaced by French official Baron Haussmann’s wide, grand boulevards. The rapid technological advancements and the printing press boom of the ’80s and ’90s, which allowed for the mass dissemination of images, had fueled a cascade of modernization, marking the beginnings of consumer capitalism. Circuses, cafés, dance halls and brothels sprang up, providing Parisians with new spaces to see and be seen. Giant department stores (grand magasins) like Le Bon Marché had opened too. They sold mass-produced, ready-made fashion at a range of prices, offering Parisians new opportunities to define and even turn themselves into a spectacle.
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You will never be Ryan Gosling from ‘Drive’ by Senior Arts Editor Sarah Rahman
Eleven years ago, film bro culture was forever changed with the release of Nicolas Winding Refn’s (“The Neon Demon”) “Drive,” starring Ryan Gosling (“La La Land”) and Carey Mulligan (“The Great Gatsby”). Gosling’s character, known as “Driver” — he’s simply too cool to have a name — is a Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver. His quiet disposition and proclivity for long, brooding stares prove his ineffable coolness, and he says just 116 lines in the film’s 100-minute runtime.
But the coolest thing about Driver isn’t his tranquility in the face of violent crime, nor is it his brooding tendencies — it’s his jacket.
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