Mesa Legend - ARCHIVES - Vol. 39, Issue 7


Volume 39, Issue 7. Today is .

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Volume 39, Issue 7
December 4, 2001

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Homemade fashions recognize students as new trend setters

By Lena Baisden
Mesa Legend

Homemade fashions From New York and L.A. runways to movies, music and television, throughout mainstream and diversified subcultures, comes a form of creative expression called fashion.

Large clothing stores are designed to stay up on the latest fashions and provide their customers with the most current clothing styles. The majority of mainstream America lays down their cash for such buys and in turn, these clothing stores have the finances to erect outlets of their services in every major city. However, there are some individuals, the minorities of America’s fashion industry, who have different notions on what style is and breathe life into those ideas by creating their own clothing.

Stephanie Dickerson, a full-time MCC student who has been making her own clothes for six years, stood up from the table at Essenza’s coffeeshop to show off the green corduroy pants that she was wearing, a creation all her own.

"They have secret pockets hidden everywhere," she said, twisting around to point out a few.

Made from a sheet of material that she purchased at SAS, a fabric store in Tempe which she claims to have the best deals and variety, Dickerson customized her pants to fit her body comfortably.

"The key to my style is comfort. I can make exactly what I want... I can adjust it to my liking and be creative as I want," she said. "I want people to recognize that what I wear is made for me."

Going for a handmade style, Dickerson wants her clothing to be noticed as individualized.

"My clothes may not be made the ‘right’ way, the way a book would say to do it or the way you’d learn in a class, but I make it work for me," Dickerson said. "I want my clothes to look homemade rather than mass produced."

Dickerson finds her clothing’s stylistic influences to be from the "hippie" generations, with emphasis on Janis Joplin. As such, her clothing veers away from the "stereotypical teeny-bopper stuff that you can find at the Gap."

Namoy Phoutphong, a freshman at MCC, also designs her own clothes and said that her clothing is influenced by several female musicians whose style has one thing in common— individuality.

"I love Janet Jackson’s style. She’s casual but classy and sexy at the same time. Her style changes from day to day," she explained while sitting meditation style in a long earth tone skirt. She wore a black tank top with sheer material wrapped and pinned over it and a strand of small bells on her wrists.

"And Jennifer Lopez, she wears like big floppy hats with elegant dresses. I love the mix and clashes of style.

"Gwen Stefani’s style is awesome because she’s masculine and feminine at the same time. She wears big baggy Dickies with a tight, little shirt and has her make up all done up. I like that. I like mixing styles."

Phoutphong, voted most uniquely dressed her senior year at Tempe High, intends to be a fashion buyer and said that she creates ideas for clothing and has a friend make them.

When she does not design clothing, Phoutphong explained that she will shop for clothes to create a mix of styles.

"I’ll take something from Ambercrombie and Fitch and put it together with something from a thrift store," she said.

Meagan Rae Longtin, an MCC student who has been making and altering her own clothing for six years, said that she usually shops only at thrift stores and gets a lot of her clothes passed down to her.

"If it’s expensive, you won’t find it on me," she said and laughed.

Longtin then alters a lot of these old clothes to her liking to give them new life.

"I’ll put buttons or ribbons on material to make it into a top or take skirts and make them into shirts," she said, pulling a strand of black hair back behind her ear.

"Fashion is self-expression, it has a lot to do with personality... it’s fun, it’s an artistic outlet," Longtin said.

"The one thing that I don’t like about fashion is mass production, uniformity... and not thinking for yourself about (fashion)," she said.

Longtin’s style has been influenced by Drew Barrymore and said that over the years, Barrymore’s style "has always been cute, no matter what she wears, it’s just cute."

"I would definitely want, if people were to take a glance at me, I would want them to see individuality. I would say that I have guts... to not care what other people think, and I think that, above all, is beauty," she said.