Armour Magazine Issue 26

SEASON 26

ISSUE NO. 26

COLOR MONSTER SHEASANI ISHA ODE TO ORANGE STARING INTO THE SUN UNWOUND PARIS OF THE PACIFIC CHERRY POP ROCKS TRANSGRESSING THE LINES BEFORE ME LETTER FROM THE WEB DIRECTOR ROMANTICIZE THIS PURPLE COAT RED HAT SOCIETY GROUNDING ASPECT COLOR ME CONFUSED

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LETTER FROM THE

EDITORS

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“Colors, therefore, should be understood as subjective cultural creations: you could no more meaningfully secure a precise universal definition for all the known shades than you could plot the coordinates of a dream.”

Kassia St. Clair, The Secret Lives of Color Armour No. 26 is an expedition from where we stand: to ponder gradients, chase rainbows, and meditate on monochromes. With each editorial focusing on the value of a color or shade, we will revisit the ways in which color is essential and variable. CHROMA will seek to unearth the unconscious and magnify the subtle ways in which pigments dye our perspectives.

– Welcome home. Welcome to the color wheel. Take a seat and take a spin.

We wandered back to our traditional colors to find comfort. However, we dug into the familiar and found something rather not so rudimentary. The ever-changing culture, life, and stories within color oozed out, and undeniably so. What we had hoped to be a fun delve into color turned into an exploration of fantasy, reclamation, and community– even when we were not physically together.

Season 26 is thank you. A thank you for reminding us of the vibrance and creativity within our community especially as we begin to rekindle connections and create new ones. We hope that this issue acts as a stepping stone for issues to come. A chromatic reminder of the value of carrots, cowboys, and tea parties. As Armour Magazine shifts to new leaders, creators, and tinkerers, we are confident that the magazine we serve as an outlet for further expeditions into the style and culture we know intimately or desire to learn more about.

Color us ____, Emily & Jonah

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EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Emily Hanson & Jonah Thornton HEAD LAYOUT Annabel Gillespie LAYOUT Kirsten Holland Akiva Stadlan HEAD WRITER Haley Joy Harris DEVELOPMENT / OPERATIONS Logan Krohn VISUAL DIRECTORS Izzy Jefferis Kirsten Holland Jonah Thornton Logan Krohn PUBLIC RELATIONS Sophie Goldstein SET DIRECTION Fatima Garcia

MARKETING Sophie Goldstein Emily Hanson DIGITAL DIRECTOR Lu Gillespie SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR Erica Coven SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM Audrey Engman

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COLOR MONSTER

TABLE OF OF

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ODE TO ORANGE

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STARING INTO THE SUN

UNWOUND

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SHELO ASANI ISHA

PARIS OF THE PACIFIC

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CHERRY POP ROCKS TRANSGRESSING THE LINES BEFORE ME

PURPLE COAT RED HAT SOCIETY

GROUNDING ASPECT

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COLOR ME CONFUSED

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LETTER FROM THE WEB DIRECTOR

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ROMANTICIZE THIS

N T T E S !

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COLOR Monster ARMOUR MAGAZINE

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WRITING Katie Zhao ILLUSTRATION Elliot Wyatt

Melted Zine is a web-based art project by Elliott Wyatt.

Inspired by the spirit of escapist fantasy novels, the user-generated web, and the long history of cartoon-based psychedelia, the zine is an evolving kaleidoscope of colors, collages and comics.

You can visit it at http://Meltedzine. neocities.org or email mailto:Meltedzine@gmail.com

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lakes dangling down, I watch them crawl up, unhindered, pick yourself up off the ocean floor, a blue crab sprints into your outreached hand, and there’s mud streaked all over your face, covering the dimples, no, sinking in, a sinkhole, swallowing the very last bite of tomato soup, fluorescent lights blind, car horns and headlights shine, the raven pecks at the sheen of aluminum foil, rain turns into icicles, dangles down, drips down into puddles of melted grilled cheese, smile, the folds in your eyes, they’re missing, posters get plastered, the lights flicker, dim, you dim witted boy, get your head out of your ass, your eardrums shatter, the icicles break into little flakes that get sprinkled on your cereal, a garnish for the morning.

Let’s Use Snow For Seasoning ARMOUR MAGAZINE

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Sheasani WRITING Ruby Grant VISUAL EDITOR Kaitlyn Stansbury PHOTOGRAPHY Avital Isakov DIRECTION Sophie Goldstein STYLING Jessica Zodicoff

Isha

Profile of Gavi Weitzman ARMOUR MAGAZINE

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Blessed are you G-d, for not making me a woman, is one of the blessings said by men every morning in a traditional Jewish prayer service. While there are differing perspectives on why this phrase is said, it has always reverberated in Gavi Weitzman’s ears long after hearing it. Why were men thanking G-d for not making them women? What did that mean about her as a woman? What did it mean about her as a Jewish woman?

Gavi Weitzman, a senior in the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, grew up in a Modern Orthodox Jewish community and attended religious summer camps and schools.

As a young girl, Gavi was always told that the themes of modest dress in Judaism signified dignity, which made her wonder about everyone else in her world, were they not dignified?

One thing that she did appreciate about the themes of modesty was the freeing feeling of her friends at summer camp all dressed in a uniform of t-shirts and flowy skirts, careless of the pressures of modern trends and exposing their bodies. What she didn’t appreciate, however, was when she got detention in her religious school for her skirt being too short when she was only 15 years old. Judaism was a large part of Gavi’s identity, but she also felt that some of the aspects of living a Jewish lifestyle presented her with conflicting opinions about her own body and gender.

From an early age, Gavi listened to all the men around her thanking G-d for not making them women, and the questions that her religious lifestyle sparked began to cause internal unrest. While she had viewed art as a hobby

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throughout adolescence, it was always “just drawing. It was never about representing larger issues.” She did not expect art to turn into a philosophical exploration of her own identity ––it ultimately became a vehicle by which she came to understand herself and the effects of her Jewish world.

After Gavi’s sophomore year of college, she was assigned the most daunting and exciting task: explore what you’re interested in. At the time, she was taking classes at the intersection of feminism and art, and, inspired by the way artists explore identity through their work, proceeded to do as many have done before her and draw inspiration from her own life to make larger social commentaries. This assignment stood out as an opportunity for Gavi to comment on the perspectives she felt Judaism encouraged, including the mixed messages she received as a young woman regarding her body and role in her community. Orthodoxy had always told Gavi that women were to be respected and dignified, yet men were thanking God every day for not being born a woman. Orthodoxy had always told Gavi that

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modesty comes in many different forms, yet the only way she had ever seen it enforced was through how long her skirt was or how many inches were visible between her collar and her neck. Gavi says about her motivations, “I wanted to verbalize my turmoil and frustration. It was a way for me to make a statement: my art was speaking to other Jewish women, but also to Jewish men.”

As her exploration, Gavi began experimenting with different mediums and photographing her creations. She recreated the phrase, “Shelo Asani Isha,” or, “For not making me a woman,” out of hair, yarn, and candles. She painted it on her countertops with concealer, wrote it across her stomach, spelled it out in tampons.

She became interested in religious signifiers as well, such as kippot (skullcaps), tzitzit (ritual fringes), and tallitot (prayer shawls), photographing them sitting on an empty chair.

“I feel such a strong connection to them, but they’re not for me,” Gavi said when speaking ARMOUR MAGAZINE

about these ritual items that are only worn by men in the Orthodox community. She used this discomfort to drive her art: she learned how to tie her own ritual fringes, fashioned them into a crochet white bra and thong, and wore them under her clothing on Yom Kippur. Gavi created her own “four cornered undergarment,” a secret between her and God and a reminder of the holiness of the day.

She took something that had never been for her and made it hers, celebrating her role as a woman in Orthodox Judaism.

Gavi was ultimately able to both honor her identity as a Jewish woman and express the inner conflict that she has always lived with.

She created a triptych, three prints all featuring her, that represent different sides of Jewish women. One of the prints shows Gavi dressed in traditionally male clothing and religious signifiers, with an overlay of a page of the Talmud. The second print, covered with locks of hair, shows a photograph of Gavi 12

wearing a sheitel, or a religious hair covering for women, and holding a child in her arms. In Judaism, hair covering is yet another traditional form of modesty, and covered hair is a symbol of an adult woman doing what Jewish law expects of her: raising a family. Lastly, the third print depicts Gavi in a spaghetti strap dress with her curly hair flowing down and her eyes staring straight into the camera. While the three prints seemingly portray different people, Gavi makes a statement that the life of a young, religious Jewish woman in today’s society is inherently full of dissonance: celebrating one’s body while covering it, being proud to be a woman even though others are grateful not to be, and loving Judaism while also being excluded from many of its practices. She titles these prints, “Sheasani Isha,” or “For making me a woman,” rewriting the blessing that men say every morning and reframing her story alongside it.

Gavi has always played the balancing game that accompanies Orthodoxy: not wanting to look too religious, but also not wanting to make anyone uncomfortable or not look religious at all. She believes that many women live in this uncertain space, forced to lie somewhere in between blending in and standing out. “Clothing is a way to transform your identity, it is a signal to the outside world of who you are. Color is also a communication tool. We’re attracted to colors; they’re an automatic, ‘come to me’.” Just like a colorful painting in an art gallery, color invites others to come look, to engage with a piece. Gavi recognizes the temptation to mute one’s true colors, especially when one’s community emphasizes the muffling of appeal and sexuality.

Her art, however, celebrates diverse bodies and bright colors.

Blessed are you G-d, for making me a woman. * Find more of Gavi’s work at https://gweitzman.myportfolio.com/ ISSUE NO. 26

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Oh, For a color, A fruit, And a word with which we cannot rhyme, How we love to hate you!

Like the poor woman compared to a traffic cone, You are never enough, yet always too much.

The amorous man does not turn his head for you, Rather surrenders himself to oncoming vehicles!

The combination of red and yellow, You will always be Secondary— Everything and nothing like your predecessors.

Too vulgar to seduce, Too intoxicating to enchant, Oh, if only you were Primary!

Perhaps then, We would realize your brilliance, As one does when another plays hard-to-get.

Perhaps, then, We would call them “orangeheads” and not “redheads!”

Orange ARMOUR MAGAZINE

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WRITING Meyme Nakash PHOTOGRAPHY Anika Kumar DIRECTION Abbie Leonard Catherine Herilhy EDITOR Nisha Mani STYLING Ava Farrar, Erica Coven FEATURING Nick Blake

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Oh, Orange, How we love to hate you!

Until the taste of sunset touches our lips, And we hold onto your last sweet drops, Before they turn to dusk.

Blinded by darkness, Only your reflection can guide us to the light.

And when we are safe again, We bellow out, “Trick, or Treat?!”

As if we don’t know the answer!

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STARING INTO THE SUN Yellow is the color of transformation.

In the morning, she’s the dried yellow of a corn field -- unveiled after the spring sun melts winter snows -- waiting to be tilled. In the evening, she’s the color of fall leaves before they turn brown and crunchy, Near dawn and dusk she is a warm yellow draping herself across tree branches and telephone poles; welcoming the transitions between light and dark. In these moments she looks how we knew her as children, when we drew the sun with bright Crayola yellow and with rays outstretched like arms.

Under a yellow sun the world starts to feel like honey, the trees sway and the squirrels wallow, drinking in the sticky serenity of these golden hours. She is so inviting that even the most timid apartment dweller is tempted to venture out and bask in her warmth.

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That night they go to sleep dreaming of the sunset and the next morning a yellow dandelion finds its way through a crack in their concrete steps. They pick her up and carry her with them. She sits behind an ear or in a buttonhole carried along as a pocket-sized piece of the sun.

Later, a yellow sweater peaks out among the racks of second-hand clothes, bright against the backdrop of blues and greys.

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WRITING Nisha Mani PHOTOGRAPHY Becca Tarter DIRECTION Caroline Hundley FEATURING Zinaida Calixte

They snatch her up and bring her to the register before they can second guess themself.

Walking down the street in their yellow sweater they feel themselves stick out like a red umbrella in the rain. But when they look up and see faces and storefronts tinged with the same golden hue that drew them out into the world, they start to stand a little taller and stride a little wider.

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WRITING Julia Stewart

DIRECTION Lea Bond, Erica Coven

EDITOR Haley Joy Harris

STYLING Josie Zimmerman, Emily Hanson

PHOTOGRAPHY Anjali Reddy

FEATURING Sari Bircoll, Avi Arora

The moss beneath my toes was cool, a sprinkle of dew still resting gently on the soft spores. She was up ahead dancing on the riverbank; songbird-esque but not quite.

Something more. Her rapture emanated, sweeping between the tree branches, across the rocks, and through my hair.

My formerly tight braid had slowly unraveled and long wisps of ginger found themselves caught in my eyelashes.

I was unwound.

The silk skirt of my dress lay somewhere in my past and all that remained were my underskirt and my corset, half untied and stained with dirt. I stepped off the moss-covered log towards the river. The rush of water over rocks broke against my ears. Light bounced from stone to stone beneath the current like scattered pearls dripping from the neck of a debutante. The silks which had overlaid the evergreen twine of my corset were of my former

reality. The one shrouded in primness, where I could see the world only from behind a veil of tulle. She had lifted the veil and now I knew just how fiercely the leaves sparkled; emeralds dancing.

I would never go back. I’d known that from the day I arrived, when she found me bathing bare in an inlet, my clothes receiving their first stains as they lay on the riverbank. She showed me what existed beyond the walls that had contained me, beyond my mother’s rubies and wrath.

She taught me green and impurity.

I’d forgotten my desire for doilies and dowries. Now, I just wanted to be like her like all of them. I wanted to have ears so sharp I could hear the wind sprinkle sand on the surface of water, to be lofty, idealized, and selfless all at once.

Unwound

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I waded into the water and leapt from one rock to the next to catch up to her. They were slick against the balls of my feet but I managed to balance, arms spread like a tight-

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rope walker. She’d disappeared beyond the trees up ahead. But now and again, I’d catch the familiar glint of her wing— a pocket of gold in the cool landscape.

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PARIS OF THE PACIFIC

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WRITING Ali Meltzer EDITOR Logan Krohn PHOTOGRAPHY Isabelle Roig

FEATURING Ana Perreira Hamish McGregor Ethan Block

DIRECTION Logan Krohn Isabelle Roig STYLING Mirai Patel Maggie Croghan ISSUE NO. 26

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A Decontextualized List of All the Mermaid Tails at Sadie’s Nineth Birthday Pary

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Sadie’s birthday is always a weeklong affair.

Every year, she looks forward to a whole week devoted to funfetti classroom cupcakes, the glitterized birthday countdown on her bathroom mirror, a yearly $100 check from her great Aunt Linda, and an overall wash of jittery, excited anticipation.

But today is THE birthday. For a girl who treats attention-grabbing like a sport, this is her Superbowl. Sadie picks her mermaid tail first, obviously. She explains to the other girls that her tail isn’t a normal color like theirs; her tail is too unique for a simple human like them to describe. To Sadie, her tail is the color of the emerald-cut diamond on her mom’s wedding ring, or the glitter and studs on the Hannah Montana costume she wore for Halloween, or the sun when you stare at it for too long and it hurts your eyes and you begin seeing every color in the world all at once. Silver, gold, platinum, pearl––all of the world’s rarest, shiniest jewels are reflected in Sadie’s tail.

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Sadie swims with confidence, using her arms the guide her in spirals and flips. As she contorts herself, she looks backward to admire her tail, squinting through the chemical-blurred water to see nothing but blinding, pulsating light. Her eyes burn, but she can’t look away. Sadie points her tail-tips towards the shallow end, where the water-winged children stare, awestruck, through cloudy goggle lenses. Are they blinded by her tail? She looks over towards them, pops her hip past the surface of the water, and flicks a splash with her fins. Are her friends jealous? She smirks because she already knows the answer.

Sadie knows that every day, she glows. She is always the absolute center of attention, and her birthday, her spotlight on steroids, is no exception.

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Lydia gets to pick her tail second because she’s the fastest girl on the Meadowbrook Country Club Sharks. She picks a purple tail because it reminds her of the purple stripe on the side of her lucky Speedo tech suit––the one that she wears to every single swim meet with a matching purple cap.

At first, Lydia struggles to adjust to life without legs; her usual stroke of choice is a vigorous flutter kick. But her swim skills support her efforts as she transforms into a slick, agile dolphin. Lydia propels herself forward, piercing through the water and sending waves crashing in her wake. Her violet scales light up, sending purple flashes all around the pool.

She asks Sadie to race her, just because she knows she would win every time. Sadie is preoccupied looking at her reflection on the surface of the pool.

Today, Lydia is more than just the fastest on the team; today, she’s ultraviolet, too nimble and magical for the human eye to see. Her tail may not be as blinding and bright as Sadie’s, but in motion, Lydia’s violet scales flicker with energy, sending shock waves through the sea.

The water bends to make room for her as she glides through the deep end, rarely needing to come up for air. She slithers on the bottom of the pool with skill that even the most experienced mermaids can’t replicate, and her tail flows and ripples as if it’s alive on its own.

As she stretches her arms and flutters her tail, Lydia sees herself as the princess––no, the queen––of the sea, that she is: electric, ethereal, ultraviolet.

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Isobel gets to pick her tail third. Sadie likes her better than Lulu (and she makes it known).

She explains to the other girls that her tail is green, but not like grass; it has the power to be any shade of green in the entire world! It changes depending on her mood. It can be a light, seafoam green if she’s feeling playful, or a dark, forest green when she’s feeling sad.

The other girls laugh as she tells them this, but Isobel tunes them out. They’re jealous, she knows, that they don’t have the superpowers that she has.

As she swims, her tail is the lithe shade of happiness. Bright, bubbly, careless.

every book at least four times, and the fourth and sixth one five each (she saw Jack reading the fourth one at least twice). After that year Isobel stopped seeing Jack around school. Apparently, he got in trouble and his mom sent him to some private school 15 minutes away.

She misses waving to him on the bus.

But now, Isobel loves having playdates at Sadie’s house. She always sees him eating Sunny Farm fruit snacks at the kitchen island and playing with his hair, making sure it sweeps to the side just the right way so that it rests above his eyebrows.

She is always looking at him from a distance.

Isobel catches him looking back at her; she looks back at her tail to avoid eye contact. Isobel notices that her tail has turned bright, leafy green. Green with envy, the envy of Sadie and of the humans who get to share their world with him.

Isobel wants Jack’s neon green cast to expand to cover his other leg and sprout fins. Then, she and Jack could spend forever in the sea, exploring and swimming with their glowing green tails.

After floats in the shallows and ear-ringing dives in the depths, Isobel tires. She decides to take a break and peek her head above the surface of the water. The mermaid rests her chin and her cheek on the sandstone side of the pool and lets the tip of her tail bob in the water behind her. Her flimsy fins sharpen as she spots him… Sadie’s brother, Jack. His neon leg-cast crests his plastic pool chair; he broke it last week doing a daring backflip off the diving board. Isobel doesn’t even know Jack that well––she just has the feeling that he would listen to her, not laugh at her like the girls sometimes do. And his hair. His hair!!!

This one time, when she was in second grade, she saw Jack reading Harry Potter on the ride home from school. Since then, Isobel has been obsessed with Harry Potter. She has read ISSUE NO. 26

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Lulu picked her tail last––she always picks last. She never wants anyone to get stuck with something they don’t like. Right before the girls picked their tails, Sadie’s mom gave the girls each a cupcake from Sweet Annie’s Bakery, the gourmet bake shop down the street from their school. Lulu ended up eating a lemon cupcake, even though she thinks lemons are too sour. She still ate the whole thing, and afterward, she said thank you to Sadie’s mom at least three times. Lulu picks a blue tail; no one else wants a blue tail because it doesn’t stand out in the water as much.

But Lulu thinks it’s beautiful. She tries to explain how it reflects the sky and the water to the other girls, but mid-sentence, Lydia suggests they all race, and the girls jump in the pool.

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Lulu jumps with them and joins the race. She comes in second. Lulu is a fast swimmer. The girls disperse when Isobel takes a break to stare at Jack (Isobel thinks they don’t notice, but they all do. Lulu does, at least). Lulu swims to the opposite side of the deep end and floats on her back. The sun heats her skin, and she’s grateful for the few splashes of water that cover her face every time Sadie and Lydia kick.

She closes her eyes and imagines herself just melting into the pool, becoming a part of it.

She sees her blue tail, with its scales reflecting amethyst, rose quartz, and silver. Her scales blend into the reflective surface of the pool, and she imagines her SPF 100 pale skin losing its remaining color slowly, eventually taking on a cool blue shade.

As she disintegrates in to the pool, her friends are nowhere in sight, Lulu wonders why no one chose the blue tail before her. She had secretly wanted it all along, but she never is one to take anything from someone else if they can get it first. Blue is her eyes, Sadie’s eyes, the color of the prettiest butterflies she can imagine, the walls of her room in her grandparents’ Cape Cod house. Blue is the bright blanket of the sky that peeks out as Lulu watches the clouds slowly crawl and whirl above her, and the cooling, crystal, chlorine sea beneath her.

Why wouldn’t anyone want something so wonderful?

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PURPLE COAT RED HAT SOCIETY

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Nonbinary writer and activist Alok Vaid-Menon writes in their book Beyond the Gender Binary, “The days I feel most beautiful are the days that I am most afraid.”

I am in the Kappa Sigma basement in sophomore year without the girls of my now-defunct sorority to keep me feeling safe. I am in a three-story house owned and operated exclusively by men. I am wearing a cropped shirt and laughably ripped pants (pants that made Chancellor Wrighton’s wife point and laugh when she saw them on Mardi Gras). However, I am one of around six non-frat-men in attendance, so it’s more like the opening of a cautionary tale told to incoming freshmen. I am in the basement, covered in paint and sweat, and I am talking to a boy who had always been nice to me when other men weren’t. He was on my freshman floor two doors down, always said hi, and we were by all intents and purposes acquaintances. I am in the basement alone while Bohemian Rhapsody plays loudly, making it next to impossible to make small talk without leaning in closer, closer, closer.

WRITING Isabelle Jefferis CREATIVE Carina Greenberg, Dylan Stein PHOTOGRAPHY Catherine Herlihy, Avi Arora EDITING Catherine Herlihy STYLING Abbie Leonard FEATURING Lena Bekheit, Haley Joy Harris, Mai-Han Nguyen

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I am in the basement when this boy, one of the few generally non-threatening straight men in my mental list of straight men who are fine, not great, but fine, leans in to ask me a series of questions. This boy will hereby be referred to as H. I am in the basement when H earnestly asks, “so are you actually 50/50, or are you a full lez?”

I am unfazed by this line of questioning, because being a queer person in greek life means that I am constantly explaining the intricacies of my sexual preferences to other people, to show that I’m cool. I’m a Cool Queer Person when I answer whether I’m a top or a bottom, whether I’ve had a threesome (always implied as involving me, a man, and a woman), whether I’m really 50/50 or if I’m just a girl with daddy issues who hasn’t been fucked by the right man. So, in my Cool Queer Person persona, I answer that yes, I am a bisexual.

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H nods, and I realize that I am passing a test that I never agreed to take in the first place.

He continues, “So, who’s better in bed, men or women?”

I answer honestly, coolly. “Women, they understand the female body for obvious reasons.” H turns up one corner of his mouth and replies, “Oh, so you’ve never been with a man that knows the female body?”

I choose to ignore this one, or I might stop being the Cool Queer Person and not be invited to parties anymore.

“You know what I like about you? You just don’t give a shit. Like I see you walking around in your outfits and I’m like, ‘Yeah, she just doesn’t give a shit.’ Like, you seem like you’d be down for a casual fuck.”

And there it is. I am a sexual candidate, so my queerness is simply accessory to my attractiveness, to my femininity, to my personhood. …

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Alok says in their book, “I do not have the luxury of being. I am only seen as doing.”

Visibly queer people’s existences are never understood as passive, it is always approached as an unspoken question awaiting an uninformed answer from passerby. I recently came out as non-binary, and I have been grappling with how my femininity, and in particular the femininity encoded in my clothing, relates to my identity as someone who does not identify as simply man or woman. After wearing a uniform from preschool through highschool, and then moving to a school for senior year with no uniform or dress code, I began to find identity in clothing. I found that I love being a shapeshifter in the way I can frame and present my body. For a full year I almost exclusively wore foam wedge platform boots that made me 5’9”. I recently found that I love the freedom afforded to me by dresses and skirts, and that I feel beautiful when I wear something that carries with the air as I walk. I also love jeans that hug my hips and hang, because 40

class. Everything I do carries with it a statement about the kind of person I am, which for a long time meant that I felt I had to do what was expected of me to be desirable. I wear my hair long to show that I’m feminine, I show off my boobs in a tasteful way to show that I’m sexy but not sexual, I proudly state that I don’t have to wear foundation, just concealer and mascara. But the question we need to ask is this: If everything I do and say carries with it judgement, why shouldn’t I live in the way I want to? If there is no way out of this maze of eyes, why can’t I present myself in the way that makes me happiest? And therein lies the rub.

it completely changes the shape of my legs.

Clothing allows me to change and frame my body at will, and I find comfort in that control. …

Deborah Tannen’s landmark essay, There is No Unmarked Woman, explores the idea of “marked” as denoted by linguistic theory.

She writes that, “the unmarked form of a word carries the meaning that goes without saying -- what you think of when you’re not thinking anything special... I asked myself what style we women could have adopted that would have been unmarked, like the men’s.

The answer was none. There is no unmarked woman.” …

As someone who is read as female, I cannot make a choice without telling the world about myself. I cannot wear clothing or makeup without inviting judgement about my interests, my sex life, my political beliefs, my ISSUE NO. 26

Gender is infinite, queerness is infinite, and identity is infinite. There are as many types of gender presentation that exist as there are people on earth, regardless of one’s status within the binary. This is not about eliminating the category of man or woman, this is about understanding how these are two of an infinite range of identities that one can hold, and that we are able to define them ourselves. This is freedom, and by choosing to wear bright colors and clothing that makes me happy, I am choosing to live my life as a person whose presentation is not restricted by arbitrary boundaries, but instead as something fluid, ever waxing and waning.

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells And run my stick along the public railings And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

— From “Warning” (1961) by Jenny Joseph 41

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WRITING Haley Joy Harris PHOTOGRAPHY Katherine Herlihy DIRECTION Emily Hanson FEATURING Kamy Chong Julia Herzig

Romanticize THIS ISSUE NO. 26

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I. “Literature does its best to maintain that its concern is with the mind; that the body is a sheet of plain glass through which the soul looks straight and clear, and, save for one or two passions such as desire or greed, is null, negligible and non-existent. On the contrary, the very opposite is true. All day, all night the body intervenes; blunts or sharpens, colours or discolours, turns to wax in the warmth of June, hardens to tallow in the murk of February.” —Virginia Woolf, On Being Ill II. At the moment I was Birthed I swear I Choked into this world. I Did not mean to Enter this way. Water in my lungs. It was late Fall. I was a Girl, they said, because I did Happy dances inside. Nine months Imagined. Grand Jetés, Not Kicks.

Learned these Maneuvers in utero. I am Not what you ordered but I can Offer you this Plate you cannot send back. I Quieted my insides. A Ruby ceased Shining. It chipped, lost Tint. I brought you into this world. Fractures Under polished Veneers.

Wild fissures only X-rays reveal. Would you still rub your belly if You knew I was tarnished? That my Zeal would one day run dry?

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III. On sick days in my youth, Grandma prepared large ceramic mugs of hot water and honey. She’d send me to the front porch where the Southern California sun could pour in through my chest, out through my breath.

IV. I do not mean to romanticize this. It’s not romantic.

V. My lungs gave in when I was five. I remember an unfamiliar bed with stiff white sheets, laying inches from a thumb-sized vial of my own blood. Neon blared from the television. Everything was vivid. Blurred.

VI. In the years following this hospitalization, I spent weekends playing “doctor” with my dolls. I’d line them all up, tuck them under blankets, pretend to check their temperatures.

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I told them they would be all right—but they must lay very still.

VII. Pepto Bismol was invented in 1901 as a treatment for infants with cholera. In all of its 100+ years, it has been pink, created with artificial colors Red 22 and Red 28. At various points in its manufacturing history, the drug could have undergone a color-switch— mint green, chalk white. Pink stuck. A bubble-gum hue chosen to reduce fear.

VIII. How has fear dictated the urgency of my love? Why do I only awake to love that is nearly gone? Diminishing?

IX. Ovid writes in Ars Amatoria, “Long lovers’ vigils thin their bodies; so do care/ and worry born of some great love affair./ To win

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XII. As artist Hannah Wilke underwent chemotherapy for her terminal cancer, she crafted a series of memento mori. Sculptures: hair, wax, needlepoint. Invaluable and menacing, sitting at the intersection of two domains.

Her words reverberate across lifetimes: “To make art is to take from one’s inner world and make it material, to give it life in the physical realm...to communicate what is otherwise unknowable and save what would otherwise be lost.”

your heart’s desire, look miserable. That way./ ‘This man’s in love’ all observers will say.”

In the age of courtly love, love sickness was thought to be a tangible, diagnosable ailment.

Love synonymous with reduction.

X. Every few years the same film is released to public acclaim— two lovers, one or both of whom is terminally ill. A Walk to Remember.

Sweet November. The Fault in Our Stars.

50/50. Me Before You. Love is made more poignant because it is finite. In this exploitation of terminality for heightened emotional experience, we cannot help but reckon with our own mortality. We cannot look away.

XI. I am trying not to recreate the sick love I’ve experienced, yet I find myself drawn to it cyclically. I feel that I need it, to make art, perhaps, or to complete this circuit of entropy swirling in my chest. I make a choice: I will not fetishize it. I will not let it seep into what I offer.

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XIII. Because art has been displaced from this regularized experience we call being human, we have all become very ill. Siloed into the periphery in compartments, as therapy, as commerce. Our decisions are deprived of it.

We do not encounter it often enough or fully enough to possibly get well.

XIV. At my sickest point, by which I mean the point I nearly suspended trust in my biology, I wrote to myself late one night: Prescription for madness: Waiting for a sick root To reveal its sickness So its pretending stops Infecting the whole crop.

XV. “The creature within can only gaze through the pane—smudged or rosy; it cannot separate off from the body like the sheath of a knife or the pod of a pea for a single instant; it must go through the whole unending procession of changes, heat and cold, comfort and discomfort, hunger and satisfaction, health and illness; until there comes the inevitable catastrophe; the body smashes itself to smithereens, and the soul (it is said) escapes.”— Virginia Woolf, On Being Ill

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WRITING Alya Hollub EDITOR Logan Krohn Haley Joy Harris ILLUSTRATION Lillia Jimenez

2:13 A.M. October 31, 2020.

As I walk up the basement steps, the edge of the last stair demands my curiosity. A silver object dangles like a hypnotist’s pocket watch. Left. Right. Left. Right.

As the distance between us tightens, I realize what the shiny mystery item is: handcuffs. I recall squeezing past a group of four girls from earlier in the night adorned in latex booty shorts, matching v-necks, leather garters, oversized badges, and of course, handcuffs swinging at their itty-bitty hips. I grab the now drunkenly lost handcuffs from the step, quickly stuffing them in my back pocket. The narcs don’t deserve them anyway.

Later that night, I lay beside my rainbow-covered boyfriend. “No one knew I was a Gusher,” he ARMOUR MAGAZINE

whimpers. My sympathies are silent. My stomach responds on my part; it grumbles with White Claw-induced hunger. The warm smell of his Old Spice underarms and sweet Budweiser beer-mouth tempt me.

had a surprise planned. We got in the car, plugged in the address, and landed in Berkeley, Missouri.

As we approached the glass-windowed shop, my boyfriend uttered one word through a giddy grin: “dildos.”

I kiss his neck, which tastes of salt.

With each kiss, his skin ripens. I tilt my head backward, providing him access to my neck. He grazes my collar bone with his lips, paints my neck in kisses, and bites in. The pain is perfect.

In a one-handed swoop, he removes his sweatshirt. Then my going-out top is lost in the bedsheets; finally, he begins to unbuckle his belt. With every exposed inch of flesh, the room boils hotter and hotter.

As we enter, the amalgamated scent of fruity lube and fresh latex penetrate my cloth mask.

His fingers dig into my hand as we stroll the aisles. I absorb each drop of sweat his palm produces, eager to continue. He upheld me as too sweet for deviance, too naive to desire, too virgin to lust. I am going to prove him wrong.

His hand digs into the small of my back and traces down to my black jean shorts. My body drifts. I only exist where he touches me. His hand tenses as his fingers tangle metal in my back pocket. He tugs out an icy object from behind me, revealing the handcuffs. “Whose are these?” he questions.

Interrupted from my trance, I stutter. But my lust grounds me.

“Mine,” I replied.

Within seconds, my hands are intertwined above my head, molded to the cheap metal bed frame. His broad shoulders eclipse the softened light of the room. His hands sculpt the impression of my hips against the mattress. Heat and breath fill the room as he pulls his weight on top of me.

I have never wanted to eat a Gusher so damn bad. *** When I was asked to write about BDSM, I panicked. I needed to up my game. In the spirit of adventurousness, I told my boyfriend I

As we approach the end of Anal Toys Avenue, we find the Hulk Hammer, a ten inch “chubby” dildo. Realistic veins and airbrushed wrinkles wrestle all over the monument. I feel my eyes dilate and widen, trying to decipher the soup can thick dick in front of me. The Hulk Hammer is more than I can handle mentally, much less physically. All it took was ten inches of silicone to make me feel so small.

I pull my distracted boyfriend into the next aisle to catch my breath. We stumble into walls tiled in cased DVDs. As a film fanatic, each porno soothes my early discomfort. Ocean’s 11 Inches. ET: The Extra Testicle. Breast Side Story. Sorest Rump. I am brought home.

Suddenly, my boyfriend grabs a leather whip from the BDSM section. He jokingly whips twenty inches of leather against my sweatpant-covered ass. I slap him back, despite my surprising enjoyment of the leather against my unsuspecting skin.

As we continue through the shop, I take note of each threatening item hanging innocently. I can’t help but lose myself in the erotic imagery.

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CHERRY POP ROCKS ISSUE NO. 26

1. Robert Mapplethorpe Joe Rubberman, 1978 “Mapplethorpe + Munch” at Munch Museum, Oslo 2. Robert Mapplethorpe Smutty, 1982 3. Robert Mapplethorpe Leather Croth, 1980 “Robert Mapplethorpe” at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary ART, HELSINKI (2015) 4. Robert Mapplethorpe Thomas, 1987

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How would THAT go THERE? I am caught at the bustling intersection of fear and curiosity: the Alien Anal Intruder, a sixteen-piece kit of urethral inserts, high-capacity, double sealed nipple suckers (clamp not included), and cheetah leash with matching harness-- eerily similar to the one my ten-pound Shih-Tzu models daily. My brain demands a tense throb in each corresponding limb and orifice.

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“Can we go?” my boyfriend tugs at my hand, pulling me back into the present.

“We aren’t leaving until we buy something,” I respond. I stood silently in front of a wall of lavalamp-shaped butt plugs when he motions for me.

His hand fumbles through the hundreds of cheap nick-nacks at checkout. His voice deepens in tone, as he feigns erotic experience and comfort. A lopsided smirk pushes his dimples out as he chirps, “Oral sex candy. Fizzing. Popping.

Bursting. Just sprinkle some in your mouth and go down for the ride of your life. Made in China. 69 *wink* calories.” I begin to believe he too has been devoured by the ARMOUR MAGAZINE

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sex-shop rabbit hole.

After much deliberation, we settled on cherry. Blue raspberry was a close second. We walk out of the store as champions. On the ride home, “S&M” by Rihanna plays.

Volume: MAX. I belt, “chains and whips excite me.” *** My brief adventure at a sex shop in rural Missouri by no means makes me an expert on bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other related practices. But it has motivated me to learn more about the kink community and the problems it faces.

I’ve learned that pop culture often utilizes BDSM as a sort of quick fix for a sexual edge, stripping this community of nuance to gain a manufactured sense of taboo.

The fashion industry frequently samples the subculture, mass-producing garments without attention to the community they come from.

Fascinating fetish objects- whips, vests, collars, and catsuits- become neutered. Their cultural placement is generalized as dangerous, alluring, and villainous. The assimilation of BDSM elements into fashion trickles out into music, television,

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and film. The lack of context or care in the imagery gives a superficial understanding of BDSM. Consumers are granted the opportunity to adopt kink as an outfit for a few hours. At the end of the day, they can take off their studded leather and still perceive the community as deviant and degraded.

In my casual research and conversations, I realized how complex and wonderful the BDSM community can be.

In it, individuals explore their bodies and build relationships. Experts emphasize the roles of consent and communication in all aspects of play. Many facets of kink extend past just penatrative sex and include entire lifestyles.

In the sub-culture, so many people have found meaning, belonging, identity, and pleasure community has been misrepresented as a purely sexual cesspool that indulges animal impulse and bypasses human respect. Many of my favorite brands, movies, and artists have contributed to this othering.

Even Rihanna is guilty.

a whip or picking up a paddle. It is more than an outfit. For members of the BDSM community, their preferences are part of their identity, not something that can be removed or taken off. The relationship between the dominant and the submissive relates to psychological roots and a sense of self. This is not a sexual practice but a union of pleasure, work, and community.

I still feel I am the wrong person to write this article, and that will never change. Yet before being tasked with exploring BDSM, I was unaware of its capacity for liberation. I pushed judgment on people who were freer than I ever was or ever hoped to be.

After our experimentation with horny Pop Rocks, my boyfriend and I pooled the courage to return to our haven, Hustler Hollywood in Berkeley, Missouri. Yet, this time, we left the store with an extra pip in our step, and a toy or two in our bag. So, can we get rid of the stereotype that participants of BDSM are freaks? Because I think I might just become one of them.

Until 2010, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classified BDSM practices as a sign of mental illness. Pleasure becomes a source of social and personal stigmatization. Especially for people of color and the LGBTQ+ community, engagement with BDSM is labeled as evidence of sexual immorality.

BDSM is more than just striking

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Transgressing I am the sort of person who craves clearly defined boundaries, like structures and lines with obvious spaces that need to be filled.

As the page transforms from white emptiness into a tapestry of color, the background chatter and buzz of my brain is muted.

I do not scribble spontaneously, without a plan or strategy, but fill in one block of white space after another methodically.

One even stroke after another, the felt tip of my marker slowly consumes the empty boundaries and breathes life into the page.

I am here today because one woman and then another were deemed worthy enough to be taught how to read.

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DIRECTION Isabelle Jefferis Logan Krohn WRITING Alaina Baumohl

ILLUSTRATION Elise Dean Wolf EDITOR Meyme Nakash Logan Krohn

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My grandmother, my mother’s mother, was raised in Běiliú, China.

It was uncommon to educate daughters when she was a girl, but she was lucky.

Her literacy allowed her to immigrate to America where she had my mom, who then had me.

Without my grandmother’s literacy, the digestion and regurgitation of letters, I would not be here.

I come back to that fact, the root of it all, when I find myself taking these gifts of understanding and communication for granted.

I feel the presence of my ancestors in the letters I consume and spit back out for the world to see.

Their literacy has vested in me the power to write whatever story for myself that I want there to be.

Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the confining emptiness of an unfilled page, I see possibility and potential in my future.

I can rearrange the letters or the lines on the page and make them take me wherever I wish to go.

— I take comfort in knowing that I come from a line of women who took the rules presented to them, and colored beyond those boundaries.

In moving outside of what was expected of them, they have given me a seemingly boundless space to fill with whatever colors or letters I desire.

They laid a foundation of intricate sketches that will help guide me as I begin to put down some lines of my own.

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LETTER FROM T Human:

DIRECT O

Upload your pictures. Download new software. Facetime your family, text your friends.

Screen lights up. Finger scrolls down. Screen goes black. What reflects back?

These days, we don’t just use the glossy phones and ubiquitous electronics sold to us in the masses: we accessorize with them.

Where traditional accessories (the charm bracelets and the mini purses) live analogically beside us, the vast digital capacity of New-Age Electronics allow devices to be accessories of higher stakes. They assist in one’s ARMOUR MAGAZINE

construction and understanding of selfhood and begin to merge with our identities.

Take a look at your Google Drive files, your Photos application, your Instagram feed, and your scattered digital Notes.

Each one reflects the process of unloading experiences and memories onto devices. Each one proves devices to be mere housing ports for us to funnel remnants of experiences. So when they reach their inevitable shelf-lives, they become complex pieces of trash: reflections of humanity, remnants of time, and ghosts of ourselves.

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THE WEB

OR

The technological “upgrade cycle” and the pressure of “relevance” are inextricable. We need our material media to be relevant so that we can engage with our peers and simply use our devices– ever try to update the software on an iPhone 4s?

Meanwhile, we need our electronics to be relevant to remain “on trend.” But once we’re done with our playthings and vices, what does abandonment hold? It’s not as simple as clearing the trash bin on your computer. What does mass abandonment of material media mean for our economy?

Our environment? Our Legacy? We’re at the whim of a collection of servers.

WRITING Lu Gillespie DIRECTION Josie Zimmerman, Isabelle Roig STYLING Kamy Chong Josie Zimmerman PHOTOGRAPHY Mai-Han Nguyen, Isa Zisman FEATURING Katie MacPherson G Hao Lee

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The Terrestrial: There’s an ancient African proverb that reads “when elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers.” Now, when Tech giants compete to push new products and technology into an ugly cycle of consumption, it’s most glaringly the people and the earth that endure the pain. With this comes the inevitable obsoletion of our electronics, swept away to offshore landfills. The ports that receive this E-Waste are oversaturated, leading to improper recycling practices that allow toxic chemicals to leach from once-so-shiny devices. These toxins, emitting into airways and seeping into water sources, are ultimately a reflection of ourselves. During the decomposition of our organic bodies into the earth, the chemicals and information that leach out transfer into nutrients for the soil. The chemicals and information that we have systematically offloaded onto devices do no such thing. The process of deleting a file from your computer is so simple: drag a file to the trash bin, then empty the bin. The computer erases the reference to that file from your computer. Poof. Gone forever? Maybe not.

Even when a file is deleted it often remains on a computer’s harddrive until it is fully overridden. When E-waste decomposes where do these files and memories go?

Growth and decay coexist indefinitely in nature. Somewhere along the way an illusory line was plotted between human consumption and nature’s rot. Teetering on this line is the necessity for the very electronics that consume us. The very electronics that pump waste into our earth are the ones that provide us new avenues for art, identity, education, and salvation. We have never stopped to ask ourselves if this salvation is worth the toll it takes on Mother Nature: the environment itself now must bear the memories of human salvation.

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The Cosmos: Now, with our constant upgrade cycle, the once so clear structures of Time collapse around us. Our years now defined by the latest iPhone, our days by the constant influx of the 24 hours news cycle, and our hours by the time that slips from us as we scroll and scroll and scroll on social media.

As the lifespan of our devices shrinks further, we must reflect on what happens to our obsolete items when they are no longer of use. When devices are constructed to become an intimate piece of us, they in turn become an intimate piece of our history and legacy. It is a story so clearly told by the devices we interact with and the memories we store.

But while our new electronic “world” extends the limits of our imaginations and capabilities, we must not muddle this newage Universe with the existing one that we inhabit. While devices creep into our livelihoods, we remain as mere footnotes in history. If we are not intentional about the information that we offload onto our devices, we may lose ourselves, becoming footnotes, too, of the electronic worlds we have created. The chemicals and materials that our devices produce will long outlive us. Perhaps they may even outlive a fleeting organic earth. What we leave behind in landfills and recycling centers is more than scrap metal and broken batteries: it is the pieces of ourselves that we have lost.

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WRITING Coleen Avila Ahmed Motiwala Milo Santiago PHOTOGRAPHY Anika Kumar Anjali Reddy

EDITOR Nisha Mani FEATURING Lu Folsey Jared Wilson Nafkot Seife Faith Phillips

DIRECTION Jonah Thornton Colleen Avila Izzy Jefferis STYLING Thulan Unsoeld Faith Phillips Noor Bekhiet

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GROUNDING ASPECT An Armour x Colour Collaboration

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Introduction

Liberty and soil bleed the same fertile brown; neither is owned, but maintained - loved, raked through, kissed and fought for, rained on, turned into spirits. Both are our livelihood. Both are owed to us.

Brown earth freedom will always be revived where it has been lost…

I suppose that we all have different definitions of freedom.

Here liberation is space. Liberation is reclamation. More than that, it’s fun, rest, finally, no more wild west colonizer cowboys, city slicker slimy businessmen.

Here we are powerful, not finally, but visibly. This all has been ours this whole time. With brown as our grounding aspect, we explore reclamation of these two figures and fashions which brown and Black people have been disremembered or unincluded from in the white American imaginary.

- Colleen Avila

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Vignettes in Sepia

brown skin, brown eyes, brown bodies gloomy nights spent huddled in cozy quarters no longer, star-crossed lovers, never meant to be maybe they meet again in another lifetime brown soil, brown seeds, brown bodies saplings spring forth, burgeoning life from dirt comes flesh and blood and to the earth it will all return brown leaves, brown papers, brown bodies gently rolled up, bound tightly in wraps lips pressed and flames sparked the smoke is all a façade brown books, brown pages, brown bodies the Seeker of Truth peers relentlessly through volumes, cover to leathery cover all Knowledge resides within them brown bodies, brown bodies, brown bodies history built upon their backs and of their brow sent back to Mothers to fight for Fathers in a bloody divorce. the Children of God are all orphans.

- Ahmed Motiwala

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La Iglesia

la iglesia stands empty now, and her cobblestone courtyard would lie barren if not for the ahuehuete trees, whose branches are embraced tenderly by slender vines even as their roots struggle against cracked and aged pavement which serves both as a suffocation and as the path from earth to hell to damnation to sanctity and back to where the ahuehuete wait, the old men of the water, eternal sentinels of Eden’s garden. where Sunday after service was once punctuated by vendors’ cries of prices baratos and tapestries bellezas ringing throughout the pueblo and city-life noises, inca doves cooing from atop sun-faded gazebos and passersby grasping their children by the hand as they signal for un taxi, the stray dog lapping sticky sweetness melting from a forgotten paleta, paper kites drifting lazily across the skyline and observed by old men peeling ripe mangoes on a bench. in the evening, music from mariachi bands overflowed into the streets, and children and couples would begin to dance. a bronze statue, jesus lies prostrated on the ground-yet his gaze is pointed towards the heavens, and his silence is challenged only by the sun, el sol, golden rays glancing off of brown metal and brown bodies, into brown eyes and across brown weathered hands which belong to mi mama y mi abuela, whose lips form the same prayer whispered breathlessly to a hollow god in an empty square.

- Milo Santiago ISSUE NO. 26

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WRITING Sidney Speicher PHOTOGRAPHY Mai-Han Nguyen DIRECTION Meyme Nakash, Sophie Roig EDITOR Sophie Goldstein ARMOUR MAGAZINE

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COLOR ME

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FU S DE

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nail pol·ish noun A chemical concoction painted on human fingernails that is neither applied like makeup, nor worn like clothing; neither temporary like an accessory, nor permanent like a tattoo; A sign of both conformity and defiance.

Are there limits to its versatility?

The adornment’s surface level allure - color - is carefully selected by its wearer and indicative of one’s thoughtfulness or attention to detail – well manicured hands are associated with elevated societal rank. Sometimes, the basis of a color’s selection is arbitrary, but often it serves to complement an outfit or be indicative of (or serve to incite) a specific mood.

Nail polish is a conduit for self expression.

Starting at a young age, children see it as a way to toe the line of adulthood. Teenagers rely on nail polish to explore their artistry.

The fashion industry has commoditized nail polish to an extreme degree, using it to emphasize and highlight outfits on the runway. This self expression, while seemingly limitless, remains quietly confined by society. Societal expectations have found a way to shroud even the smallest of actions - such as painting one’s nails - in an atmosphere of doubt and uncertainty.

In order to consider the role of societal expectations and nail polish, it is important to explore the characteristics of nail polish that inspire such controversy. The first is the role of color, and how it has been historically gendered and similarly stereotyped. Young girls are dressed in pale pink and boys in blue; the previous are rarely viewed as being interchangeable. And though there are colors that society has deemed appropriate for men, any color, once in nail polish form, is conflated with femininity. Such associations are enduring; though the fashion industry has made significant strides in recent years regarding gender and color and style, adornment in the form of nail polish is still restricted to specific, arbitrarily-defined realms.

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debated is a testament to underlying societal concerns. This same concern is seen in regard to nail length and nail art. In returning to the previous discussion about unspoken rules, there seems to be a ‘socially acceptable’ length for different events. Long nails, for instance, are often considered exaggerated and unnecessary (an argument that Cardi B, Billie Eilish, and other celebrities have begun to contest when wearing their 3 inch long nails to red carpet events and the grammys). This concern ties back into the role of stereotypes and expectations - long nails are often associated with partying and having fun, not with professional board meetings or formal black tie events. Nail art has a similar role - aside from the more amusing ‘social faux pas’ of wearing Fourth of July nails on Valentines day there are also expectations for what kind of nail art aligns with specific outfits or social interactions.

There are a number of expectations for when, where, and why nail polish is to be worn. The previous is due, in part, to the associations and stereotypes people harbor towards different colors. Red, for instance, is associated with passion, confidence, love and fury. It is also used to signify deviance.

Yellow and green are often associated with springtime and renewal, happiness and light.

These associations - and physical/visualappearance of nail polish - all come together in the overarching societal expectations.

The fact that this concept of femininity continues to hinder our perceptions of nail polish feels outdated; and the fact that such a simple act of wearing nail polish is at all

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Social expectations, then, have hindered people’s willingness to wear long nails or specific colors or unique nail art to certain events. They have instilled in us a sense of right and wrong in relation to nail polish. Such expectations are seen most heavily in relation to religion, professionalism, and age.

One wouldn’t expect to see vampire nail art at church, or 3 inch long nails at an executive meeting, or neon orange nails on a 65 year old woman. With gender, the societal expectations of men not wearing nail polish is perhaps a result of and factor into toxic masculinity. With nail polish - and its colors being associated with femininity, it can be nerve-wracking for a man to experiment with the product. There is the societal pressure of fitting in and conforming; to wear nail polish would be to defy this and run the risk of social strife. Then, from a professional lens, women work hard to maintain their professional perception. In order to be considered a viable member of a team or company, women feel the social pressure of being seen in a very specific light; they should be prim, proper. They shouldn’t be drawing unnecessary attention to themselves by wearing long bright red nails.

(This, then, raises a question about professional expectations, though this may require its own

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discussion).

What, then, are the effects of such societal expectations? For one thing, it impacts people’s comfort with self expression. Growing up, I remember feeling hesitant about wearing nail polish to school because I worried about what people thought. One of the greatest things about nail polish is the attention it draws and the confidence it instills in the wearer; societal expectations or stereotypes shouldn’t take away from this. Further, the controversy around proper nail polish colors or length perpetuates issues around gender norms and stifles the very foundation of fashion. Then there are the underlying contradictions of nail polish making people feel self conscious when it was designed to bolster confidence; the fact that it genders and stereotypes colors; the fact that it is a simultaneous sign of maturity and youth; the fact that it is a crucial element of the fashion industry and yet remains somewhat constrained.

All of the listed issues, however, provide an opening for change. The fact that there are stereotypes allows for them to be broken or pushed against; they have made nail polish an easy avenue for rebellion. Length and color can be altered easily; nail art has become its own art medium and social craze; it’s an activity that can be done in one sitting amongst friends or while listening to music on a Friday night. Nail polish is an eye catcher; it reflects the light, compliments an outfit, bolsters people’s confidence, and is used as a conversation starter. It is a quiet way of pushing against the boundaries of societal expectation.

As mentioned before, consider celebrity icons like Billie Eilish. Through her haunting songs, baggy clothes, dyed hair, and long, detailed nails Billie is renowned for her ability to defy societal expectations. Early on in her career, she was both praised and criticized for her disregard for social constraints.

Her mentality was one of self love; she decided to pursue and wear and write what

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felt most honest to her values. Today, she is more admired for this outlook than anything else. The fact that Billie used nail polish as an avenue for rebellion is a testament to its potential to change the tide of societal norms.

Even if it was as small as seeing longer nails at work or outrageous nail art at formal events or men sporting any color in their daily life, nail polish can be used to incite change and inspire society to reconsider stereotypes.

Even if it’s as small as wearing bright red to work or unique nail art to church or formal events. It’s important to remember that the listed issues lack a clear line. At what specific age, exactly, are people expected to stop wearing flashy colors? For what types of jobs, exactly, are people encouraged to wear clear or light colors? At what religious events, exactly, do people feel comfortable wearing nail polish to? For all of the social constraints people are expected to follow there is a lot of grey area and as such, we should allow ourselves to paint our own rules.

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