Welcome to the fashion edition of the Trinitonian! As various global fashion weeks are just now wrapping up or getting started, this special edition aims to bring that same energy to campus, celebrating the creativity, culture and personal flair that make fashion so much more than just clothing. You’ll find reporting on fashion-related on-campus happenings, columns from staff members about what fashion looks like to them and even a LeeRoy newspaper doll that you can dress up with newspaper clothes.

Before we dive in, let me admit something: I’m far from a fashion expert. I love fashion and our fashion edition, and I read and watch a lot about fashion (the runways on RuPaul’s Drag Race? Perfection), but it’s definitely an art at which I’m still in the trial and error phase.

Whether my outfits qualify as fashionable or not, I usually put a lot of thought into them — sometimes way more thought than I should, like running-late-to-class-because-I-spent-half-an-hour-debating-what-to-wear too much thought. What I have discovered, however, is that the outfits that draw the most compliments are usually the ones I’ve crafted a narrative or character around.

This was a surprising revelation, but maybe it shouldn’t have been. Fashion has always told stories. The raising of hemlines in the 1920s told a story about gender and liberation, and the vibrant color palettes in the 1960s told stories about rejecting the status quo and breaking from tradition. We turn to these decades as fashionable because they tell clear and exciting stories, and when we wear clothing from those eras we draw inspiration from those stories.

Fashion designers know this too. They often craft an ideal of their customer when designing clothes — who that person is and what they’re up to. If you’ve ever seen an episode of Project Runway, I’m sure that you’ve heard the judges ask a contestant “Who is the woman you’re designing for?” They often demand very specific answers.

All of this to say, when crafting outfits it’s important to think about what story you want to tell about yourself — the more specific the better. I recommend that you think about the kind of person you want this ensemble to convey, come up with a narrative for this person and then pull things from your closet that that person would wear.

Almost all of the aesthetics that are popular right now are based on this principle. Dark academia, cottagecore and coquette, to name a few, all start with envisioning a certain kind of person and their lifestyle.

Maybe you’re drawn to the dark academia aesthetic. Great. Now for the person. Maybe you’re a university student studying late at night in a dimly lit nook in a Hogwarts-like castle. It’s a stormy night and cold, dark and damp in the library corner where you’re studying.

I would go about turning that into fashion somewhat like this: You’ll need a sweater to keep you warm in this library, so grab a cozy black cable knit sweater from your closet. You’ll most likely want your legs covered because it is cold and damp, so maybe grab a mixed plaid maxi skirt with boots. The dim lighting might make glasses a necessity, and you’ll want your jewelry to match the furnishings in the library.

Approaching fashion as an exciting form of character building makes it both significantly less daunting and more likely that you’ll end up looking “stylish.” Having a clear vision of the look you want contributes to confidence in your appearance, and when you own your style with confidence and have fun with the storyline, people are much more likely to notice not just the clothes, but the very cool person wearing them.

While telling a story is at the heart of fashion, it is only one component. Read on to hear from our staff members about how to dress for the heat, dress to impress and how to use color when planning your outfits. Keep in mind, though, that we are only sharing advice and personal experience. At the end of the day, fashion is ultimately about self-expression. Wear what makes you feel confident, brings you joy and lets you just have fun. If you like what you’re wearing and it feels like you, then that is fashion.