Kate Van Dusen & Sierra Stern

Guess we can get started. If you guys can start with introducing who you are, your name, what you study and your role at TigerTrends.

My name is Kate Van Dusen. I’m in the class of 2024. My major is SPIA, and at TigerTrends I am one of the co-editors-in-chief, which basically means that I am one of the two people who is kind of in charge of high level oversight and putting together the magazine and managing all of the different moving parts within the magazine.

My name is Sierra Stern. I’m an English major, I’m also in the class of 2024, and at TigerTrends—I forget if it’s journalism director or director of journalism. It’s one of those two. But basically I manage the journalism team. We have themes for every issue, so I sort of make sure the pieces kind of fall within that theme. And it’s mostly a lot of wrangling and sending emails to people. And if we have a content shortage, it’s kind of my job to either source an article, or to write one up really quickly.

And what is TigerTrends?

So, primarily TigerTrends is a fashion, art, and lifestyle publication. Within every issue, we try to vary the type of content that we have, from some articles that are more fashion-focused—like for example, we do coverage on New York Fashion Week. Stuff like that. And then some articles that are more lifestyle or art-focused. In one of our past issues, we had an article about flower pressing and how to do that, so that was really cool and different. So we try to mix up the content a little bit, but I would say that the common denominator is definitely fashion and art.

The magazine also has photoshoots; we have a model registry, and then we also have a styling team and a photo team within TigerTrends. So, the stylist and photographers will work together to style and outfit, and shoot—you know, do a photoshoot—that styled outfit with one of the models on the model registry, so that’s another big component of the book.

Recently, we’ve also started expanding into the PR and events space. So last semester, we sponsored a show at Cannon by a student artist called Roy who does reggaeton and Spanish music. Last year, we did a very similar thing with Sam Spector, who does more like rock, punk music. So that basically entailed styling them for the show, and then we send photographers to do a photoshoot of the show, and then also have a journalist do a profile of the artist. So, we’re kind of trying to expand past only being a magazine, or only a publication, into more areas of involvement on campus, but that’s still a work in progress. We’re still figuring out, you know, what types of events, what types of spaces, we can create for fashion.

Okay, so it sounds like this is more than a magazine. It sounds like it’s become a community of people who can get together for their common interests, which is usually fashion but also sometimes art.

Yeah. I also think we’ve recently been leaning into an entrepreneurial edge. Like, we had a Stuart Weitzman event that was co-sponsored with the Keller Center and a couple other groups on campus. And that was a talk with Stuart Weitzman, who is a very famous shoemaker and entrepreneur. And that was really interesting because I definitely feel like when we joined TigerTrends, it was very much just a magazine, and now it’s another entity that—I think it’s a little more ambitious.

It sounds really fun. And when did TigerTrends begin? I think it was when I came to Princeton—like 2 years ago?

So I think it was officially founded in 2019, and so we turned four this year. So that was slightly before our time, but when we came to Princeton during COVID, I think that was basically like the second year of TigerTrends.

Okay, so it got off the ground during the pandemic.

Yeah, there had been a couple of issues published before the pandemic, but I think it mainly got off the ground during the pandemic. Which was honestly for me one of the main reasons why I got involved with TigerTrends, because it was one of the only clubs that was like active during the pandemic, and coming in as a freshman, I was like ‘Oh, I want to get involved!’ and whatever. You know, I was like super wide-eyed and wanted to do everything, but unfortunately because of COVID, there just weren’t that many opportunities except for TigerTrends, which I was interest in fashion during in but I honestly don’t know if it was something I would have become involved with unless—like, I don’t think, if there had been all the other club offerings, that I would necessarily have gotten involved with TigerTrends. But in retrospect, I’m really glad that I did. So, I think that’s one of—I think it’s really good that we kept going through COVID because I knew a lot of clubs that either died during COVID, or their membership wasn’t as involved during COVID. But I think that TigerTrends was actually one of the campus organizations that did keep that level of involvement.

Yeah, sounds really useful during the pandemic. What do you think that TigerTrends brings to campus? Why do you think it was necessary to start it?

I think that fashion changed a lot during the pandemic. And I think that suddenly people who had never thought about fashion before were kind of realizing that it was really central to all of our lives. And even the way that people dress now as compared to before the pandemic is completely different. Not just because the trends are different, but because so many more people are aware of the trends. So, I think that TigerTrends adapted really naturally to that.

And while there might not have been a space on campus before for fashion, because fashion in itself was more of a closed space, I think TigerTrends grew because when everyone came back to school, suddenly everyone was a lot more tuned into what was going on in the fashion world, and really kind of hyper aware of how they were dressing, how they were presenting themselves. Which I think, in a weird way, is really natural to Princeton, as a place where you’re expected to be professional all the time, be pre-professional, dress as a pre-professional. So, I think it’s a really valuable space for people who are realizing that there’s not just one way to dress at Princeton. Because we get lumped into the preppy stereotype all the time, but I think if you look around now you’ll find that’s not really true anymore.

You know, I think that during the pandemic I found out a lot more about fashion. Especially on TikTok, because it blew up during the pandemic. And there were always people doing, like, outfit checks and what I wear in a week, things like that. Is that your experience too? Has social media affected the way you look at fashion or helped it in any way?

I was actually about to say like, I think one of the reasons people became so much more cognizant of fashion during and after the pandemic first of all is because of social media. You know, when it was COVID, you didn’t really have anything to do other than sit around your house and scroll on Instagram or TikTok. So I think that people were taking in a lot more social media content, and a lot of that content is—you know, whether it’s directly talking about fashion, or whether it’s watching like stupid dance videos, you’re still seeing what people are wearing, and you’re still taking in that fashion even though the TikTok isn’t specifically about fashion, if that makes sense.

But I also think that people were at home for so long, or were doing Zoom class or virtual for so long, that once we got the chance to come back into the real world and see and be seen, I think that people paid a lot more attention to how they dressed and how they were presenting themself. Partially because we hadn’t really had an opportunity for like, you know, whatever it was, a year, a year and a half, to really be out in public and express ourselves through fashion. So, I really think that definitely changed the mentality of making people more aware of what they were wearing.

Definitely. And I feel like we’ve said the word fashion so much, but I would like to have a definition from each of you guys. How would you define fashion?

To me, fashion is the understanding of clothing as art. Like, clothing and apparel a lot of times—you know, if you watch The Devil Wears Prada, the whole movie is basically about that. But most of the time people wear clothes you wouldn’t consider art because they’re mass manufactured, and they sort of don’t have any vision, and I think that fashion is the idea that there’s another level of thought being put into the way that we dress and the way that designers are designing clothes that is not just practical but also speaks to cultural change, what’s going on in the world. I think that fashion is a response to the world around it, whereas clothes are just the medium that it’s responding with.

I like that.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that, and to build on that a little bit: to me, fashion is a lot about self-expression. And it’s about being able to use the medium of clothes, accessories, bags—you know, things you put onto your body—to express yourself, to express your sense of style, to express maybe your mood. And I think it’s such a cliche thing when people say, ‘Dress for the job you want,’ or whatever, but I do think that’s another aspect of fashion. There’s a lot of signaling that comes through fashion, and you can convey a very different vibe, a very different—I don’t know, I guess you can look more professional, more athletic. Like, you can just show different aspects of yourself and your personality through the way you dress and through fashion, so I think that the expression part of fashion is what really sticks out to me as the main way that I would define it.

I definitely agree with that. I feel like my personality, as it’s altered over the four years that I’ve been here, my fashion has changed too. I remember I came in with more like a skater girl fashion, then as I got more into the English department and academia, I started dressing more formal. I leaned towards dresses and heels and all that, and now that I’m at the end of my time here I think both my personality and my fashion is mellowing out a bit. How would you guys describe your styles?

How I dress today is not how I would consider the way I normally dress, if that makes sense. I think I wear a lot of brown, I wear a lot of green. And I think I don’t—it’s not, like how I dress is not really an active choice for me. I’m not really trying to convey anything. I think I’m like, subconsciously aware that I like wearing neutral colors because I’m kind of shy, and I don’t really want to put a lot out there. But I also want people to, you know, like my clothes, and I also think that clothing is very social. Like when someone is like, ‘Oh I like your shirt, I like your pants,’ because that is the start of a conversation. And I think that’s really important to me as someone who, like I said before, is really kind of shy, and so I would prefer to signal with my clothes that people should talk to me, people should come up to me. And I think it honestly makes my life easier to dress in a way that I like because I don’t have to do as much work. I think that clothing a lot of times does the work for you.

Yeah, that’s really good. It’s like this kind of nonverbal communication with people that clothing signals.

Yeah, like if someone else is wearing Docs, and you’re wearing Docs, you’re like [nods] Docs.

You have this automatic bond. Cool, yeah.

I would say for me, this is kind of a lame answer, but just functionality. I just—when I buy clothes, I tend to buy, not necessarily neutral colors, but more neutral pieces that I can wear in a lot of different ways. So, I’ll buy a sweater I can dress up or dress down or wear with jeans or whatever. So, I would say that’s definitely my mentality when I’m shopping, so I guess that my style kind of just becomes a mish-mash of all the stuff I have.

I’ll also say what I wear day-to-day is very reflective of my mood. I don’t know if other people are like this, maybe it’s just a me thing—I feel like most people do this to some extent. But like, if I’m lazy, and I’m tired, and I woke up late, and it’s raining outside, I’ll just be like I’ll just wear leggings and a sweatshirt or something. But if I woke up early, and I’m feeling super chipper and whatever, I’m like, ‘Oh today I’m going to wear my cute blouse,’ or whatever. But I definitely think my—not necessarily style, because I do think I have kind of like an internal mentality of this is how I want to dress all the time but it doesn’t necessarily happen that way. Just like, college is hard, and sometimes I’m lazy, and sometimes I just have to be like I’m going to wear leggings today. But I guess long story short, my style would probably be more like classic, just like really classic. Not neutral colors, but neutral pieces that can kind of be worn—

Basics?

Yeah, like basics, that can kind of be worn in a lot of different ways. I don’t have a lot of statement pieces, which I guess is bad. But yeah, just basics, neutrals. Really like classic, minimalistic kind of.

Yeah. Do either of you have fashion inspirations that you look up to? Whether that be people or, I don’t know, shows, movies.

I like the way I dress, I like my clothes, but I would say that I don’t think that your sense of style always has to correlate with the way you dress. Like, I like my clothes, and I like other clothes more than mine, but I also recognize that some clothes I like aren’t for me, and if I wore them I wouldn’t be comfortable. So, I think that style is a lot about finding a happy medium between the aspirational and what when you actually put it on and am like, ‘This feels like myself.’ And I feel like a lot of times while you’re figuring out your style, you end up buying a lot of clothes that you like in theory but then you put them on and you’re like, ‘I look ridiculous,’ or ‘I don’t really feel like myself in this.’ So, I think I am inspired by—you know Minju Kim?

I do not.

She’s a South Korean designer. I love her clothes, I’m really inspired by her—and I could never wear anything she makes. Because if I wore it, I wouldn’t feel like myself. Like I think that as an artist, I really respect her.

Looking at fashion more as art—as opposed to something you would consume yourself—for inspiration.

I don’t know, I like to wear clothes that I think are cute, but I also don’t think I would feel comfortable going out in a designer outfit, just because I would feel like, ‘This is too much for me.’

No, I like that. That it’s an important aspect of fashion to wear what—well, like you said: that when you put it on, you can say ‘This feels like me.’ Very cool.

I would say more than a person, I’m inspired by the Parisian or European aesthetic. Which is like much more geared towards basics and towards—I’m sure you’ve heard of a capsule wardrobe, which is basically having a bunch of basic pieces that you mix and match and make different outfits out of. I really like that idea, both as—first of all, because it’s sustainable. And because it’s easy. It’s much less expensive, too, than buying a bunch of new clothes for every season. Just having reliable basics that you can mix and match for every season and change it up a little bit is, I think, a really smart way to dress. So, that’s definitely a lot of my inspiration. I feel like most of my outfits are pretty basic. Just kind of combinations of stuff I have already, but I kind of wear things together in different ways to spice it up as opposed to getting new clothes to spice it up, if that makes sense.

But in terms of inspirations when it comes to fashion as art, I don’t know if you know the designer Iris van Herpen. She’s Dutch, I think. I’m not sure honestly—don’t quote me on that. But she does these really symmetrical, structural pieces that incorporate some 3D printing, some different kinds of technology into the fashion. If you haven’t seen her stuff, you should definitely google her. Because I feel like it’s so unlike pretty much any fashion or any designer out there right now, so I definitely really admire that novelty and how different Iris van Herpen is from the traditional Gucci, Versace, Prada, type gowns. She has a really different aesthetic, which I think is really cool. So, that would probably be my number one artistic fashion inspiration or obsession right now.

She does like—for example, she’ll do headdresses, belts. Or like, the main structure of the piece will be a gown, but then it’ll have like, whatever, 3D printed wings coming off it or something like that. So, I feel like the thing I love about it is that every piece you really feel like it tells a story. And during her shows and collections, she’ll have a theme. So, a couple years ago, I actually wrote a piece on this when I was in the journalism department of TigerTrends. Her whole theme was like the interconnectedness of the root structures in nature. So, all of her pieces—I think it was like spring or summer 2021, possibly, not positive—but all of the pieces were inspired by the interconnectedness of roots and trees and nature, and there was one look where she was like, ‘I made this because I thought it looked like mushrooms.’ So, I thought that was cool. Just that brand and that designer takes inspirations from really interesting places that are just different from a lot of other fashion houses I feel like. Which is definitely refreshing, because high fashion can be such an exclusive and—it just has such a luxury connotation that can seem really exclusive and unapproachable, but I think the good thing about Iris van Herpen is that it’s just so different, and her inspirations are so different that it feels much more approachable in a way.

It sounds really cool. Sounds like that’s pretty central to what you guys have talked about, like how fashion brings together people, like in a community. That it’s a way to start conversation, and it’s a way for people to engage with others, and not just as high fashion, with it being another world, exclusive type of thing. That’s really cool.

So, for my final question: you [Kate] are a SPIA major, you [Sierra] are an English major. Those are two not-really-related things to fashion. So, how do you see your fashion changing in relation to your career down the line, and how do you see yourself incorporating into your life long-term?

Well, after I graduate I’m hoping to go into screenwriting, which is going to be difficult. But I don’t think fashion will actively help me in that regard, because I think that most screenwriters kind of bum around. But I think it’s always to me to be creative in all aspects of my life, and I definitely think that even though I want to be comfortable every day, and I’m always wearing some iteration of a shirt and pants, and I’m not really deviating from that in any innovative way, it’s important to me to always feel like someone who’s ‘on’ creatively. So, I try to always wear something a little interesting, I don’t know. Just because it helps me feel like I’m always sort of in this mentality that I like to stay in. And I also think that in any artistic world, it’s really useful to have a sense of style for people to remember you by when the language of the industry is talking to people, knowing people. And that in general feels me with anxiety because I hate to network, I hate to feel like I’m using people. So, I think I feel a lot more socially empowered when I’m wearing something that, like I said before, is expressing my personality for me, so that I can express myself the rest of the way, but I don’t have this huge weight on my shoulders to express my entire personality just through talking, or how I’m relating in the moment.

Right, when words fail you, your clothes help you get the rest of you across. I like that.

I’m a SPIA major, and I’ll probably end up going into law. So, I think that inherently, law is a profession that has kind of a rigid fashion standard. Just because it’s more of like, the stereotypically “professional career,” and you have to be in like a blazer and slacks and stuff like that. So, I definitely think that my potential chosen career path doesn’t give me a ton of wiggle room to express my personal style, just because there is such a standard of what professional dressing means. But I do think that pushing the boundaries of that a little bit is definitely something I want to do, and something that’s good for people to do. Because I think that perception that there’s one look for a professional woman, I think that’s so outdated and problematic. And I think just because you choose to dress in a certain way and express yourself in a certain way, you can be just as professional, just as smart, whatever, as anyone else.

So, I’m kind of not the biggest fan of the super rigid professional attire type thing, but at the same time, that does kind of come with its own problems, and you don’t want to sent to HR at work because you’re not wearing an outfit that’s ‘okay’ to meet a client in or something like that. So, I think that my future style, in my career, is just going to be a lot of experimentation and trying to push the boundaries, and kind of test where those boundaries are at the limit of being perceived as a professional woman by society, but then also being able to bring my own flair to it. And I also feel like I do have more a reserved, classic, polished style as it is, so I don’t think it’s going to be too much of a shift to go into business attire, but at the same time, if I do decide I want to go crazy, I want to feel like I’m able to do that.

Yeah, maybe Legally Blonde will provide some inspiration.

Yes, exactly. Reese Witherspoon. Love it.

Well, those were all my questions. Is there anything else that you want to add on fashion, things you think people should know about it?

I don’t think so… or one thing—one misconception I feel like people have about fashion is that it’s only about clothes. And we were talking about the expansion of TigerTrends into more events and PR spaces—fashion really kind of permeates a bunch of different areas of life, and I think that the perception that fashion is all about clothes is not necessarily correct. And I think that there’s so many other things in life and in the world that are influenced by fashion, influenced by trends, than just the clothes that we put on our body. So, I think that TigerTrends has definitely helped me to broaden my view of fashion and really see all the different ways that it impacts me outside of just what I wear and what other people wear.

Oh, I think I want to add on to something Kate said before about a capsule wardrobe. I think it’s really important to have as few clothes as possible, because I think there’s a conflation, a lot of times, with consumption and fashion. And to me that’s not true. I think if you feel the need to wear something new all the time, then I think that’s not really being true to the vision of fashion. Like, fashion isn’t supposed to move that fast. And I think we’re in a moment of mass consumption, which is very bad, not only for the environment, but for our culture and this idea that everyone needs to have a lot of clothes or else they’ll be perceived a certain way. So, yeah, just to reiterate what Kate said, I think that having as few clothes as possible where you still like everything you wear and feel like you have something for every occasion, I think that’s my advice.