stories and photography by
Olivia Russo
Students use clothes to signify culture and beliefs
Ahsha Jones, senior psychology major, gets up every morning ready to tackle her long list of daily activities. However, before she can step out of her dorm room, she puts together an outfit that not only allows her to be comfortable but also expresses where she comes from. Armed with her brother’s hand-me-downs, including graphic tees from the early 2000s that spoof iconic album covers and her grandmother’s gold jewelry that has been passed down through generations, Jones is able to carry her family with her while she is attending college as a Black woman in America.
Jesus Velazquez, junior English major, understands the weight of being seen as a Mexican-American man in the United States. He wears items like a Pro-Club t-shirt and baggy jeans to show everyone around him that he is meant to be here, but he is also able to represent Los Angeles. His fashion choices are direct in their message that those around him will see him in higher education and that he will not be stepped over because of what he looks like.
Clothes and fashion are an unexpected way to subvert expectations and advocate for any political platform.
Some may believe having fashion as a hobby is superficial, but for these students and many others fashion is a political statement and an artform.
“Once you start digging into the actual reasons why we find things beautiful, that’s when things become politicized,” Chloe Iris Kennedy, a fashion contributer for Forbes, said.
Regular people are confined to this box of beauty and the stereotypes that it leaves itself with.
“We have no say in what is beautiful and what is not,” Kennedy said.
There are countless examples of people using fashion for political and artistic expression; it has been used for decades to promote beliefs.
Melania Trump wore the infamous Zara jacket in 2018 with the message “I REALLY DON’T CARE. DO U?” on the back while arriving in Washington D.C. after visiting children detainees in Texas. While her staff at the time contended it was just a jacket, it was clearly also a political statement.
The day after, actress Jenna Ortega wore a leather jacket with the message “I DO CARE AND U SHOULD TOO.” on the back to the Radio Disney Music Awards. Ortega used her clothes to make a statement directly towards the First Lady without even having to speak.
Historically fashion has been used for protest as well. During civil rights movements, activists wore their Sunday best to counteract the idea that Black Americans were lazy and poor. In early feminist movements, women started wearing bloomers to protest restrictive dress standards and later advocate for women’s right to vote.
Today, many people can use their clothing choices in their protests for contemporary causes such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the genocide of the Palestinian people. Notably, Palestinian model Bella Hadid, wore a red and white keffiyeh dress during the Cannes Film Festival in 2024.
Fashion is often the first thing people notice about another person. It shares a lot about them without having to introduce themselves.
“I enjoy clothes, like a lot of people do and I’ve always resented the fact that they are approached as somewhat of a frivolous interest to have,” said Sarah Ben Tkayhet, senior global affairs and economics major at Yale University, who wrote an article about the politics of fashion for The Yale Globalist magazine. “I think clothing is something that is so influential and everyone participates in clothing. It’s one of things that no one is exempt from.”
“How we dress has everything to do with the context in which we find ourselves,” said Kate Bollick, a Yale English professor. “So a college student is dressing versus somebody in the workplace. There’s a lot of non-thinking, but it’s still the non-thinking going on underneath the umbrella of a lot of decisions already being made that people are conforming to without releasing it.”
For others, it means that they are able to connect with people. Velazquez uses his fashion choices to support his community.
“I didn’t choose to be political, I was born political,” Velazquez said.
When describing his style, Velazquez said he does not box himself into one. His outfit of the day can depend on his mood, his tasks for the day or what he wants to say. He shared a story about a time he wore a women’s blazer and bright pink shirt for a class presentation speaking about masculinity and LGBTQ+ issues.
This type of style does not define him, his experiences do. After graduating from the University of La Verne, Velazquez plans to get his master’s degree in education and hopes to teach at his alma mater, Pomona High School.
Velazquez uses his style to embrace those who cannot tell their story most of the time, using the Cholo style as the foundation when building a look. This style is part of the Chicano subculture, which features flannels, Dickies pants and bandanas. While the clothes themselves are not exclusive to Mexican-Americans, they have come to represent the culture since the 1960s. This foundation he hopes will be welcoming for his future students, who can look to him as a role model in difficult times.
“I also want not only my family members, but also my students, to notice that we come from the same place,” Velaquez said. “I want to show them that someone from the hood, from the ghetto, from the barrio, made it out.”
Family expectations can also play a large role in what people choose to wear. While Velazquez promotes his culture, Jones has built her style around her community.
“I try to debunk and counteract a lot of fashion woes that I’ve grown up knowing,” Jones said. “It’s more so trying to find my own individual style without letting the greater world control how I view myself and my passions.”
Jones explained that as the only girl in her family, she was subject to a lot more attention on her clothes than her older brothers. Despite her mother’s good intentions, Jones was limited in what she was allowed to wear. Instead of what some of the other girls in her class were wearing, she was wearing tank tops under all of her shirts and her shorts must be longer than her mid-thigh. It was not until high school, and then college, that Jones was able to figure out her personal style.
Today her fashion choices reflect the space that she is currently in. She feels the freedom to wear cropped tops or shorter skirts.
“Fashion is my form of protest, dressing up so I can take up space,” Jones said. “So I can show the world I exist and even though my hands are in so many different buckets, I’m not going to let it take away from my personal being. I’m not going to let it take away from how I actually can express myself creatively.”
Allyson Villa, senior psychology major, experienced similar fashion constraints growing up. Living in a house with four brothers, she had to wear baggier clothes including oversized men’s graphic tees and leggings.
“It made it really difficult to see myself as feminine because of that,” Villa said. “So many of my clothes were either boy’s clothes or hand-me-downs from my mom.”
This early experience negatively impacted her style now, forcing her to feel as though she is in a constant battle between her femininity and masculinity.
“I think it’s really hard for me to be feminine sometimes because I feel so unfeminine all the f***ing time, which is crazy because I used to be seen as so girly,” Villa said. “My mom used to think I was so girly but you guys didn’t let me feel like I was.”
A lot of Villa’s fashion choices, she said, are influenced by the politics of beauty standards.
While these standards affect both women and men, women’s appearances have historically been judged much more harshly.
Janine Sevillana, senior psychology major, explained that Southeast Asian people are looked at differently due to their darker skin tone compared with East Asians. Sevillana also shared that she was impacted by this.
“I fell into, and I think I still do quite often, the thinking that I have to be paler to be pretty,” Sevillana said.
It’s very normal in the Philippines to take Glutathione, a molecule that seeks to relieve oxidative stress, due to its effects on skin whitening from the person who takes it. Sevillana used to take it when she was in high school.
“I’m not taking Glutathione anymore, but I still think about it every time I’m out,” Sevillana said. “When we go to the beach, I try to hide from the sun quite often, because I don’t want to get tanner.”
American beauty standards feature heavily on the importance of thinness. Villa has shared the impact of the American beauty standard on what she wears, despite her not looking like the models that society expects.
“I don’t look like what other women look like,” Villa said. “So there is this thing where I feel like any woman who’s in an oversized body, you immediately get more masculinized than if you’re a woman in a petite body. So a lot of my clothes options were very limited.”
Jones even shared that when dressing, her skin tone was a major factor in how her mother would dress her, because of how important respectability politics was.
Many college students and others use thrifting as their political fashion statement.
With all the known environmental harms that fast fashion creates, buying clothes secondhand and keeping them for a long period of time is an eco-friendly option that brings clothes to a new home instead of letting them pile up in a landfill. It is an active choice to disrupt the harm that fast fashion can do on communities and nature.
“With thrifting, I feel it’s fun because each piece of clothing has history,” Janira Hernandez, senior creative writing major, said. “It has that energy that people have worn. This shirt I’m wearing right now used to belong to my sister, she took it out to clubs, restaurants and I took it out to movie screenings. So it’s like two different stories and it’s cool to see a piece be used in different ways.”
The top that Hernandez said is a cropped black turtleneck sweater, that flares out on her sleeve, with a thinner knit material.
Hernandez uses thrifting as a way to cultivate her own personal style, which takes its inspiration from the 1960s and 1970s. She usually incorporates skirts of all lengths into her clothes, cropped shirts and different jackets to accessories to her own personal style.
“I think the biggest thing that I’ve done that does require a bit of work and intention is choosing not to participate in the trend cycle largely, unless it’s something that I’m genuinely obsessed with, and then also not participating in fast fashion,” Mackenzie Ostrowski, editor-in-chief and creative director of The Citizen’s Poste, an independent fashion magazine, said.
Graphic tees and prints are a way for someone outside of fashion to outwardly single out their politics without having to even speak. Villa herself has also used this type of messaging.
She shared a story of her wearing a tank top that read “Pro-Choice is Pro-Women,” while pro-life influencers were on the University of La Verne campus.
Both Safaa Salman, an interior designer and member of a fashion community on X, and Villa pointed out that certain people’s merch can also signify different politics. While these graphic tees can be used to promote a cause, it may not always be for oppressed individuals.
“You can be a supporter of (Trump’s) without owning his merch, even if you want to claim that you don’t support everything this person stands for, you’re showing me that you do,” Villa said. “Whatever you’re willing to put on your body and wear out, that’s what you want me to know about you.”
Patches also, a staple in punk and alternative fashion, is another way for people to advocate for their favorite causes.
Paloma Lara, senior child development major, has multiple patches that she has sewn on herself that advocate for various causes close to her.
“I have a hammer and a sickle, so a Commie patch,” Lara said. “On one of my hats, I have a Chicano Power pin. I have some anti-ICE patches.”
Today’s political climate, particularly the Trump Administration’s anti-immigrant and anti-DEI policies have also trickled down to some people’s fashion choices.
“Sometimes I do try to present myself a little more white, I think that’s also why I no longer wear a lot of my sportswear either because I feel like it makes me look more Hispanic,” Villa said.
Velazquez shared similar sentiments, repeating that he understands the way he dresses can bring looks from other people and could even get him shot in specific areas. This may weigh on him, but the idea of impacting his future students and being able to tell the stories of people who are not able to themselves is more important to him than the apparent risks.
Olivia Russo can be reached at olivia.russo@laverne.edu.
Jewelry marks a way for people to connect to their heritage
While clothes are one way for people to make a personal or political statement about who they are, jewelry is another way.
With attacks on immigrants and ICE raids going on in our back yard, heritage and culture can feel more important than ever.
The jewelry that people wear can be an act of protest against the administration, by the willingness to wear this tie to their heritage so outwardly.
Allyson Villa, senior psychology major, feels this way as the jewelry she wears is one of the ways that she feels pride in her Mexican heritage.
“My jewelry, like my nameplate necklace and my initial ring, are a big deal to me,” Villa said. “So it makes me feel like I am Mexican.”
Villa tends to wear silver jewelry more often than not, but she mixes it up if she feels called to certain pieces. The jewelry that features her name or her initials are the ones that connect her most to her culture, as those aspects are the most commonly associated with Mexican heritage. Those in the Chicana subculture notably wear these types of jewelry to make sure that people know who they are and will say their name.
Wintana Tsegaye, junior legal studies major, said her jewelry connects her to her Ethiopian heritage. She does not wear all the same pieces every day, but gold jewelry is one of the main staples of Ethiopian jewelry.
Her jewelry is a mix of large thick bangles and thinner wired bracelets, with also a mix of some beaded ones of various colors. These gold bangles sometimes have different textures or lengths to add more layers to her look.
“I was just lucky to have that around. I grew up with a lot of women who’ve always dressed to impress,” Tsegaye said.
Tsegaye said her jewelry also supports her health. She wears a gold bangle with a copper wire on top to ensure that she gets her necessary dose of copper.
Ahsha Jones, and Janine Sevillana, both senior psychology majors, say their jewelry connects them to their families.
Jones’ jewelry is also mainly gold, with different pieces coming from both her mother and her grandmother.
Sevillana wears about 10 pieces of jewelry every day, of both gold and silver, all of which she said have an emotional connection to her family.
“Pretty much all my jewelry is from my family,” Sevillana said. “It’s little pieces of me and little pieces of them I get to carry around every day.”
Her pieces include a custom-made music note necklace she got after a piano recital, her mom’s second engagement ring, a jade bracelet which connects her to her Chinese heritage and two Cartier bracelets owned by both of her parents.
Jewelry is just one way that Sevillana is able to represent her family when they are miles away in the Philippines.
High fashion unwittingly uses politics in their business
While fashion can be an artform and a political statement, it is also big business. At the end of the day, it is an industry, which means there are different rules for those making their living off clothes.
The industry also uses fashion politically, though arguably not as forcefully today as in recent history. Early in the brand’s history, Alexander McQueen consistently shared collections that had a deep political messaging. While Lee McQueen is no longer at the helm, the clothes have fallen towards aesthetics over the subtext. For the Fall 1996 collection, titled “Dante,” the show was staged in a church and explored human suffering. In their latest collection, Spring 2026, is described as submitting to the power of nature rather than the deep themes that MCQueen used to explore.
Vivienne Westwood is another brand that had a strong message politically, coming up from the 1970s punk movements, but today the brand seems to delve into aesthetics rather than political talking points. The brand has been known since its debut as one to defy expectations and bring the punk scene to the forefront of fashion, along with callback to the Victorian era. Now, the brand is relying on their iconic corsets for relevance along with the same silhouettes over and over again, without much attention to detail on the punk elements. With the discussion of high fashion comes the question if their support is really authentic or if there really is a political messaging behind their clothes.
Brands like Chanel and Dior, have a harder time enforcing a political message, because there are so many stakes that are at play. The brands were not set out to create any political messaging, but because they are so widely known, it makes it hard for any designer to make direct moves.
“For high fashion it’s more difficult because there are so many people involved,” Mackenzie Ostrowski, editor-in-chief and creative director of The Citizen’s Poste, an independent fashion magazine, said “When it comes to Kering, LVMH or Remont, it’s a public market, it’s harder for them to make giant statements because there’s so much money involved. And that in itself, (is) very indicative of the effect that politics and economics has on fashion and vice versa, because that sort of financial volatility weighs into how much you can do with what’s in front of you.”
However the act of designing clothes and showcasing them can be political in itself.
“I think that the political messaging is still there, whether the designers are conscious about it or not, whether they intended it or not,” Nathan Capristano, a member of a fashion community on Twitter, said. “I think that we are currently living in such tumultuous times politically and economically, and I think that whether we are conscious of it or not we are kind of influenced by that.”
Capristano pointed to the spring 2025 collection from Bottega Veneta, designed by Matthieu Blazy, which focuses on the desert. With the set, it can be argued that Blazy is using the vastness of the desert to reflect on the economic recession fashion may be going through.
Other people, like Safaa Salman, a member of a fashion community on Twitter, make political connections in collections from both Marc Jacobs and Prada. Marc Jacobs recently showcased designs with asymmetrical and mismatched shoes as a reflection of how uncertain the times are at this moment, through the accessories and makeup shared down the runway.
To find an earnest approach to politics and fashion, one has to look at the independent brands and creatives as they do not have a limit on what they can say with buyers. Conner Ives took his final bow in a white t-shirt with a messaging saying “PROTECT THE DOLLS,” which calls for transgender rights.
Madeline Hamilton-Mudge, designer of small fashion brand Babette, focuses on custom design pieces now to slow down the fashion cycle, but she has done multiple collections advocating for political ideals.
“Something that I became really aware of is the fact that fashion is an incredibly powerful, communicating tool because it is an art form that you don’t have to necessarily actively seek out in the way that you might for art pieces,” Hamilton-Mudge said. “Everyone interacts in fashion more or less, even if you’re a new distant choice to now wear clothes you’re making a political, you’re making a fashion statement regardless your choice is not to wear clothes.”
Olivia Russo can be reached at olivia.russo@laverne.edu.
Olivia Russo is a senior journalism major with a concentration in print/online journalism and a minor in criminology. She is the Editor-in-Chief for the Campus Times for Spring 2026. She has previously served as the News Editor, LV Life Editor, a photographer and a staff writer for the Campus Times, as well as a staff writer and photographer for La Verne Magazine.
