THE TRANSFORMATIVE ISSUE | OCTOBER 2017
DIGITAL VOLUME 4 | ISSUE 2
DIGITAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Maggie O’Connor
IN THIS ISSUE
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Shannon Maiers FEATURES EDITOR Amber Mitchell FASHION EDITORS PRINT Liv Velarde Alana Valko DIGITAL Audrey Klomparens Blake Pittman DESIGN EDITORS PRINT Katie Beukema Xinyi Liu DIGITAL Aliya Falk PHOTO EDITORS PRINT Becca Rudman Benji Bear DIGITAL Mackenzie King
02. masthead
08. wardrobe rehab
VIDEO EDITOR Paige Wilson
04. from the desk of the editor-in-chief
18. frankie says fashion
DIGITAL CONTENT EDITOR Elena Odulak
06. contributors
22. fluidity of sportswear
PUBLISHER Lauren Ayers ACCOUNTS DIRECTOR Sabrina Zayek MARKETING DIRECTOR Carly Dineen-Griffin ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Ellen Toal DISTRIBUTION COORDINATOR Christi Suzuki FINANCE COORDINATOR Connie Zhang EVENTS COORDINATOR Allison Powell OUTREACH COORDINATOR Kristin Swad SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR Serena Pergola
Our mission is to inform, inspire and engage deeply with the University of Michiga provide a marketable media platform for students to push the boundaries of what
Index | Volume 4 Issue 2
28. into the woods
50. sylvan esso
38. student spotlight
56. style influences more than the surface
42. the power of makeup
59. the ‘90s bounce back
an campus community at the intersection of student and professional life within the fashion industry. SHEI Digital is intended to t has traditionally been possible within print without compromising the level of quality associated with the SHEI brand.
THE TRANSFORMATIVE ISSUE rethinking identity; indulging in metamorphisis
written by Maggie O’Connor layout by Aliya Falk
Letter from the Editor | Volume 4 Issue 1
Fo r t h e Oc to b er i ssue, we began by th in k i n g a b o ut th e mo n th o f October it s e lf . T h e l e aves ra p i dl y tu rn to hues o f red a n d o ra ng e, sca r ves replace s u n g l a sses, an d th e mon th concludes wi th a h o l i d ay centered o n a d ramat ic tr an s f o r ma t i o n o f sel f. As we n o ti ced our s u r ro u n d i n g s q u i te l i teral l y tra nsf or m aro u n d u s , we wa n ted to ex p l ore what it me an s to b e tra n sforma ti ve. How does f as h i o n t r a n s form over ti me? How does s t yle o p er a t e to tra nsform the i n d i vidual? Can a r t o p er a te to i n si gh t ch a n g e in our wo r l d ? Wi t h a n ew tea m o f g en era l me mber s, we j u mp e d h ea d fi rst i nto p ro d uct ion. R e t u r n i n g memb ers co l l a b o ra ted wit h n e w to exe c u t e a seri es of p h o to s hoot s th at c o n si d e re d the rol e o f ch a nge in f as h i o n . Fea t ures wri ters i n vest igat ed th e t r a n sc en dence o f k i tsch gr aphic t-s h i r t s i n to t h e fa sh i on spa ce [ Fr ankie S ays Fa sh i o n , p. 1 8 ] , a nd the spillover e f fe c t t h a t st y l e h a s o n an i nd i vidual’s s e n se o f sel f [ Sty l e In fl u en ces Mo re t han th e S u r f a c e , p . 5 6 ] . Als o i n t h i s i ssue, we ex pl ore the role o f a r t i n g e n era ti ng soci a l a cti on and ch an g e . A r t stu d en t J ord y n Fi shman
shares her ar t ist ic process f or c re atin g her color-laden and imaginative w o rk Incom e Inequalit y, Im agine , feat ure d in th is year ’s Ar t Prize compet it ion. Re ad ab o u t her vision in our f irst mont hly S tu d e n t Spot light column on page 38. The impending H alloween s e as o n inspired our t eams to embrace d ark to n e s and sweeping diaphanous skir t s . In a n o d to t he holiday, f ashion and photo m e m b e rs took to t he woods to shoot Sh e a Wittig and E lena H owes in dramat ic lac e an d sult r y eye makeup [Into t he Wood s , p .28] . Our f ashion t eam also dove in to th e st acks to capt ure Aver y Friedman in j e an on-jean, a plaid t ur t leneck and s kir t, an d maize aviators, creat ing someth in g th at feels equal par t s Alessandro Mic h e le an d John H ughes. See our t eam’s t a ke o n th e resurgence of ‘90 s f ashion on p ag e 59 [The ‘90 s Bounce Back]. I am incredibly proud of t he w o rk th at our t eams have accomplished t h is m o n th . The t alent and ambit ion of our m e m b e rs is t r uly what drives our cont en t f o r w ard . We hope t hat our readers t ake t h e tim e to explore t he pages of t his Octob e r d ig ital issue, and invest igat e t he p o w e r o f f ashion to t r ansf or m and be t ran s f o rm e d .
DIGITAL
october contributors FASHION Susie Meaney Rachel Schwab Meredith Sherbin Alexa Deford Olivia Gregg Paris Morris Adam VanOsdol Olivia Keener Sean Tran Elizabeth Haley Courtney Orbeine Lauren Westphal Blake Pittman
Jenny Ruan Harry Champion Manraj Toor Kamryn Abraskin Rosalie Li Constance Blatt Alexandra Plosch Jennifer Gryka Kelsey Knickerbocker Molly Shulan GiGi Garate Lottie Pickard Maggie O’Connor
FEATURES Maggie O’Connor Amber Mitchell
Jamie Schneider Sophie Cloherty
PHOTO Olivia Gardella Julia Dean Sam Plouff Olivia Keener Anurima Kumar VIDEO Bethany Lehman Warren Lee Claire Plump
Dana Dean Francesca Romano Lingene Yang Robina Rranza Mackenzie King Xinyi Liu Rosalie Li Lauren Day
DESIGN Aliya Falk
Katie Beukema
MODELS Sophia Jaskoski Louise Barnard Avery Friedman
Paris Parker Matt Eby Alyssa Strasser
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Culture. Lifestyle. Michigan.
SHEI Magazine
DIRECTOR Adam Van Osdol MODEL Louise Barnard STYLISTS Olivia Keener Sean Tran Elizabeth Haley Courtney Orbeine PHOTOGRAPHERS Olivia Keener Anurima Kumar LAYOUT Aliya Falk
WARDROBE REHAB
Flannel - Abercrombie & Fitch Belt - Nordstrom Brand
Shirt - Emma & Sam Denim Skirt - Sunset & Spring
Button Down - Ralph Lauren Heels - Feragamo
Jeans - Tommy Hilfiger Lace Up Shirt - Furst Of A Kind
frankie says fa
the transformation of the graphic t
ashion
tee
W
aves of flowing white hair spill around a face half-edged in the dark, almost like a character out of Batman. This is the design on the front of a t-shirt that hangs in the back of my father’s closet from his high school’s 1973 production of Godspell. Rather than representing Jesus, however, this face looks much more like a hybrid of a Michelangelo, Medusa, and David Bowie. “Frankie Says Beat Harvard,” a soft shirt in my mother’s drawer screams in straight black type. Another is printed with a mess of lines trapped in a rectangle, similar to something you might find on the wall of a coffee shop in Chelsea, New York City. Devious oval eyes and primary colored instruments push through the chaos and bring my eyes to the words advertising the Montreux Jazz Festival. My dad pulls this down from a dusty box in the attic and tells me about a man from Australia. I want to wear each one of these graphic tees and relive their stories. This is a fabric trail of the lives my parents lived before mine. In my own closet, I ruffle through a box of shirts that contain the Reese’s pieces logo, a dancing Pop-Tart, and David Archuleta’s face as a faint reminder of the 2009 American Idol Tour. I haven’t worn these tees in years, but they tug at some string in me and, somehow, I’m convinced to put one on. One day, I am obsessed with a shirt I wore to a day camp fifteen years ago and for
another week, I am screaming “Frankie Says Beat Harvard” at everybody I pass. But when did this all begin? When did someone realize I might feel the pull to wear my old camp shirt with a skirt on a Thursday? When did an obscure Jesus drawing become muddled in the mind as a concept of cool? The truth is that us thrifters are a product of a relatively short history of the graphic t-shirt in popular culture. According to Melmarc, a prominent screenprinting company in Santa Ana, California, the very first graphic t-shirt in mainstream media appeared in the iconic film The Wizard of Oz in early 1939. In one obscure scene, the oompa loompas wear brightly colored green shirts with the word OZ in black type. Previously, the only other recorded use of words on shirts was attributed to the army as veterans often wore shirts to be identified and soldiers wore shirts with their rank numbers. Though Oz may have been a reference, it wasn’t until the 1940s and the rise of American actor Marlon Brando that t-shirts found their voice in the world. In his most acclaimed film, A Streetcar Named Desire, Brando sported a form-fitting white t-shirt that pushed him into the spotlight and in 1955, James Dean solidified the t-shirt as a teen-culture staple by appearing in similar fashion in the film Rebel Without a Cause.
As is often the case in the fashion world, what is new and current soon becomes a blank canvas for innovation. Around the same time as James Dean’s fame was peaking, Walt Disney Companies were issuing image licenses and creating T-shirts for advertising purposes. Brands like Guess and Nike were beginning to catch on and use their clothing as vehicles for promotion. However, most, if not all of the credit for the beginning exultation of the graphic tee may be attributed to the booming music industry of the 1960s. The Rolling Stone’s iconic lips and Pink Floyd’s triangle prism each serve as examples and the growing popularity of pop music aided by the rise of MTV brought music t-shirt branding into the 80s and beyond. On the west coast, this new branding frenzy found a simultaneous home in the surf and skate culture of Southern California where brands like Billabong and Quicksilver made a market out of laid back, disenfranchised youth. In the 60s and 70s, the innovative fabrics, new screen-printing technology, and an invigorated obsession for the vintage converged to create the t-shirts often found in our parents’ photo albums. The point of all this history is to present one idea: that to wear a shirt in ignorance of its history is a wholly modern concept. It’s nearly impossible for anyone wearing a Bob Dylan
concert shirt to have actually seen him play “Masters of War” at Newport in 1963. How many people wearing The Rolling Stone’s iconic lips know that they didn’t appear until their 1971 Album Sticky Fingers? There are few who wear these t-shirts that are prepared to talk about the history and meaning behind them. What was once a ticket to the hip side of the record store is now a bit of an overproduced cliché found in malls across the country. What are the ethics of wearing a t-shirt with words we know nothing about? It’s a hard question to answer. The truth may be that with the age of the Internet comes an end to this hierarchy of knowledge. It remains in threads and counter currents, but it is no longer necessary. Today, the graphic t-shirt has been transformed into the arena of self-branding. I’d like to argue that there’s something beautiful about that, something about what we hoard in our closets that exists outside the realm of cheap band logos or Calvin Klein waistbands. While these associations and histories fade, the picture remains. If you Google “Frankie Says,” you’ll find a song by the band Phish, but more relevant than that is the band Frankie Goes to Hollywood, designer Katherine Hammnett, and her iconic “Frankie Says Relax” slogan that slammed into the popular culture of the 80s. When I throw on my mother’s college t-shirt, I have
somehow unknowingly inserted myself into this continuing narrative. Streetwear today is reframing the “out-of-context as cool” idea as more of an exultation of art than disengagement with meaning. How much can we really be a part of the past? How far removed must a culture be for it to be acceptable to forget nuance? Is touching the past of our parents and our grandparents in this physical way a regression or an innovation? There’s a reason color blocking and big hair stayed behind while these t-shirts still litter our attics and drawers. More than we are obsessed with the past, we are obsessed with the nostalgia that creates the iconography of the lives we have lived. This new iconography is encapsulated in an image of me sitting here in my father’s t-shirt. It’s only cool to wear this shirt because I say it is—not because of MTV, Walt Disney, James Dean, not even because of my father. Maybe one day my daughter will break out my David Archuleta tee and I, too, will laugh at the way history walks out the door.
written by Sophie Cloherty layout by Aliya Falk
F SP
FLUIDITY OF PORTSWEAR A transformation of athletic clothing
DIRECTORS Jenny Ruan Harry Champion MODELS Matt Eby Alyssa Strasser STYLISTS Manraj Toor Kamryn Abraskin Rosalie Li Constance Blatt VIDEOGRAPHERS Xinyi Liu Rosalie Li PHOTOGRAPHER Francesca Romano LAYOUT Aliya Falk
Men’s Sneakers - Adidas Men’s Jumpsuit - Fila Women’s Sneakers - Nike
Into the Woods
DIRECTOR Susie Meaney MODELS Shea Wittig Elena Howes STYLISTS Meredith Sherbin Olivia Gregg Paris Morris VIDEOGRAPHER Bethany Lehman PHOTOGRAPHERS Olivia Gardella Julia Dean Sam Plouff LAYOUT Aliya Falk
Silver Hoops - Express
Boots - Steve Madden Skirt - Forever 21
Fur Vest - Madden Girl
JORD
DYN FISHMAN
P
articipating in an internationally recognized art competition isn’t something most college students can add to their list of accomplishments, but for Stamps junior Jordyn Fishman, this is a reality. This year, the Michigan native had her work titled Income Inequality, Imagine featured in ArtPrize, a major art contest that takes place in Grand Rapids each year. Jordyn’s work was put on display at The Grand Rapids Art Museum, one of the competition’s most traversed venues. Our Features Editor, Amber Mitchell, reached out to learn about her experience.
Instagram: @jordyn_fishman Website: www.jordynfishman.com
AM: Can you talk a little bit about the message of your ArtPrize piece and where you got the idea? JF: “Income Inequality, Imagine” is a triptych mixed media (oil paint, acrylic paint, nail polish, glitter, charcoal, pastel, graphite) painting. It is 24 ft. x 5.5 ft. The theme of income inequality is broken down into three parts (one part per panel); the first part is housing segregation, the second is unequal educational opportunities, and the third is the job market. Each panel feeds into each other; it is a cycle. The very end of the painting is the “Imagine” portion of the title; it depicts a world that runs off of love rather than money and power. I ask people to acknowledge the inequality that exists within the United States, think of ways to create a greater deal of equality, and imagine using love, the strongest and most important thing in this world, to create that. AM: What has the ArtPrize experience been like for you? JF: The experience has been absolutely incredible. This feat is one step closer to my dream and I am so thankful and grateful for the opportunity. AM: What is your artistic process like? JF: I usually start with written phrases. For example, the two phrases that drive “Income Inequality, Imagine,” are “1% Baddest and
Best” and “Love Dunks!” I use these to frame my visual thought process and the concept of the work itself. I, then, do a couple rough sketches and color blocks. From there, it is very loud music and maybe some documentaries. AM: Is social justice a common theme in your work? JF: Yes. My works focus on promoting a greater deal of social justice and activism in order to initiate change; I primarily work within the intersections of race, class, and gender. AM: Have you always wanted to be an artist? When did you start painting? JF: Actually, no. I have always loved art and been exceptionally moved by it, but it wasn’t until middle school that I started seriously creating work of my own. As a little kid, I used to take pride in how bad I was at drawing and painting. Now, I am completely in love with painting and have developed a passion that has kept me going and will keep me going. AM: What are some plans you have for the future? JF: My dream is to be able to spread a message on a large scale through what I love; art. That message is love. Love for this world, for one another, and for yourself. This is my plan for the future.
written by Amber Mitchell layout by Aliya Falk
the power of makeup
DIRECTOR Blake Pittman MODELS Sophia Jaskoski Paris Parker STYLIST Maggie O’Connor PHOTOGRAPHERS Mackenzie King LAYOUT Aliya Falk
SYLVAN ESSO
I
n a burst of sonic ecstasy and killer dance moves, Sylvan Esso made their long-awaited arrival to Michigan with a set list that turned the Crofoot into a head-banging, lyric-belting community. Within the first two tracks of their set, Durham-based pop-duo apologized for their noticeable absence in the mitten state, “We’re so sorry. This has been a long time coming,” Nick Sanborn, who creates the production for the tunes, said to the crowd. Amelia Meath, Sanborn’s vocalist counterpart, stood in platform sneakers beside him. It had, indeed, been a long time coming, but the crowd was ready for them; hungry, even, for the performance. At 6:30 pm, the crowd had already started to trickle into the venue about an hour and a half before the 8pm show. The concert-goers were exactly what you would expect: teenagers and twenty-somethings sporting uber cool jackets, leather mini skirts, and Chuck Taylors. One woman, who looked about twenty-five remarked, “I’m the oldest person here!” After opener Helado Negro performed, the room went black. Waiting for Sylvan Esso, the crowd was eerily silent, except for the occasional whoop or clap. Total strangers compressed against one another; their sweat mixing to create a kind of fog as they condensed towards the stage. A sold out show, the energy in the room was palpable. Then, sound. Quiet at first, a faint crackle of a record needle poked through the air and the crowd inhaled sharply. Slowly, the white lights at the back of the stage began to pulse in time with the sound. Cheers erupted and then fell silent as Meath’s voice poured out from the system. Nick Sanborn stood to her left: a silhouette in the shadows of the stage. Meath sang, voice raw and milky as ever, “All you’ll feel is sound. All you’ll be is sound,” and the crackling gave way to a soft electronic melody, which cut out just before the final verse.
“Sound,” the first track off of the duo’s second album, repeats a single verse like it’s a religious psalm, setting the tone for the night. The track ended with Meath’s acapella vocals. The duo didn’t waste time, jumping in immediately to their next song. As the pair picked up momentum, the crowd began to sway, jostle, and dance. The a udience felt collectively tuned in—fully present and engulfed by sound. Singing and moving together, at times the experience felt less like a performance and more like a one-thousand person jam session. What Now, Sylvan Esso’s second and latest album provided the bulk of the tunes for the night. Highlights include “Song,” “Radio,” “Die Young,” and my personal favorite, “Just Dancing.” In the performance of this song, Meath and Sanborn channeled the burly spirit of an underground dance club. The song built with a rich, gritty intensity and the crowd responded accordingly. One concertgoer beside me energetically bopped around, her hair thrashing wildly, for the entirety of the track. When the pair hit the bridge (“You’re always different, but I’m always the same”) those around her joined in, mirroring the reckless abandon of Meath herself. When Meath dances, she looks as though she is moving through water. Her hands snake through the air, her limbs flow seamlessly through space. At one point in the night, she released into a backbend, her head inches from the ground. Effortlessly charming, she engaged the crowd-- urging them to clap and sway at different points throughout the set. And when she sang, it felt like she was looking right at you. Sanborn, too, had moves. Leaning over his DJ rig, he moved as if he were a witch over a cauldron, convulsing in time with the beat, entirely locked into his craft. When he hit the drop of a track, he exploded away from the machine, as if sonic waves were hitting him smack in the chest. In a nod to their first album, the pair performed
a handful of tracks, including “Coffee,” “Hey Mami,” “Play it Right,” and “Wolf.” The crowd lost their minds within the first couple of notes of “Hey Mami” and “Coffee,” Sylvan Esso’s breakout tracks which date back to 2014. For these songs, the entire venue knew every syllable. During their performance of “Coffee,” Sanborn sang, a rare and captivating event to witness. He looked at Meath as he sang over the gentle pulsing of the track, which is quite softer than the vast majority of What Now. Notably, the pair has evolved their sound since their premiere, self-titled album. The increased weightiness and moxie of What Now is starkly apparent when juxtaposed with their early work. As an intro to “Wolf,” Meath asked the crowd to howl. Meekly at first, we howled. “I think you can do better,” she said, “Do you guys want to try to do better?” We howled again, this time louder. The act was cheesy and cathartic, and it felt almost religious. After their final song, the duo exited the stage. The crowd, not yet satisfied, planted their feet and cheered until the two re-emerged to perform an encore of “Rewind” and “Play It Right.” The venue was packed until the very last note. Then, as swiftly as they had appeared, Sylvan Esso left the stage, leaving the crowd awestruck and hungry for more.
written by Maggie O’Connor photography by Benji Bear layout by Aliya Falk
Style Influences More A
S eptember 2017 article on Vogue.com introduces actress Rooney Mara’s new fashion favorites, as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo star “began switching up her beauty look alongside her attire, favoring a bold lip and a choppy new haircut that seemed the perfect match for her new neutral tones and structured silhouettes.” The article, titled “Charting Rooney Mara’s Fashion Transformation, in Honor of Her New Vogue Cover,” conveys how Mara’s red carpet look reveals a new gothic image inspired by her 2011 thriller. However, the article also showcases how Mara worked to transform into the person she was playing on the screen and how she used fashion in order to introduce her new gothic image to the public sphere. Mara’s fashion transformation can be traced to this very red carpet event.
e Than The Surface While it’s fun to look at celebrity transformations that are easily documented by the public eye, we forget that we - the general public - are part of these fashion transformations as well. People often use fashion to evoke a transformation in themselves, even if they don’t think that they’re a part of the cycle. When individuals wear certain clothing, their image is transformed based on the ensemble, allowing people to make inferences of character based on those choices. We use fashion as a way to alter our personalities: from girly, to edgy, to gothic, to minimalist, and our clothing choices reflect who we are and who we wish to become. Fashion is used as a medium for transformation and as a way to silently tell those around us that “this is who I am.” With these curated fashion choices, we ultimately become the persona we’re portraying with our outfit. An article published by Michelle Persad in the Huffington Post chronicles a number of celebrity transformations and how these style shifts have affected the public image of these stars. Readers look at their transformations and respect the journey that these influencers have
endured to find out who they are through the daily task of getting dressed. Fashion, however, not only affects an individual’s image, but his or her confidence as well. Persad writes that, “These ladies have all become fashion icons in their own right and prove that style is a state of mind,” ultimately showing the ways in which one’s outfit is an expression of personality. When an individual’s state of mind shifts, so does their style. “I love the power of clothing and the transformative quality of dressing up,” Carla Hernandez, the designer and founder of Taller Flora, a demi-couture line, states in an interview with Designboom. “I made myself trousers that were way too big so I would wrap laces around my legs to make them fit – my friends saw me dressed this way and no longer wanted to be seen with me at lunch. That experience also made me realize the power that clothing has, in that you can control how you are perceived and what you communicate… clothing is a language all of its own.” Here, Hernandez touches on an important insight in the fashion cycle, one that implies a value system that is connected with the clothing we wear. Because fashion transformations represent a certain state of
mind, our personality is evaluated when we’re judged on our clothing. Through Hernandez’s whimsical, childhood example, she points out a much bigger phenomenon: what a person wears effects how his or her personality is perceived. A new way of thinking about fashion from a market standpoint titled the “Transformation Economy” has even emerged from this idea. According to an article in The Business of Fashion, the Transformation Economy is the progression society has made from buying mere goods and services to buying experiences, where “a better you becomes the product.” This idea, coined by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, implies that people want the shopping process to be just that: an experience that enhances them in some way. “When we buy experiences, those purchases make us happier than when we buy things,” Pine said in The Business of Fashion. People [are] “looking to recharge, revitalise, or to improve well-being in some way.” This is why activewear brands have started to offer in-house workout classes or cold-pressed juice bars in their stores and why department stores have hosted events where shoppers can buy things such as customized
painted denim. These events show how fashion isn’t just picking out clothing and throwing on outfits. Rather, it’s an important step in the selfidentification process, as people want fashion to mean something more to their identities. Whether we’re consciously using fashion to create our image or just trying out new trends, fashion evokes a transformation in people that is important in the process of identity formation. As fashion is a reflection of our personalities, we must recognize that these transformations reflect the personal as well. Just as Pine said in Business of Fashion, “If [people are] buying physical goods, it’s to achieve aspirations, whatever they might be.”
written by Jamie Schneider layout by Katie Beukema
DIRECTOR Alexandra Plosch MODEL Avery Friedman STYLISTS Jenny Gryka Kelsey Knickerbocker Molly Shulan GiGi Garate Lottie Pickard VIDEOGRAPHER Lauren Day PHOTOGRAPHERS Lingene Yang Robina Rranza LAYOUT Aliya Falk
The ‘90s Bounce Back
Star Denim Jacket - Ashley Mason Grey Socks - Urban Outfitters
Turtleneck - Croft & Barrow Black Denim Skirt - Forever 21 Black Patent Boots - Kenneth Cole
Vintage Headphones - Master and Dynamic
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