who’s on staff? editorial EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Liv Velarde CREATIVE DIRECTOR Paige Wilson FEATURES EDITOR Amber Mitchell PRINT FASHION EDITORS Elena Odulak Alana Valko DIGITAL FASHION EDITOR Alexa DeFord PRINT DESIGN EDITORS Katie Beukema Xinyi Liu
business PUBLISHER Serena Pergola ACCOUNTS DIRECTOR Connie Zhang
DIGITAL DESIGN EDITORS Aliya Falk Manda Villarreal
MARKETING DIRECTOR Christi Suzuki
PRINT PHOTO EDITORS Kenzie King Becca Rudman
FINANCE COORDINATORS Savannah Klein Ella Radice
DIGITAL PHOTO EDITOR Francesca Romano
EVENTS COORDINATOR Courtney O’Beirne
STREET STYLE EDITOR Evan Parness
OUTREACH COORDINATOR Ellie Benson
MANAGING PHOTO EDITOR Benji Bear
ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Claire Dickerson
VIDEO EDITOR Rosalie Li
DISTRIBUTION COORDINATOR Colleen Jones
DIGITAL CONTENT EDITOR Emily Benderoff
SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR Molly Shulan
ILLUSTRATOR MANDA VILLARREAL
SHEI /’sh(ay)/ Magazine was founded in 1999 as an Asian Pop Culture Magazine and became affiliated with University of Michigan Student Publications in 2013. Our Digital Magazine, known as SHIFT at the time, was launched in 2015. Since then, SHEI has grown to campus wide recognition as a publication that students can come to for fashion, art, and culture commentary and inspiration.
who’s on staff?
contributing members STYLISTS Anish Basavalingiah Elizabeth Haley Amreen Kanwal Olivia Keener Krit Kosoltrakul Katarina Kovac Juan Marquez Jess Peterkins Alexandra Plosch Jenny Ruan Jasmine Smith Jacob Ward Abby Ziemkowski WRITERS Kate Cammell Lauren Champlin Sophie Cloherty
PHOTOGRAPHERS Eliz Akgun Alex Andersen Katie Corbett Dana Dean Julia Dean Natalie Guisinger Amira Hassan Michelle Lin Juan Marquez Gwen McCartney Dana Papandreadis Robina Rranza GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Maddie Fox Mackenzie Schwedt
GOOD TIME
CHARLEY’S TUESDAY
APRIL 22ND
STARTING 9PM 18+ EVENT
FUNDRAISER
SHEI X LIVE IN COLOR
EVOLUTION Mural Installation for Bookmarks: Speculating the Future of Books & Library On Display Hatcher Graduate Library March 26 - May 26, 2019 Reception Shapiro Undergraduate Library March 27, 5:30-7:30PM
in this issue
MASTHEAD 02 LETTER FRO F NOVEL FULL D STUDENT S
2 OM THE EDITOR 08 FORTIFIED 10 L & NOTABLE: MILKMAN 24 CLUSTERF*CK 30 TIMELESS 40 BREAKING DOWN & BUILDING UP 50 L METAL 52 STREET STYLE 62 DONT DO IT 74 SPOTLIGHT: HARRY EPSTEIN 82
letter from the editor
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March and I aren’t always on the best of terms. Yes, we just peeled back a layer of time and gained an hour of light in the evening, which is a good reminder that we’re not always so cold and miserable. It is much easier to trudge through the cold rain when it’s not dark at 5PM, but I’ve still been staring wistfully at the light jackets hanging lonely in the closet. We’re on the edge of spring and Michigan likes to give us a little sunshine here, a few balmy days there, but there’s no denying that we’re in a liminal space. One day I’m sitting on a bench in the law quad, finishing up some reading and the very next, it’s back to huddling against the wind like an emperor penguin. I’m excited for the day when we toe over the line into spring without jumping right back over the next day. For now, we can enjoy the edge knowing that day is forthcoming. In the meantime, the SHEI fashion team gives us the “Full Metal” photoshoot on page 52, blending chic lines with industrial harshness and some of the best accessorizing I’ve seen. “Timeless” 40 gives
us a view of the moody restaurant and lobby of Ann Arbor’s Graduate Hotel which evokes a time and place where a dining room like that would smokey and full of intrigue. From across the Atlantic, one of our Design Editors, Aliya Falk, gives us a glimpse of sunnier days with a photoshoot showcasing handmade jewelry and the colorful alleyways of Seville, Spain. SHEI’s writers transport us to places with no outer limits. In Kate Cammell’s column, Novel and Notable 24, she discusses Milkman by Anna Burns which is filled to the brim with contradictions, maybes, and in-betweens and how those should be embraced, rather than rejected for their complexity. On page 50, Lauren Champlin writes about the boundaries we build up and how we must tear them down in order to be truly known, even though that will certainly make us uncomfortable. Genuine human connection is a worthy cause and I hope you walk away from Lauren’s piece looking at your own walls and wondering whether they still serve you.
Liv Velarde Editor-In-Chief
Fortified
PHOTOGRAPHER ALIYA FALK GRAPHIC DESIGNER ALIYA FALK MODEL GABBY CIUTEIKIS LOCATION THE ROYAL ALCAZAR OF SEVILLE instagram: @creativelybygabby
Jumpsuit - Stradivarius
Dress - Zara Earrings - made by Gabby herself out of polymer clay
Novel&Notable
Book Review Milkman by Anna Burns Middle sister, full of striking commentary and wit, is the 18-year old narrator of Anna Burns’s latest novel, Milkman. And middle sister, well, her trouble begins with her whole habit of reading-while-walking. Because that’s not done where she’s from. And where she’s from, you do what’s done. Recipient of the 2018 Man Booker Prize, Milkman, takes place in an unnamed town of Northern Ireland. A town that many speculate is based on Burns’s own hometown, Belfast. Published by UK’s Faber and Faber in May, the US edition was only just published in December by Graywolf Press. The book follows middle sister as she navigates social norms during The Troubles, Ireland’s ethno-nationalist conflict in the 1970s. Middle sister is known within the community as a “beyond-thepale,” which is the phrase used to describe people who don’t conform to the unspoken, yet deeply revered standards of her community. As mentioned, middle sister gets this reputation from burying her nose in novels as she walks. She claims it’s for intentional ignorance. Because seeing what’s going on around her is knowledge and “knowledge didn’t guarantee power, safety or relief and often for some it meant the opposite of power, safety and relief.”
I won’t comment on the irony of reading for ignorance, because Burns leaves that unspoken as well. Aside from the reading, middle sister also draws community attention for her rumored relationship with a high-ranking political dissident known as the milkman. That rumor is false, but no one believes her. Middle sister isn’t dating the milkman, she’s being stalked by the milkman. Which makes her one-year-old “maybe-relationship” with her partner, “maybe-boyfriend,” rather tricky. Not to mention, maybe-boyfriend is from the “community down-theroad,” and he’s also from the “wrong religion.” But middle sister barely has time to think about all of that while also navigating tenuous relationships with family members stratified by opposing views. Written in stream of conscious style, the language is as heady and nonsensical as The Troubles themselves. But the language is also whip-smart and wonderful. It asks for time and attention. And when put in, it offers great reward. Milkman is what author Zadie Smith would refer to as a “difficult gift,” or, as David Foster Wallace says, art which “forces you to work hard to access its pleasures, the same way that in real life, true pleasure is usually a by-product of hard work and discomfort.” And to be clear, Milkman is a difficult gift.
WRITER KATE CAMMELL PHOTOGRAPHERS NATALIE GUISINGER ALEX ANDERSEN GRAPHIC DESIGNER MADDIE FOX
Really. Punctuation is erratic. Sentences go for walks down the page. And the writing is hard to digest because it often feels too close to home. Burns writes, “There was the fact that you created a political statement everywhere you went, and with everything you, did, even if you didn’t want to” and “It seemed, listening to him, that if a person was determined, they could make an argument out of anything.” Although Milkman takes place forty-some years prior, middle sister’s existence feels hauntingly similar to the ever-divisive political era we know, which makes Burns’s writing a treasure to work through now. Much of middle sister’s life is governed by this sense of political division. Burns writes, “‘Us’ and ‘them’ was second nature: convenient, familiar, insider.’” But mostly her life is ruled by words and the delineation, fear, and power they illicit. In middle sister’s community, words are far scarier than the threat of violence. Because words mark, categorize, and partition. They draw boundaries. Perhaps this is why none of the characters in Burns’s novel have a proper noun name. Maybe it’s why Britain is called “the country over the water,” and Ireland referred to as “the country over the border.” Perhaps this too, is why the novel itself is
divisive amongst the literary community for its verbose style. The novel is also criticized for a lack of action. But while contained and more frequently taking place within the internal world of middle sister, the limited action really mimics the silence of so many of the book’s characters. Silence in which they don’t say what they want to say because of the fear of conflict. Silence in which the women feel trapped out of duty to “feminine convention” and sexual politics. Silence in which readers are reminded of their own inabilities or anxieties for articulation. Milkman is beautifully written, but really, it’s most brilliant for what it chooses to leave unspoken—which is any sort of solution to political and social division. Instead, in Burns’s silence she lets the reader choose to speak up and begin that conversation. Maybe because reading is really knowledge, and knowledge is really power.
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STYLISTS KRIT KOSOLTRA KATARINA KOVA ABBY ZIEMKOW PHOTOGRAPHE KATIE CORBETT GWEN MCCART JUAN MARQUE ROBINA RRANZ GRAPHIC DESI MANDA VILLAR MODELS MICHAEL DEEP KATIE GU MATT LUJAN ANDIE ZIEMKO
AKUL AC WSKI ERS T TNEY EZ ZA IGNER RREAL
P
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Fanny Pack - FILA
Joggers - Asos Platform Sneakers - Dolls Kill Crop Top - Adidas
Leather Coat - Thrifted Velvet Dress - American Apparel Satin Hat - Adidas
STYLISTS AMREEN KANWAL ALEXANDRA PLOSCH PHOTOGRAPHERS DANA DEAN FRANCESCA ROMANO GRAPHIC DESIGNER MANDA VILLARREAL MODELS LAUREN DAY MORGAN GOODRICH LOCATION THE GRADUATE HOTEL
Shoes - Nasty Gal
Tweed Dress - Zara Gold Hoops - Pitaya
Blazer - Marshall’s Turtleneck - Forever 21
Plaid Pants - Free People Brown Jacket - Free People
breaking + One month after she’d broken things off between us, I finally started to feel like I could see myself moving on. I hadn’t yet moved on, but it was then that I’d started to imagine a future without her. One where I wasn’t waiting for her calls, or wondering what it would be like to hear her voice or hold her hand again, or hoping that she’d change her mind and come back with an apology. That future started to feel within reach. There is a painstaking process that comes with falling in love for the first time, one of breaking down and then building up personal barriers. I’d cycled through dreading this process, to hating it, to finally appreciating it. When it’s the first time, there’s no roadmap to follow. My instruction manual was comprised of a series of hypotheticals—heartbreaks I’ve witnessed secondhand, scenarios I’ve seen played out in movies, the heart-wrenching lyrics of my favorite love songs. My whole life, I’d been an observer of love—surrounded by lovers, I always cheered them on and wished them the best. Because I did believe that love existed, but somehow, I also believed that it excluded me. Being in love and being loved in return felt like an exchange I simply couldn’t be a part of.
up
What are you thinking right now? That question often broke the silence that settled into our conversations. Far too quickly, she became an expert at studying the faraway looks on my face, catching me in the act of overthinking, overanalyzing, and bringing my mind back down from the place it wandered off to. Just as she’d done when I sat in the passenger seat of her car, anxiously spinning the rings on my fingers, searching for the right reply, the right way to communicate my fears without scaring her away. What are you afraid of? You, I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell her how much she scared me, how much her power over me scared me. How worried I was that I was becoming too dependent on her too soon. She crossed lines and overstepped boundaries that I’d never let anyone touch. She wanted to know all of me, and for once, I wanted to let someone. In your first relationship, barriers to intimacy exist that need to be broken down. The fear of being vulnerable with another person keeps you from opening your heart to them, and without knowing your own limits, it can be difficult to gauge how much to give your partner. The right amount of attention without being clingy, the right amount of curiosity
without pressuring them into a corner, the right amount of your heart, your space, yourself to offer them without taking up too much of their own. In the end, when was I allowed to be angry? It took me a long time to get to the point where I allowed myself to be angry with her, with myself, with how she ended things. I thought that being angry with her crossed the line of respect that I still had for her. I weighed too much of my self-respect in how I respected others and their space, when in reality, self-re-
spect has to do with how I maintain and occupy my own space, the space I’d neglected after opening it up for another person’s total control. There has to be a balance between how much you give and take, how much of your space you allow others to occupy and how much you control on your own. Two months later, I can see evidence of my self-respect being rebuilt. I’ve stopped trying to forgive someone who doesn’t want or need my forgiveness. I thought that through forgiveness, a fractured relationship could be mended, but attempting to rebuild trust in another person only works if they want to be trusted again. I wanted to make peace with the situation, but I’d realized that she wasn’t struggling or looking to restore that connection that’d been lost—only I was. So I needed to make peace on my own. I can see that peace being made, step by step. I can listen to those songs again without having to skip them. I can drive past places we’d been together without searching for alternate routes. I can stay in the city without constantly looking over my shoulder, worried that I’ll run into her on the street, imagining what I’d do, what I’d say to her. I had to build new boundaries. Ones that are vulnerable enough to let people in while also keeping their contents safe. There is strength in vulnerability, the type of vulnerability that know its limits, knows when it’s given too much. This type of vulnerability isn’t afraid of its strength. It doesn’t steer away from it’s capacity to love. It loves others who are available to be loved, who are available to love in return.
WRITER LAUREN CHAMPLIN GRAPHIC DESIGNER MACKENZIE SCHWEDT
FULL Metal
DIRECTOR JUAN MARQUEZ JENNY RUAN STYLISTS JESS PETERKINS JACOB WARD PHOTOGRAPHERS ELIZ AKGUN JULIA DEAN DANA PAPANDREADIS GRAPHIC DESIGNER MANDA VILLARREAL MODELS NICK HUNTER
T-shirt - Hard Rock Cafe Jacket - Zara Man
Plaid Jacket - Urban Outfitters Fanny Pack - Prada Button Down - Express Sunglasses - Prettylittlething
Trenchcoat - H&M Air Force Ones - Nike Thick Trenchcoat - Uniqlo
STREET STYLE takes New York Ci
ity
PHOTOGRAPHER EVAN PARNESS GRAPHIC DESIGNER MANDA VILLARREAL
Anon
Brod
nymous
Anonymous
@mrbrodybrown dy: “This is yesterday’s outfit!” @thisreadyflesh Derrick: “My style is inspired by depression.”
@f.rabak Francheska: “I’m an arti like I should always be c been experimenting wit media in fashion as wel
@pomrustyjones
Anonymous
ist so I feel colorful. I’ve th mixed ll.”
Anonymous
@captaingeves Christian: “I’d say my fashion is really inspired by rap music. My friend made these earings for me.”
@bing_bangboom Bing: “[My style is inspire the New York City grit.”
Anonymous
Anonymous
ed by]
Anonymous
@spicy.obj @thedomsolo Spicy: “He’s into video games, I’m into anime.”
Anonymous
Skirt - The Loft Sneakers - Nike
DON’T DO IT_ STYLISTS ANISH BASAVALINGIAH ELIZABETH HALEY OLIVIA KEENER JASMINE SMITH PHOTOGRAPHER MICHELLE LIN
GRAPHIC DESIGNER MANDA VILLARREAL MODEL NADIA BAILEY
Orange Dress - Hi-Gloss Apparel Metallic Boots - Doc Martens
Sweater - Forever 21 Overcoat - H&M Pants - Kendall & Kylie
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STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: HARRY EPSTEIN On campus, Harry Epstein describes himself as “the guy with headphones in, tuning out the world,” although the whole time he’s sketching and mapping the future. “I’ll be in class and if I have an idea, even if it’s the day before an exam, I will make sure I get something down.” In black-rimmed glasses and a violet sweatshirt of his own design, Harry is humble and soft-spoken, excited to articulate his visions and comfortable with his voice. Now a second-semester senior set to graduate with a degree in communications, Harry finds that the most consequential component of his time at Michigan has been the web of people he’s come to associate himself with. “Something that has changed recently is that I have gotten better at taking criticism on the little things as well as the big things. I have this network of people who I trust. I trust their vision and I trust their design and I appreciate each and every one of them. I’ll send out designs to ten people before I do something with it and I’ll keep them in the loop about the next steps. It’s been great having this community—friends at Michigan, friends from high school— this little Gracious community.” Harry is the Founder and CEO of Gracious Mfg., a leisure clothing brand that began with a makeshift screen-printing studio in Connecticut just over five years ago. “I was talking to a friend in high school and I heard him use the word gracious kind of out of context. Less than a month later when I was trying to think of names it just clicked.” With some friends and a heat gun from a hardware store, Gracious began.
WRITER SOPHIE CLOHERTY PHOTOGRAPHER AMIRA HASSAN GRAPHIC DESIGNER MANDA VILLARREAL
The summer after high school, Harry secured a pop-up spot in New York. “Most of my first pop-up that we did in New York was screen printed by us. My buddy, Aidan Kaye, an artist and cinematographer who has been very helpful and influential with Gracious, knew a bunch of people and specifically music artists. We drove in together from Connecticut and over 200 people came in throughout the night.” Since then, Gracious has launched its own website and been stocked by three stores, two of which are located in places Harry now calls home: Motivation in Ann Arbor and West NYC in New York City. He’s collaborated with Barth NY, created designs for student DJ group Active and Domeless, been a part of the Michigan Fashion Media Summit, fundraised for Brandon Marshall’s charity, Project 375, and seen his brand worn by Mal on the Joe Budden podcast and on other big names like Kareem “Biggs” Burke. Harry is less concerned with visibility than with remaining loyal to his original concepts. Art, from an early age, has always been his point of confidence. Originally an Art & Design major, he found the program too limiting for his specific kind of art practice. “I realized that I didn’t really like being told what to do with art, I didn’t really like having my art graded, it was a little bit different than high school. It was taking the joy out of art for me.” Communications offered Harry a flexibility that allowed him to curate his education and his time in a way that did not limit his creativity, and instead gave him space to cultivate it. He explains that his process isn’t really a process at all, but rather an amalgamation of moments and images that create associations and resolutions for themselves. “I wish you could see a photo of my desktop,” he laughs, “It’s not even folders, it’s just screenshots. You would throw up, it’s dizzying.” Much like his art process, his cycle of branding, he stresses, must be “organic.”
“I used to put a lot of constraints on myself. I heard you needed to have a brand image or a bible or something to go by, so I would always try to limit my color palettes or focus on specific sizing and not go past a certain point. Then everything would keep changing because I would think ‘oh that’s not right so I need a new set of rules.’ Now essentially everything is just what comes to my mind and I find I can still make it look consistent by holding to what I think my standards for my brand are, which are hard to describe. But I won’t release a piece unless I think it reflective of what I’ve done as a whole. So I guess everything up to this point has helped shape what I’m doing now.” Focused on life after graduation, Harry plans to work in marketing for a financial security startup in New York. In the meantime, he’s fascinated by denim, specifically upcycled denim, focused on a tentative Gracious pop-up in April, multiple collaborations in the works, and of course searching for inspiration. Harry looks forward to the opportunity to devote all his free time to what he loves after he graduates. “I think I’ve finally started to get it—get the marketing, get the design. It’s like these four years were a crash course in what to do and now it’s starting to click.”
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