In March, Xpress Magazine canvassed campus with flyers on message boards inviting SF State students to join us in a fashion editorial project. In early April, 12 participants gathered on the third floor of the Humanities building, wearing outfits that most expressed themselves. From cowboy boots, to leather corsets, each student had a story to share about their favorite pieces and what fashion means to them. 

“I wasn’t really the fashionista growing up,” public health major Michaela Nava said. “I feel like [becoming a] woman and growing up, trying to figure out my identity. I am trying to be more independent, what I want to do and trying to experience, experiment with my styles.”

In the past couple of years, Nava chased fashion trends, but recently, she’s leaned into wearing what feels good for her while still drawing some inspiration from current styles.

“I grew up in a very conservative community, and I would use my dress to express that I didn’t align myself with the rest of my classmates,” said Mathilda Silverstein, a master’s student studying speech, language and hearing sciences.

Silverstein said they have always loved fashion and as a child was encouraged by their mother to dress in ways that didn’t adhere to gender norms. Silverstein focuses on sustainability and consciousness when building their wardrobe. Although, they say it is not always the easiest to find clothes in San Francisco due to consignment culture. Most of their secondhand items come from Sacramento. 

“I like fashion because I think I like playing dress up a lot,” Philomela Daley said. “I did it as a kid, and unfortunately, I don’t have a little basket full of wigs and princess dresses anymore. So, fashion is like getting to play dress up, and I think it’s also a security blanket. When I dress up as a boss bitch, then I am a boss bitch. When I dress up as someone who is sexy, then I am sexy.”

We compiled interviews with each of the participants; listen along while scrolling through the fit-check photoshoot — a celebration of self-expression, community, and a shared appreciation for fashion. 

Click through the gallery to see everyone’s looks!

Listen to each model share their clothing choice down below.

Nadia Van Wiggeren

My name is Nadia Van Wiggeren. So I have kind of these like orange cowboy boots that I thrifted from Goodwill in my hometown.  I have a denim skirt that I just bought from a Levi’s store.  A camisole that my mom gave to me. I got this Western style belt. I decided to go for a Western look today because where I’m from anyway in Paso Rojas is a very agricultural, rural area. I definitely am not that kind of person. You know, I’m very much like a city person, but I will say there is some part of me that appreciates that aesthetic. 

There’s this movie that I watched a little bit ago called “National Anthem” about a queer rodeo. The movie has this really beautiful way of expressing a very kind of sincere and authentic appreciation for like the aesthetic of Americana and the ranch life and sort of like the Western aesthetic. Being a queer person, you know, it’s like all these colors and fabrics. 

I think there’s something really exciting about that, really sincerely appreciate and enjoy what that looks like, even though America is falling apart. It’s a terrible place to, you know, it’s like there are lot of terrible things going on, and yet still finding a way to  appreciate this very  American  aesthetic. Finding a way to have those two things have that kind of contrast, I think, is interesting in this day and age. I think fashion is a kind of art, right? It’s subject to all the same things that art can do. It can make you feel happy, it can make you feel sad, it can make you feel disgusted, it can make you feel angry. Think of fashion as in many ways like a language. You can use fashion to tell the world how you want to be seen and what social groups you are a part of or want to be a part of.

Antonio Ortiz

My name is Antonio Ortiz. Starting from bottom to top, White Air Forces, kind of just this staple in kind of like men’s fashion, my fashion in general.  I guess you can call them wide leg, kind of like work jeans with the little handles on the side for hammers and whatnot. Just a plain black tee, a little bit oversized and a Shelby GT 500 jacket that was from Hollister. 

It’s like, wanna put a fit together that’s like, oh, you could tell he tried, but he definitely didn’t go too far. It’s like, I’ve been dipping my toes into fashion a little but, you know, just trying to put different things and things like that together. Sometimes you just wanna find that balance between trying hard and not trying too hard.

It’s tough even shopping for men’s fashion sometimes. I mean, you walk into Nordstrom’s and we’re like the bottom floor with the women’s shoe section. It’s just kind of hard to just try and like to go out there a little bit. It’s like, you know, and then even friends of mine, you know what I mean? It’s like when I try to put on an outfit and then, you know, when they go out to the bars in a hoodie and a t-shirt and like in some jeans, it’s like, you know, you looked at it a little bit differently. It’s like, oh, you’re wearing jewelry. It’s like, oh, you’re doing this. It’s like, well, I would say it’s just me in a way, you know? It’s just wanting to put together in a fashionable sense, but also I want to be comfortable. 

So I guess it’s just trying to combine those things. Men’s fashion is a little bit more cut and dry. I would say, honestly, it’s just about, fashion is like finding yourself in a way. Like, you know, just kind of like finding your own personal style and everything. I would say if there’s anything for the men, just kind of just do stuff that you feel like is cool and  just kind of rock with it because if  somebody doesn’t like it, another person will, so.

Philomela Daley

My name is Philomela Daly.  I like fashion because I think I like playing dress up a lot. I did that as a kid  and  unfortunately I don’t have  a little basket full of  wigs and princess dresses anymore so fashion is like getting to play dress up and I think it’s also a security blanket when I dress up as a boss bitch. When I am a boss bitch, when I dress up as someone who is sexy then I am sexy. I think it can ground me and it makes me more comfortable acting in a certain persona. 

I think by being non-binary, I don’t really care about social attitudes as much or where I fit in with them. Sometimes that’s really great in freeing and sometimes that is more anxiety  inducing because I don’t understand where I’m supposed to fit in them or  if I should want to or  how I even should go about doing that. I think  costumes and pretending I’m someone else or putting myself in someone else’s clothes and then being that person allows me to act more professional or  sporty or explore different facets of myself that normally aren’t out there. 

Klein, as an artist, invented this color, Klein Blue. In his paintings it’s bluer than blue. It’s not able to be photographed well or even described well. It can almost hurt your eyes looking at it. And before that it didn’t exist. He created the pigment and he created the process of binding pigment to  a medium and I think it’s just a gorgeous color and I really like it when  technology  is intersecting with art so I like the backstory of that as well.

Sam Lee

I’m Sam Lee. I just like to mix being comfortable but also just like, it’s not that I like attention. I know the outfits sometimes bring me attention. I get nervous. But I like to think life is kind of like a fashion show. I need to at least have fun with an outfit and to have a good day.  You know, like it helps me feel more put together as a person. It’s just like a form of expressing yourself completely. I mean, like I said, I just like a way to motivate me, like going through days like, all right, I’m a character, what’s a character gonna wear? You know, like, I just, I don’t know. 

Fashion is expression and it’s like freedom of that. My fashion inspiration is just like, I like funky things and lately I’ve just been liking indie sleaze. And whenever I don’t know what to put on top, I’m like the bolo tie usually just makes it at least like an interesting statement piece. So there wasn’t too much thought process with it. It was just more like I put all these things together and I was like.

Yeah, if I saw this person walking down the street wearing this, I’d be like, okay, yeah, that looks cute on them. So I’m like, all right, hopefully it looks good on me. The big bag of stuff. Love this, literally got it in the early 2000s, more specifically my brother got it from Claire’s, and he was gonna sell it on Depop, and I was like, no, can you please? So I gave him 10 bucks and I got it. I love this thing, it carries so much. Whenever I bring my camera around, I stuff it in here.

Mathilda Silverstein

My name is Mathilda Silverstein. Getting dressed this morning was difficult, but it’s always fun to play in the closet.  I’m wearing a Michael Jang t-shirt from the MoMA.  He’s a local  street artist that I’m a huge fan of. And my skirt is by  Gani.  And then my jacket over top is a thrifted Levi’s shirt. My shoes are Dansko clogs and a bunch of rings  and my pink Casio watch.

I’ve always loved fashion. I think my mom has always encouraged me to dress in all sorts of ways  that don’t necessarily adhere to gender norms  and that just are like a little outside of the box. I grew up in a very conservative community  and I would use my dress to express that I didn’t align myself with the rest of my classmates. 

As a queer person and a person who aligns myself with liberal and leftist politics, I think it’s important to be a safe haven for others and  I hope that people can clock me, see me as someone they can talk to. I really focus on sustainability.  I actually did my senior thesis in my undergrad on sustainable fashion.  So most things in my closet are thrifted. A thrifted wardrobe is not always the easiest thing, especially in San Francisco, because of the consignment culture here. But I’ve brought a lot of things with me from my youth and from my undergrad days in the Sacramento area. A lot of my stuff’s from then still.

Maya Castaneda

I’m Maya Castaneda, I’m a fashion design and merchandising major with a concentration in merchandising. Honestly, fashion didn’t start meaning a lot to me until I got into college when I started majoring in it. It was just something that I didn’t really think about too much back when I was younger. I kind of was like, I don’t really know what I wanted to do. I really enjoyed, you know, sewing and I liked the idea of fashion, but I didn’t exactly know what I wanted to do. So I was like, you know what? I’m just gonna go into college and I’m going to study fashion and see where that gets me. 

After I had studied abroad last year in Japan and kind of  observing more like a different kind of fashion and different culture,  I really became inspired because I was already stuck out there. I was this kind of  foreigner in a very kind of closed off society and I think it was just for me it was something that I was like you know what I might as well just embrace that I am like  a foreigner here and so that’s kind of when my fashion started to evolve a little bit more I started taking more risks and I started experimenting and having more fun with it and so that kind of like developed into fashion becoming just a way of you know expressing myself and just having fun and a way to just kind of show off my creativity. 

I think this day and age we kind of try and categorize ourselves to different aesthetics or different styles  and I think it’s really important to, you know, take inspiration from those but also to  kind of find what you like as well.

Nicholas Panameno

My name is Nicholas Panameno. The piece that I’m wearing is my infamous pink Dickie shirt.  Dickie’s is such an iconic brand for people who are Latino or Hispanic most of the time. I created this piece in a fashion trend, it was called the Coquette Aesthetic, which was, you know, the princessy flirtatious type of vibe going on. Tea springtime vibe, and I really adored the aesthetic for a long time.

I never saw too many male or men wear it as often, specifically also Latino men.  And I was like, damn, I could never see myself wear something like this before. It was originally a white dickie shirt and I dyed it, I threw on some lace and I put some fabric paint on it. So fashion to me is an expressive form of art to the body. It’s kind of tied into my culture, a way that’s kind of glued to my mind as a Latino in a way because out of every choice I could have picked, I picked Dickies for some reason. I think workwear is such an interesting  form of expression because it’s like industrial. It’s not like corporate, it’s not like lawyer, it’s more like construction and stuff like that or like working in a way, like the working class.  

In Latino culture, we’re mainly known for work wear and like all the working stuff, like home construction, tiles and all that stuff and I think using the aesthetic of Coquette is such a  Renaissance, light, very princessy vibe and you see the two things together, it’s just something like, I could never imagine that. Two different aesthetics working into one. And it’s just like, it makes me feel, lowkey feels like a princess right now.

Eliziana Calles

My name is Eliziana Calles. My outfit, I want to say it kind of matches. My shoes and my top are  both pink, which are my favorite color. And I feel like it gives off a new side of me. Before I would  dress more tomboyish or masculine, so I feel like just this new fashion intake is a transformation to me and going more into my feminine side.  My necklace was gifted to me for my birthday when I was in, I believe eighth grade or seventh grade. And I’ve just been having it on since then. It says princess and it was for my dad. So it holds a lot of value to me. I guess it shows like our bond and how it’s close. He always calls me his princess or like princessa. So it’s also like a meaning to that. And I just really like it. I mean, I’m like daddy’s little girl. 

Fashion is like in the eye of the beholder. It’s very broad. One day I could be dressing up all girly and then the next day I could be wearing a sporty look. It really gives off character and it shows a glimpse of who the person’s personality is like. How your parents know, how their fashion sense are, could sometimes influence you. Recently,  my mom showed me some of the clothes like she used to wear when she was my age. And she still has them, so sometimes I’ll  wear them. It’s kind of vintage, so you know.

Karina Ma

Hi, I’m Karina Ma. Today I wore this little outfit I kind of composed myself. The little shawl and skirt, they’re from Saltree. And the top, actually these two tops I’m wearing, they’re from, I’m pretty sure from Forever 21. I went through because it was closing and so, and it was really cheap, so of course I’m gonna take that chance, you know? Fashion to me means freedom of expression because how we dress ourselves, how we express our feelings, our emotions, like for me, right? One day I might wear a hoodie and like, you know, just tight pants because like I’m just, I’m like an 8 a.m. class. I’m tired. I don’t want to be here half the time. I’m low on caffeine. But today, you know, I’m feeling happy because I’m feeling like, you know, it’s a modeling day right now. I want to dress up nice. I want to look pretty and stuff. My sister, she’s a very like big person on fashion. She loves cute outfits, accessories, and a lot of jewelry. Like she’s just like a whole like, like a fashionista I might say to her.

But she’s really like, she’s very confident in her outfits. And so she often likes using me as her test subject as I call it, to help me out, help her try out clothes and stuff. She left home a while ago and I feel kind of lonely in my room. So basically putting on an outfit and looking nice is kind of like we try to remember her. Even though she’s like a few hours away, I still kind of feel kind of lonely. I miss the bond we had as sisters.

Michaela Nava

Hi, my name is Michaela Nava. I wasn’t really like the fashionista growing up. My mom kind of dressed me up in cute outfits and stuff like that, but I feel like becoming a woman and growing up and trying to figure out my identity. I  am trying to be more independent in what I want to do and experiment with my styles. I feel like the past couple years I kind of  went back and forth with like, like  what should I do here? Or like, should I try this?  Also trying to do trends and stuff, feel like that was a big issue with what I was dealing with last year.  

And so like, I feel like now I’m just  really just trying to see what really feels good for me and still getting inspiration from trending, but also like, again, like what feels best for me. And growing up, I really did have insecurities with my body. Like I was a little bigger. I had definitely bigger breasts growing up. With that, I just went in like, just started wearing hoodies. And yeah, even though I felt I didn’t feel empowered or confident in my wear. 

Last year I wore some really great outfits. I’m not gonna lie about that. But I felt like it was more for people’s attention when I came on campus and like getting those compliments, like, oh my gosh, like, you know, those that’s so nice or you look so good and everything. Coming back this semester,  I’m trying to be more comfortable in the sense of like, I do like being stylish, but I also want to be comfortable. I want to be able to like have mobility and be flexible.

Rachel Chimielewski

I’m Rachel Chimielewski. I’m wearing this nice purple dress. Purple is just one of my favorite colors. I think you can tell by my hair. I just like  wearing dresses and just something very nice, soft, and stuff like that. I think it’s just a way to kind of express yourself and make yourself feel good about yourself. Also in a way, think of how you kind of show who you are to other people. A part of me is also really interested in fashion history and just kind of just seeing  all the different trends that kind of gone over the years and just also kind of like the different classes and how elaborate the upper classes fashions were compared to the common folk.

If you think Marie Antoinette, you know, from back during the French Revolution era,  huge wigs, wigs that skyrocketed. She would put different things in her wigs, skirts that were so wide. But that’s because she has the wealth and the ability to attain and take care of all of the elaborate fashions and materials and everything that would go into creating those outfits. Especially kind of during the French Revolution time. People were incredibly poor. They didn’t have like the ability to pay for luxury, finery. So a lot of the more like  a lot more simpler outfits. I do kind of like the Regency era of England like Bridgerton if you think of that. Like I think it’s kind of a way because it’s like I guess  it’s the transition between  the elaborates of the previous eras but starting to streamline more into modern day fashion.

Brianna Segura

My name is Briana Segura. I decided to wear this monotone outfit. It’s like black and white lace kind of blouse. Underneath is a white collared shirt, thin tie. It’s held together by black corset, long skirt, is like satin, I think? I don’t know what they’re called kind of shoes. Loafers, yeah. With spider punk long socks. This outfit was originally an outfit that I was going to take to  a Mitski concert. Just one with the black and white but with a lot of lace and a lot of little tiny details. 

High school was when I was like developing my style but I think coming here I’ve really grown into my own. I’ve been experimenting even more partly because my parents are kind of strict. A lot of the outfits that I would like to wear would have been limited during high school. So this is like a bold choice for actually both at home and like in general my hometown. Yeah you can look to the artist and get a lot of inspiration and also with some genres of music comes fashion styles, fashion trends. I think that usually helps influence what people usually wear or like they want to emulate the artists that they’re listening to.  A lot of people are like oh yeah we need to dress up because everyone’s looking their best.

Lindsey Tong

My name is Lindsey Tong. I chose to wear a lot of black. The reason for that is because I feel like I’m someone who usually wears like some bright fun colors, so I wanted to try  dressing a little darker for a little bit. I actually borrowed some things from my mom and my sister because I’m pretty close to them and I feel like I’m also someone who’s pretty sustainable, so I try not to go out and buy too many clothes. 

I just wore this black tank top that had like a little ribbon in the front, this pleated black skirt, a big oversized leather jacket, kind of as a statement piece. To top it off, I wore these sheer black leggings and a pair of black boots that I brought from my mom. Fashion is a really powerful thing because for me, I feel like I’m really quiet, like an inwards person and I’m not super outgoing. So I always think of fashion as a way that I can express myself without having to say anything.

And I just feel like that’s kind of your first impression always for when people look at you for the first time. So I always want to make a good impression with that. I think it can express a lot of things and it doesn’t have to be limited to personality or to like personal style. It can be related to identity and culture and your relation to other people. Fashion trends nowadays, I feel like sometimes can become more inclusive of other identities and cultures. So that’s always really nice to see.