Opulence: Haute Magazine's Spring 2022 Issue

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A LETTER FROM THE

- -CHIEF EDITOR-IN Dear Reader, I’d like to ask you one question: what does it mean to be “opulent”?

The modern depiction of opulence draws heavy inspiration from media: “Great Gatsby.”

“Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” “Bridgerton.” Extravagant displays of wealth and affluence consume us in its shining diamonds. The American Dream is portrayed to us as a whimsical idea where your most opulent dreams come true; and as an immigrant myself, the concept wasn’t foreign to me: so ostensibly attainable yet so far out-of-touch with reality.

I come from humble beginnings, small dreams brewing inside a one-bedroom apartment in the heart of Texas. Years later, I am fortunate to be privileged enough to find myself here.

Just perhaps, the American Dream is real. But it’s not like what we imagine it to be. It’s not about finding yourself at Wall Street, draping yourself in luxury brands, and bathing in riches — it is rather something commonplace; it is both everything and nothing all at once.

“Opulence” aims to widen your scope and redefine what it truly means to be opulent. It’s not inherently bad nor inherently good. It’s finding beauty in the small things, the seemingly mundane things. Opulence is freedom in the way we express, the things we , and how we find ourselves significantly so in the eye of the beholder — you.

As we release our sixth issue, it also marks the fifth I’ve curated. Freshman year, I came in as the Director of Copy with some humble background dabbling in the art of written words.

I hadn’t much to offer, only coming with the spirit that, outside my academic endeavors, I could be part of something greater. I now stand as the Editor-in-Chief, alongside Creative Directors Shreya and Ally: good friends and tremendously brilliant teammates all in one.

Thank you to our Executive Board for being passionate, driven creators and trusting me to be in your leadership. Thank you to our talented staff. Thank you Layla for being a pillar of support since the beginning, which I know you’ll stick to till the ending credits roll.

And thank you, readers, for the support. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy our Spring 2022 issue, “Opulence” — and let us celebrate in the most opulent way we know how.

Warmly from the bottom of my heart,

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A NOTE FROM THE

CREATIVE DIRECTORS “Opulence” begins the era of two voices for Haute Magazine. We, Ally and Shreya, are beyond honored to take on our roles as Creative Directors and fulfill our mission as vanguards of creativity for the University of Southern California. As a student-led publication, we are driven by our campus’ wealth of talent and voices — without you all, our efforts would be fruitless.

As we embark on Haute’s sixth issue “Opulence,” we seek to reshape the sphere of luxury beyond its surface-level extravagance. At each turn of a page, you will face opulence in its holistic nature, featuring the art of our writers, photographers, and designers.

To be able to work alongside some of USC’s greatest storytellers, visualists, and creators has been an experience we will never forget. To Alice, our Editor-in-Chief, it is an honor to work alongside you; your work ethic, eye for detail, and charisma drives us to reach for the same standards that you set. To Bryan, Director of Writing, and Camryn, Director of Copy: you have a way with words that elevates all writing you touch. To Xyla, Assistant Director of Photography, and Katherine, Director of Multimedia: the passion you both infuse into each photograph and video is an inspiration to us all. To Anoushka, Assistant Director of Visual Design, and Borja, Director of Content: watching you both adopt and command Haute’s visual style with such ease has been an honor. To Katelyn, Director of Fundraising & Events, and Josh, Director of Finance: to go from a small gathering of people on a USC rooftop to celebrating this issue alongside more than 300 of our peers on a DTLA rooftop overlooking the LA skyline, is solely a credit to you both.

Haute is a publication run for and by USC talent. We hope you’re able to feel the pure passion, care, and talent that was poured into the making of this issue. Thank you all for supporting our magazine, it means more than you could imagine. It is surreal to finally present to you: “Opulence.”

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CREDITS Editor-in-Chief Alice Han Creative Directors Ally Wei & Shreya Gopala Director of Writing Bryan A’Hearn Assistant Director of Photography Xyla Abella Assistant Director of Visual Design Anoushka Buch Director of Multimedia Katherine Han Director of Content Borja Schettini Director of Copy Camryn Brewer Director of Fundraising & Events Katelyn Lee Director of Finance Josh Ko Senior Advisor Sydney Loew

VISUAL DESIGN STAFF Alexandria Santana Arya Tandon Emma Cheung Isabelle Lim Ivy Tsang Jaden Young

Jared Tran Mateo Garcia Min Ju Kim Ry Hermann Sadhana Sarma Sarah Chan

MULTIMEDIA STAFF Alysha Wang Brett Park Lindsiann Shi

Khai Phan Trevor Schmisseur Tyler Tang

MARKETING STAFF Aiden Le Bitiyah Asalifew

Max Trauner Naomi Gau

Coleman Sun Hannah Jian Lauren Oh

Sana Peswani Thomas Pham Tiffany Lo

PHOTOGRAPHY STAFF Alaric Ma Clark Miyomoto Emi Yoshino Ginger Gordon Jacob Yeh

Katie Luo Marissa Ding Michael Solomon Tai Campbell Quan Pham

WRITING STAFF Aerin Oh Angelique Ayoadé Cathy Chen Connor Fife Kaitlyn Huamani

Kassydi Rone Nina Cragg Rebecca Feng Sam Koog Serena Ngin

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Raja Rani Pavan Kalyan Garidipuri + Shreya Gopala Hour of Luxury Katie Luo + Anoushka Buch Unraveled Xyla Abella + Sam Koog + Jared Tran Arrietty Ally Wei + Anoushka Buch Soul House Quan Pham + Camryn Brewer + Mateo Garcia Logan Mock Logan Mock + Borja Schettini Ballet: The Beauty & The Beast Cathy Chen + Emi Yoshino + Mateo Garcia Pompoms — Tayo Clark Miyamoto + Jaden Young Bug Appétit Bryan A’Hearn + Borja Schettini Room To Grow Quan Pham + Sadhana Sarma Hans van Vrouwerf Hans van Vrouwerf + Jaden Young Empresses: Shattering Glass Ceilings Alice Han + Ally Wei + Shreya Gopala Simone Rocha Simone Rocha + Shreya Gopala In Other Words Marissa Ding + Sarah Chan Black Women in Luxury Xyla Abella + Kassydi Rone + Emma Cheung Brian Dinh Ally Wei + Angelique Ayoadé + Alexandria Santana Fashion’s Unapologetic Nonconformist Rebecca Feng + Isabelle Lim Relatable Ginger Gordon + Ry Hermann Tell Me Something, Creatively Katie Luo + Aerin Oh + Shreya Gopala Black Monday Tai Campbell + Alexandria Santana Daddy’s Money Marissa Ding + Connor Fife + Sadhana Sarma Ostranenie Xyla Abella + Arya Tandon The Humans Behind the Legacy Jacob Yeh + Serena Ngin + Anoushka Buch SCREWED! Michael Solomon + Jared Tran Hollywood Dream Emi Yoshino + Emma Cheung Unintended Influences of Influencer Culture Ginger Gordon + Kaitlyn Huamani + Sarah Chan Suburbian Disturbia Alaric Ma + Arya Tandon East/West Jacob Yeh + Borja Schettini

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PAVAN KALYAN GARIDIPURI

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SHREYA GOPALA

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PAVAN KALYAN GARIDIPURI

RAJA RANI

SHREYA GOPALA

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PAVAN KALYAN GARIDIPURI

RAJA RANI

SHREYA GOPALA

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PAVAN KALYAN GARIDIPURI

RAJA RANI

SHREYA GOPALA

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Pavan Kalyan Garidipuri is an editorial photographer and filmmaker, specializing in South Asian weddings. His artistry lies in anticipating, capturing, and conveying a visual narrative through a series of timeless moments. While sharing these stories, he highlights the beauty and diversity of the South Asian diaspora. So far, he’s captured over 20 South Asian weddings in places such as Cabo, New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. Garidipuri has also shot for brands such as Tom Ford, Sabyasachi, Manishmalhotra, and Oscar de la Renta.

He also studies Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation at the Iovine and Young Academy, University of Southern California.

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Shreya Gopala is a Los Angeles-based designer specializing in graphic and visual design. Her aesthetic approach integrates intentionality and elegance. Gopala studies Arts, Technology, and the Business of Innovation at the Iovine and Young Academy, University of Southern California. She also serves as the Creative Director for Haute Magazine.

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HOUR OF

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KATIE LUO

RY ANOUSHKA BUCH

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Models Annie Zhang Rediet Retta Ryan Tee Thomas Pham

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KATIE LUO

Stylist Kiera Smith Production Assistants Emily Baik Eric Cheng

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Katie Luo is a freshman studying Media Arts + Practice at the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California. She is passionate about merging the technological and physical world through creative mediums. Luo’s art aims to navigate her lived experiences and social justice topics.

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Anoushka Buch is a Bay Area-based designer specializing in graphic design. She seeks to design in a way that is subtle yet beautiful. Buch studies Design at the Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California. She also serves as the Assistant Director of Visual Design for Haute Magazine.

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KATIE LUO

HOUR OF LUXURY

In the midst of tragedy and conflict, those who can afford to live ignorantly remain suspended in their own utopias. If time is money, then opulence has all the time in the world.

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Since the start of the pandemic, the absence of socialization has led to nationwide silence, bringing creative development to a crashing halt. A study from American research group Brookings Institute estimates that current conditions are responsible for the loss of almost a third of jobs in creative industries, threatening not only workers involved but also nationwide culture and well-being. Walled in by the circumstances of self-isolation, a world once vibrant with color is bleaching into a faint pale, raising the question: when’s the grass going to get greener again? Without a timeline of what is to come, finding a form of expression becomes a therapeutic catharsis instrumental to fighting loneliness.

Searching for creative inspiration during the quarantine brought me to Buffalo Exchange, a consignment store for buying and selling secondhand clothing. Behind the glass doors, I was welcomed by a colorful collection: some tattered, some dirty, and all of them undoubtedly worn. But somehow, the flaws failed to bother me. Sifting through the endless racks filled with unique pieces felt refreshing; lost in the rags and piles, I was empowered by a renewed imagination. In this atmosphere defined by the unusual, I found myself drawn to the strange, curious as to what I could find.

For me, fashion provided the perfect paintbrush to repurpose my pandemic life. However, the artistry behind the big fashion houses has been declining.

Electrifying and elegant, the stylistic standards of the Roaring Twenties seeded the roots of fashion today. Encouraged by a prominent custom of looking glamorous, tailors experimented with unconventional materials and flattering cuts, giving life to a booming industry that would unfold into the essential of dressing with style. Bleeding together cross-cultural tastes from around the world offered a collaborative workspace that not only embraced unfamiliarity but treasured it, supporting diversity under the umbrella of fashion without the pressure of conformity.

Unfortunately, this sentiment of discovery has not survived.

On August 5, 1923, a sidewalk photoshoot first unveiled the Chanel suit, a silhouette that revolutionized women’s formal wear and cemented designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel among

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UNRAVELED the most influential creatives in history. Today, decades after her passing, Chanel’s fashion house has grown to a value over thirteen billion dollars, but its success has ironically undermined her legacy. As the industry blossomed, opportunistic manufacturers flooded the market, drawn to lucrative profits rather than unexplored style. In the fight for dominance, Chanel and competing companies drove up production rates, sacrificing quality and depth to accommodate for a larger audience. Resulting product lines featured repetitive minimalist designs with distinctive labels, marketing membership instead of pioneering design. Employing rigorous marketing policies, fashion companies today rely on developing a rigid, unchanging image, and creative innovation has become merely a prologue to this commercial era.

As advertising campaigns invade social media, romanticizing labels through the unrealistic lives of internet celebrities, society is taught that hedonism is a privilege granted by exterior vanity.

The Roaring Twenties imagined opulence as the pinnacle of quality design, but the present reflects a much shallower reality, one that worships prosperity over appreciating craft. Trending fashion convinces consumers to be stylistically colorblind, unwilling to experiment with the diverse palette fashion has to offer. Swallowed by an obsession with seeming wealthy, shoppers fixate on status instead of story to emulate a lavish lifestyle rather than discover their own. This mentality stems from allowing clothing to define individual worth, an unhealthy standard that designer culture enforces. Branding can imbue character and history in designs, but an excessive reliance on such practices promotes the sale of logos and ego at an unrealistic price tag, straying far from fashion’s artistic history.

The prominence of clothing labels redefine modern fashion, concentrating on monetary value and popularity as a measure of significance. To conform to these materialistic standards, shoppers have become careless, purchasing more than necessary and abandoning anything as soon as it is deemed valueless by ever-changing trends. Research by the Environmental Protection Agency finds that the volume of discarded clothes has increased from 7 million tons to 14 million in the past 20 years. The thrown-out garments accumulate in trash dumps, packing them with textiles that generate

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greenhouse gasses and leak toxins into the environment. The image of landfills bulging with decomposing rags serves as a reminder that blindly chasing prestige, fueled by a longing for recognition, contaminates society with wasteful tendencies and ecological damage.

Branding complicates fashion, shaping an industry revolving around greed, equal parts unethical and exhausting. Beneath the corporate influences, however, lies a break from the noise: buying and selling used wear. Shady, unhygienic venues and questionable presentation enforce an image of poverty, cultivating a culture of shame, but second hand shopping, or ‘thrifting,’ promotes recycling and the circulation of unwanted clothing, reducing the need to rely on retail and ensuring that a usable garment will be worn instead of rotting away in a toxic wasteland. Free from competition and appeasing an audience, second hand stores supply an unfiltered selection, vast with an unthinkable assortment of options, in its entirety.

Rather than focusing on what is in-demand, consumers regain a sense of expression in finding something original, no longer bound to social expectations. As an environmentallyaware alternative to traditional shopping, thrifting promises sustainability and creative direction, a guarantee that makes the activity far more enriching.

Acknowledging the immoral implications of retail is difficult, and it is harder to abandon these practices as a whole and craft a unique style. However, awareness of these issues are crucial to establishing an unwillingness to participate in harmful practices and investigate fashion under a personal lens. Fortunately, individual efforts are far from fruitless: making an effort to shop responsibly increases self-confidence and builds sustainable habits that can be impactful over time, and purchasing recycled clothing presents the perfect bridge to begin learning more. The overwhelming experience of thrifting forces customers to abandon any prejudgements and instead be true to their taste, a restoration of the diversity that branding has diminished. Every thrifted purchase is defined not only by the price tag or the label but also the effort that went into discovering, evaluating, and eventually loving the piece. By distinguishing itself from the limitations of branding, thrifting has revived the creative qualities of fashion as an interactive opportunity full of undiscovered colors, as long as there is a willingness to search.

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Sam Koog is studies Business Administration at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.

Xyla Abella is a fine arts/editorial photographer as well as an aspiring curator. She is pursuing a BFA in Fine Arts and Curatorial Practices at the Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California. She also serves as the Assistant Director of Photography for Haute Magazine.

Jared Tran is a Los Angeles-based designer specializing in graphic and visual designer. His work exemplifies a strong understanding of composition and form. Tran studies Design at the Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California.

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ARRIETTY

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ARRIETTY

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Arriety explores the delicate and fragile beauty of the art of ballet, featuring two Asian American models and dancers in elegant styling, wellconnected to nature within fields of greenery. To recognize the beauty of art and luxury, Arriety brings the negative views of opulence back to a state of raw humanness and nature.

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Models Kiana Ting Eileen Kim Videographer Alysha Wang Ally Wei is a Los Angeles-based photographer who specializes in editorial and fashion photography.

She aims to promote empathy and confidence through dreamy, elegant work. Wei studies Media Arts + Practice at the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California. She also serves as the Creative Director for Haute Magazine.

Anoushka Buch is a Bay Area-based designer specializing in graphic design. She seeks to design in a way that is subtle yet beautiful. Buch studies Design at the Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California. She also serves as the Assistant Director of Visual Design for Haute Magazine

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SOUL HOUSE A BLACK AMERICAN SANCTUARY

To design a home is to mold our existence within interior spaces — how we lay on a couch, how we sink into a bathtub, how we perch at our kitchen table. As the minds behind the most impressive architectural feats known to man, Ancient Egyptians viewed the home as a metamorphic sanctuary that provided shelter in the main life and ensured prosperity in the afterlife. Ancient Egyptian burials aimed to usher the deceased into the afterlife by placing “soul houses,” clay replicas of homes accompanied by sculpted clay foods, at the foot of burial sites throughout Egypt. Dating back to the inception of our modern understanding of home design, the home has been a vessel of sustenance, nurturing, and fulfillment.

The practice of interior design harkens back to the Ancient Egyptians who used adornments like animal skins, textiles, urns, and murals to decorate their earliest homes constructed with papyrus reed and mud. These same adornments are symbols of wealth in modern homes, even those of owners who have never visited a country of the African Diaspora, because they are staples of luxury. If in a luxurious home an Egyptian statue or Moroccan rug profess the affluence of its owner, then why are African culture and Black culture not deemed luxurious?

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Bryan Mason, co-owner of the interior design and media company AphroChic with his wife Jeanine Hays, ascribes this conjecture to “common knowledge.” For Mason, common knowledge pertains to that which cannot be traced back to a particular source because you just know it, you feel it. In our gut, Black Americans just feel that pit that spreads to our hearts and our heads that Black culture is not opulent in the public view, but rather primitive and lowbrow.

“Common knowledge is something that has been consistently wielded against African Americans, Black Americans, for a very long time largely through popular culture,” Mason remarks. “[Popular culture] is a manipulation of common knowledge. In whichever way, whether it’s in a positive direction or in a negative direction, popular culture is largely a manipulation of common knowledge.

Its purpose is to control what you think.”

This inference has been wielded against Black Americans so that we create distance between ourselves and the idea of luxury, and so we internalize the notion that we are not opulent, not regal, not worthy. Bryan Mason and Jeanine Hays’ design ethos serves as a tether between that distance to reconcile Black culture and the African Diaspora with its own rich sense of opulence.

So what is that ethos? Hays calls upon the antebellum period as the incubation of what Black Americans require from a home: safety. Black Americans’ enslaved ancestors were ripped from their native countries, thrust into the dynamic of an unfamiliar family, and demanded to create a sense of home for the very

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SOUL HOUSE

people who abused them. Their new “home” was not their home at all, but quarters that could be infiltrated by the plantation owner at any moment. These quarters were devoid of any sense of safety or privacy. When approaching a new design project, then, Hays strives to make the home a sort of “cocoon” that envelops you as you cross the threshold because that is what luxury is in the home: a right to security.

Even as early as the 19th century, Black Americans were founding their design ethos around a sense of wellbeing through cultural artifacts that proclaim the resilience of our culture. These artifacts not only communicate the personal aesthetic of the homeowner but embody the newfound ability to achieve autonomy, create a family lineage, and collect wealth. Because Black Americans could not rely on the permanence of things, people, or spaces during enslavement, now, what is most valuable in Black interior design are items that have “staying power.” Heirlooms. Character pieces.

“I think that for Black culture, opulence and luxury are things that have a particular design perspective, or things that have staying power,” Hays reflects. “In many Black homes, even in our own home, we see those inherited pieces that have been through generations. And that is opulence: being able to have those pieces that stand the test of time, that can be given and handed down to generations, that can last in the home. And then that people can see for future generations being able to use and utilize.”

This is not to say that Black design excludes expensive things or that

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Black Americans don’t desire to put typically luxurious items in our homes; it is to say that as much as opulence signifies extravagant wealth, it is also redefined for Black Americans with a narrative undertone, a reference to a rich history. If Mason and Hays’ design approach seeks to draw out the narrative of Black history and popular culture, then the story they are trying to tell is this: the most resonant interior design is prompted by a need, and for Black people that need is to feel safe, comforted, and nurtured within our own walls. A design aesthetic that speaks to our fortitude and a buildable, communal history is one that reminds Black Americans that we are enveloped by a sense of belonging within a greater cadre of people who resist the tides that threaten to drown us.

Mason underscores the compounded nature of luxury in the Black home: “For us [Black Americans], opulence in design may be something as lofty as a Gucci toilet. But at the same time, real luxury might just be the freedom that having your home gives you to express yourself and to create a sense of autonomy and safety and control in a society that works so hard to deprive you of all of those things.”

Black design does exist outside of that shadow of being told it is primitive all while they are appropriating Black culture and using it to accumulate incredible wealth. Under Mason and Hays’ devoted leadership, AphroChic empowers Black youth in the field to claim their position at the vanguard of home design that does not seek to tally up zeros but to embody a personality. “That is a new luxury that Black people are ushering in, of design as a form not of showing

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that great wealth but as showing who you are, of self-expression,” Hays declares. For Mason and Hays, design is that catalyst to push back against narratives of whiteness in popular culture because as much as culture shapes design, so too does design shape culture.

Design writes the counterscript to the normalized paradigms of American history and popular culture. According to Mason himself, Black Americans deserve more than what they can afford, they deserve what they need.

Camryn Brewer studies Narrative Studies at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California.

She also serves as the Director of Copy for Haute Magazine.

Quan Pham is a Los Angeles-based Vietnamese photographer from Springfield, Massachusetts. He mainly focuses on portrait and lifestyle photography, capitalizing on human emotions to tell compelling stories. Pham studies Media Arts + Practice at the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California.

Mateo Garcia is a Los Angeles-based designer specializing in graphic design and the visual arts. He takes inspiration from artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Willem de Kooning to create imaginative and colorful designs and works of art. Garcia studies Design at the Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California.

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Logan Mock is a Los Angeles-based photographer who specializes in editorial and fashion photography. She aims to promote empathy and confidence through dreamy, elegant work.

Borja Schettini is a Los Angeles-based designer specializing in graphic design and creative direction. His acute understanding of the principles of design makes way for his experimental style to push those boundaries while creating artwork. Schettini studies Communications at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism., University of Southern California.

He also serves as the Director of Content for Haute Magazine

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Model Deon Hinton

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BALLET:

THE BEAUTY &

THE BEAST

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BEFORE INTERMISSION.

The conductor lifts his wand and the murmuring of the audience comes to a halt. As the bewitching melody of Tchaikovsky’s famous Swan Lake engulfs the opera house and everyone within, the rich red velveteen curtain is steadily drawn up to reveal the corps de ballet already in motion on the grand and imposing stage. The view is nothing short of glorious.

Prince Siegfried arrives upon a moonlit lake where he sees Odette, the White Swan Queen who had been cursed by an evil sorcerer to be a swan by day and a maiden by night. Dressed in the most decadent pearlescent whitefeathered tutu and perfectly shiny satin pointe shoes, Prince Siegfried falls in love instantly. Odette tells him that if he promises his love to her, then her curse will be broken and then they can truly be together forever. Just as day is about to break and Odette is about to transform back into her swan form, Siegfried gives her his word and bids her farewell. Before the scene ends, Odette performs a solo filled with sorrow, angst, and melancholy over her fate being sealed by another. Her enchanting tutu shines under the theatre lights fluttering against the ballerina’s glass-like skin, and she looks beautiful, the truest kind of beauty where you can’t help but stare.

Her brows are furrowed and you’re forced to wonder how a dancer can dance so beautifully, so absolutely irresistibly, that she can also leave you equally heartbroken. While the audience is mesmerized by the symphony of music and the ballerina’s exquisite embodiment of a swan, the curtain drops, symbolizing the start of intermission and the beginning of the ballet’s main antagonist: Odile, the Black Swan.

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Swan Lake, and the dual role of the White and Black Swan, is arguably ballet’s most impactful and renowned contribution to the rest of the world. The story has stood the test of time, retaining its relevance since its conception over a century ago because of its timeless elegance and its exploration of good and evil.

Much like the story of Swan Lake, ballet, the artform itself, harbours dark, wicked, and insidious secrets. Far from the highbrow and sophisticated performanceart it is deemed today, ballet’s origins stem from a much more clandestine history.

Ballet first reached popularity amongst the rich and powerful in France under King Louis XIV who adored ballet so much he founded the first official ballet academy to establish unified ballet standards.

From there, the first professional ballet company, Paris Opera Ballet, emerged and even remains one of the world’s most prestigious ballet companies today.

admired on stage, afterwards, the theatre would inevitably turn into a men’s club where beautiful ballerinas were expected to surrender to the affection and attention of important donors and affluent financiers — in whatever manner that may be.

Because the Opera House relied on these donors’ money to stay afloat, dancers had little choice but to submit to them. Similarly, if a dancer were to fall out of favour with a generous donor, then they risked losing coveted roles or being fired.

It is undeniable that the Paris Opera elevated ballet to unprecedented standards of refinement, but they did so on the backs of exploited young women. Despite all the charm and splendour seen on stage, there is an equally harrowing story occurring behind the velvet curtains.

Though ballet cites its origins in the ornate and regal royal courts, the women involved were likened to prostitutes and sex workers rather than their royal counterparts. Because women’s clothing then greatly emphasized modesty, ballet dancers costumes, in comparison, seemed relatively skimpy, revealing, and tight.

Wealthy and influential noblemen would come to the opera house to watch performances, and although dancers would be applauded and

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As Odile and Prince Siegfried’s pas de deux reaches the climax, he declares his love for her and vows to marry Odile all the while still believing her to be Odette. The moment his final words are uttered, Rothbart and Odile tauntingly reveal their true identities and it is only then that Siegfried realizes the dire mistake he made. Suddenly, from the far end of the stage, we see Odette’s shadow once more in her ivory white tutu, frantically flapping her arms in agony and her expression tearfully in pain. Too heartbroken to live, Odette throws herself into her lake and in death, is at last cured of her curse.

As the music comes to an end, the audience erupts into standing ovations and thunderous applause. The principal ballerina, who had just danced both swan roles, delicately runs to the front of the stage and graciously takes her courtesy.

The moment the blood-red curtain is finally lowered, the dancer heaves a long-awaited sigh of relief and walks—with significantly less grace now—off the stage. As soon as she enters her change room, she sits down, unties the ribbons of her now dead and broken pointe shoes. The once satin and pink slippers were now brown and worn down and her feet, once smooth and unblemished, were now blistered and bleeding. At last, she allows her feet and herself a moment of relief for she had been callused, for far too long, both emotionally and physically.

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CATHY CHEN, CHEN +EMI EMIYOSHINO YOSHINO

AFTER INTERMISSION. Rather than the soft and romantic melody that filled the theatre in the first half of the show, the music is now more sinister, ominous, and foreboding — yet, no less intoxicating. Act three opens in Prince Siegfried’s castle featuring a ball celebrating his delcaration of a bride. Suddenly, trumpets sound the arrival of two uninvited guests, one being the evil sorcerer Von Rothbart and the other his daughter, Odile, the Black Swan, who he had transformed into resembling Odette.

Perhaps even more captivating and dazzling than her white counterpart, the Black Swan’s tutu is embellished with hundreds of tasteful Swarovski diamonds and black feathers so dark they swallow even the tiniest ray of light. Odile is magnificent. If Odette embodies everything pure, elegant, and graceful in the world, then Odile embodies authority, passion, and intensity. Neither less enchanting than the other. As Siegfried and Odile begin one of ballet’s most acclaimed pas de deux, the audience can’t help but be transfixed by the Black Swan’s every movement and expression; she has the prince — and everyone around her — in the palm of her hands. She is the evil swan, the wicked ballerina, the villain of the story, but God, is she entrancing. And even though we know Odile is nothing more than a deception, her beauty is inescapable.

THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

The role of Odile assumes the role of an allegory for ballet itself. She is as ravishing as she is evil and as glamorous as she is villainous, and, just like ballet, there is much more to her than meets the eye. Although it would be reassuring to hear that ballet has evolved since its insidious conception, that sadly would be false. Unfortunately, the ballet world today is no less fraught with sexual harassment cases than it was in the past. In 2017, the artistic director of the New York City Ballet, Peter Martins, was accused of abusing his position and influence to obtain sexual favours from his dancers.

Similar to the noblemen and donors of the past, Martins wielded the power to decide who would get casted, who would rise in ranks, and who would never be more than a corps de ballet dancer. Evidently, not much has changed over the course of centuries.

In another case involving New York City Ballet, 19-year-old Alexandra Waterbury was in a romantic relationship with principal dancer Chase Finlay when evidence came to light that Finlay had shared sexually explicit images of Waterbury without her consent. She was courageous enough to publicize her traumatic experience and, in doing so, exposed how ballet companies often foster

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a fraternity-like atmosphere where the women are left unprotected, vulnerable, and powerless. It is ironic how in an industry dominated by young girls and women, it is still the men that run the show.

Beyond power imbalances and gender inequality, there is another hidden world of body shaming and eating orders unequalled by any other profession. Mothers put their daughters in baby ballet classes from as young as three years old, and every day thereafter they are confronted with how they look from every single angle by walls lined with mirrors upon mirrors. When I was nine, I recall staring at myself tugging at all the areas on my body that I had deemed too chubby. I was nine — barely tall enough to reach the higher barre, barely old enough to understand the concept of weight — and yet there I was, criticizing what my natural body looked like... at merely nine years old.

Although I had no idea what ballet was doing to my brain then, I can say with my full chest and heart that no dancer, no ballerina, is immune to developing harmful body images.

And this isn’t a flaw in the system but rather a feature. Ballet was deliberately designed to force dancers into caring about their appearance, hence why the uniform consists of skin-tight leotards and tights leaving nothing to the imagination and nothing to hide

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behind. Additionally, pointe shoes — ballet’s most unique component — require dancers to be light enough for their shoes to support them.

If a dancer is too heavy, then her pointe shoes will simply collapse under the weight. Thankfully, I grew up with ballet mistresses who never commented on our appearances or weight, but in studios where standards are much more rigorous and relentless, body shaming is simply the norm. Ballet is an art form that celebrates the body and its amazing abilities, but it only does so if the body is thin. Because ballerinas are forced to look at themselves when dancing to correct imperfections, they are also much more prone to developing anorexia, bulimia nervosa, and body dysmorphia just to name a few. When young dancers go through puberty and find their chests getting bigger and their legs more muscular, they cannot fathom that it’s a natural part of growing up.

To them, all they can see is that they no longer fit the “ballet look.” Despite increasing demands for change, the century ingrained vision of lean and skinny dancers is far from gone.

Ballet not only celebrates thinness and weight loss, but it also celebrates whiteness and uniformity. Being an art form that originated in Europe, it’s unsurprising that ballet promotes Eurocentrism, but even as the rest of the world seems to become increasingly diverse and inclusive,

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ballet remains stagnant in its progress. Unfortunately, racism and discrimination are still highly prevalent in the industry; the issue only came under scrutiny in 2015 when Misty Copeland became the first African American woman to become principal dancer in the American Ballet Theatre’s 75year history. Although her promotion is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, it simultaneously highlighted just how much diversity was lacking in prestigious ballet companies. In an interview done with NBC News, Chloé Lopes Gomes, Berlin State Ballet’s first African dancer, criticized her industries’ elitism and homogeneity. Not only has her company asked her to lighten her complexion with makeup but also told her that because she was Black, her mistakes

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were that much more prominent. If the ballet industry remains stagnant as it is, then it may very well be left as an art form of the past.

Ballet is a profession that has been able to shield its dark secrets from the world because it presents itself as something beautiful, artistic, and opulent. No one questions the ugliness behind all its beauty. But ugliness hidden behind beauty pervades the industry ­­­­­— from bruised, callused, and bleeding feet inside polished pink pointe shoes to blood, sweat, and tears during rehearsals — in order to give a flawless performance on stage. Just like the Black Swan, as evil as she is, she is also undeniably alluring.

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As Odile and Prince Siegfried’s pas de deux reaches the climax, he declares his love for her and vows to marry Odile all the while still believing her to be Odette. The moment Siegfried utters his final words, Rothbart and Odile tauntingly reveal their true identities and it is only then that Siegfried realizes the dire mistake he made. Suddenly, from the far end of the stage, the audience sees Odette’s shadow once more in her ivory white tutu, frantically flapping her arms in agony as she tears up from the pain. Too heartbroken to live, Odette throws herself into her lake and, in death, is at last cured of her curse.

As the music comes to an end, the audience erupts into standing ovations and thunderous applause.

The principal ballerina, who had just danced both swan roles, delicately runs to the front of the stage and graciously takes her courtesy.

The moment the blood-red curtain is finally lowered, the dancer heaves a long-awaited sigh of relief and walks — with significantly less grace now — off the stage. As soon as she enters her change room, she sits down and unties the ribbons of her now dead and broken pointe shoes. The once satin and pink slippers are now brown and worn, and her feet, once smooth and unblemished, are now blistered and bleeding. At last, she allows her feet and herself a moment of relief, for she had been callused for far too long.

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Cathy Chen studies International Relations at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California.

Emi Yoshino is a Los Angeles/Orange Countybased photographer who specializes in portrait and production photography. Through her experience in Stage Management and Photography she has gained a passion for storytelling and entertainment.

Yoshino is pursuing a BFA in Stage Management at the School of Dramatic Arts, University of Southern California.

Mateo Garcia is a Los Angeles-based designer specializing in graphic design and the visual arts. He takes inspiration from artists like JeanMichel Basquiat and Willem de Kooning to create imaginative and colorful designs and works of art.

Garcia studies Design at the Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California.

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Clark Shoji Miyamoto is a Hawaii-based creative. He studies Physics at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Science, University of Southern California.

Jaden Young is a Los Angeles-based product and visual designer. He draws inspiration from street art, collage, and photography. Young studies Business Administration at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.

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Luxury, since the advent of social hierarchies, has been an ever present force that dictates — and, therefore, differentiates — the rich from the poor, the rulers from the ruled. Its function historically, whether it be through superfluous attire or looming estates, furthered a chasm between the two classes. However, an often overlooked aspect of opulence occurs through what we eat, how we eat, and where we eat.

Fine dining, commonly referred to as gourmet or haute cuisine, holds its roots in French aristocracy, creating the international gold standard of food in a purview of how the white, upper-class dines. This narrow scope was bolstered by the Michelin Guide — a bible for gourmands — that deemed restaurants’ quality which, historically, operated within Anglo/ West-European countries and prominently featured formal dining, their most popular culinary export. Despite efforts to curb this cramped representation (e.g., the Michelin Guide’s geographic expansion into Asia in 2007), the guide hardly operates in the Global South, ignoring the cuisines of cultures outside the Anglosphere and Eurosphere.

Entomophagy is the unattractive word that denotes insect-eating (a practice common throughout Asia, Africa, South America, Central America and largely ignored by the West) and, within the past decade, has been making rounds across food and sustainability symposiums alike. As the world — in which, according to the United Nations, ten percent of our global population suffers from hunger — grows by the years, so does our demand for meat and other long-term, sustainable options for food, with insect-eating taking a high priority. (A challenge to the Western palates with intrinsic distaste to their chitinous neighbors.)

At the head of this campaign toward insect-inclusion is Chef Joseph Yoon, the ambassador of Brooklyn Bugs, an advocacy platform that seeks to shift the culinary paradigm toward a global culture that adopts insects as a source of protein no different than chicken or beef. He

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has recently served as Culinary Director at The Future of Food Festival this year to champion edible insects, along with being the Culinary Advisor for the Methuselah Foundation in support of NASA’s Deep Food Space.

His mission to destigmatize insect-eating starts at its lexical-roots.“The big shift that I’ve been trying to get people to recognize is that saying edible insects — not insects, but edible insects — presents an entirely new paradigm that [denotes] a sustainable, nutrientdense, smart, and delicious food source harvested specifically for humanconsumption,” Yoon lectures.

This grandeur vision, however, rears its ugly head with the culinary qualms from the West’s prejudice toward insects as chitinous foreigners. Depicted in the media as abominates with bulging, metal-glazed eyes and unpredictable skittered movements, the West has long vilified insects as alien-like creatures. “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka typified insects as monstrous vermin ostracized by society when a salesman inexplicably wakes up as a giant bug. In a non-allegorical lens, the dare-based game show “Fear Factor” suffocated contestants in coffins of roaches. This “psychology of fear and visceral reaction one gets from eating insects,” as Yoon says, is the driving force behind criticism towards the food movement in the Anglo-Western world. “[People] look at a bowl of crickets and think to themselves how they are supposed to eat all of it. But they never think of how they are going to eat a whole cow, a whole chicken,” Yoon remarks. “The more we’re able to present insects as food, the more we’re able to integrate them into dishes that people recognize as beautiful.”

Many internationally recognized chefs, among Momofuku’s David Chang — a newly-made

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edible insect ambassador alongside Yoon — have gone on to have grotesque reactions toward the creepy, crawly things, whether they be in their unadulterated, arthropodic form or as roasted powders for garnishing.

“I would say to Chef [David Chang]: Why don’t you approach it like you would a new ingredient? You work with it in its raw state and you taste it,” he remarks. “You fry it; you bake it; you roast it; you ferment it. You see what these do for the flavor and the texture.

You gain an understanding of what that ingredient is in its natural state — then you manipulate it.”

Much like other proteins, edible insects take on drastically different flavor and texture profiles when transfigured into powders or patties, broadening their purview beyond a chitin exoskeleton. Oyamel, a Oaxacan-themed restaurant — a Mexican city renowned for insect dishes — ran by José Andrés in Washington D.C. makes chapulin tacos: hand-made tortillas outfitted in sautéed shallots, tequila, chipotle paste, and Oaxacan grasshoppers.

But not all edible insects are prepared so flashily. Beondegi, a Korean street food, are often bastardized into canned-goods on the shelves of H Marts, diminishing the non-canned beondegi’s reputation as being less-than-subpar. “It’s like if someone says You got to try pork, it’s the best and he gets you a can of spam,” Yoon quips.

Despite a lot of his messaging focusing on the inclusivity of insects in the Western palate to “cultivate innovative ideas,” the ultimate drive behind Yoon’s love for edible insects is the message of environmentalism and sustainability. “I think that [Brooklyn Bugs] would have been very short lived if that was the main focus of my messaging. I’m so grateful that we have universities, white papers, journals, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization

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report, that explain [climate change] in far better ways than I can imagine.”

A UN’s FAO report in 2013 estimated over 80% of the world’s nations eat insects and over 2 billion people consume them on a regular basis. “If you think about it, [the West] is really in the minority… There’s no one silver bullet that will suddenly change the mind of however many people are in America and Europeans,” Yoon notes. Food cultures are notoriously highly localized and, often, irrationally resistant to culinary change. The West associates insects with filth and decay despite many of their formal diners flaunting lobster, crab, and shrimp — all arthropods — that feed on the foul surface of the ocean floor. In the community of Santa María Atzompa in Oaxaca, where grasshoppers are toasted with garlic, chile, and lime as savory treats, shrimp is found as repulsive to the non-coastal people.

However, nations like Denmark, due to geographical position, are often haste to ignore culinary diatribe and focus on progressive food innovation. René Redzepi— a chef and coowner of the three-star Michelin restaurant, Noma — has regularly included insect protein on his menu for years now as an edible insect advocate, expanding Dutch cuisine vertically in hopes other countries will follow his coattail to expand their palate.

As these points of engagement build between culinary networks across the West — whether it be large-scale insect farms funded by venture capital or a mom-and-pop cricket farm in Missouri — Yoon remains optimistic about the future of edible insects. “I think there will be a big point of adoption across America when we start having ready-to-eat edible insect products: cricket fried rice, cricket mac-and-cheese, cricket lavsagna… these types of products, with the right branding and messaging, can see growth,” Yoon envisions. “We are living through a global transformation toward the acceptance of eating insects right now, as we speak.”

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Bryan A’Hearn studies Journalism at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California. He also serves as the Director of Writing for Haute Magazine.

Borja Schettini is a Los Angeles-based designer specializing in graphic design and creative direction. His acute understanding of the principles of design makes way for his experimental style to push those boundaries while creating artwork. Schettini studies Communications at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California. He also serves as the Director of Content at Haute Magazine.

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The American Dream presents itself as a bargain: what are you willing to give up to gain more?

Within this shoot, I wanted to provide an idyllic representation of Vietnamese culture integrated into the American Dream. This is what happens when dreams come to fruition; enjoy the riches when you can.

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Quan Pham is a Los Angeles-based Vietnamese photographer from Springfield, Massachusetts. He mainly focuses on portrait and lifestyle photography, capitalizing on human emotions to tell compelling stories. Pham studies Media Arts + Practice at the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California.

Sadhana Sarma is a California-based designer specializing in digital experiences. Her works aspire to be bold yet minimalistic. Sarma studies Business Administration at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.

Model Julie Tran

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Hans van Vrouwerf is a Netherlands-based photographer who traverses Europe in search of abandoned buildings and crumbling industrial sites.

Peeling paint and broken windows are no deterrant of Vrouwerf as the idea of past glory fascinates him.

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Jaden Young is a Los Angeles-based product and visual designer. He draws inspiration from street art, collage and photography. Young studies Business Administration at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.

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Alexa Jade — more commonly known as Navarose — is a true fashion icon for the Gen Z time.

Jade has been involved the fashion industry ever since she was young, knowing early on that she wanted to stay in the industry to grow her career; she formally started back in college, she studied at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandise (FIDM) in Los Angeles. She mainly handled marketing and creative studio work in the fashion industry, but it was not until five years ago that she decided she didn’t want to do this “big girl, big corporate kind of job” anymore. So then she started YouTube, curating original content. Now with 6.7 million followers on TikTok, she redefines the true meaning of thrifting, inspiring the digital-age youth.

It seems like your niche in content is thriftflipping and DIY fashion. When did you learn how to sew?

I learned how to sew ever since… I want to say junior high, but I think a little before that. The very first time was in sixth grade, because I’m a third generation seamstress in my family. I’ve actually learned how to sew from my mom when I was really young.

Is there any reason you’re passionate about secondhand fashion?

I’m definitely very big on [sustainable fashion] and being eco-friendly. But other

than that, I just feel that there’s so many clothes in the world that aren’t being used.

And there’s just so many ways that you could style it, even if it’s just a little snip here and there. I’m always big on that saying: if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. I like to use what I have already, instead of constantly buying new things; so I think that’s why I’m really big on thrift-flipping and DIY. What do you do with all the clothes that like you’ve revamped?

Oh, they’re still in my closet. All of it.

I would say maybe 10% of it has gone to [donations] and [they’re all] something that I probably wouldn’t fit in anymore. Or if it’s something that is just not my style anymore.

But honestly, 80% of the stuff that I’ve made is still here.

What got you started on thrifting and upcycling?

I started thrifting when I was really young, and I think I’ve always had this designer mentality where I’m like, “Oh my God, this would look so cute like this.” I would see all these clothes at the thrift store and I would think to myself, what if I just like cut these into booty shorts or a crop top? It started very small, like cutting these pants into flared jeans and then it kind of evolved, where my mind was like, “What if I take this dress and turn it into some crazy gown?”

Then my mind just started getting crazier

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and crazier with ideas and designs that I would think of.

So you were always kind of an experimentalist. What does that creative process look like? Do you sketch it out, or do you just go for it?

Oh, yeah, I think anything that I do, I’m always just like, “How can I make this not boring?” Or, “how can I read that bit from this to that?” And I wish I would sketch it out — honestly, that would make things so much easier [than] working off the paper and pen in my brain and thoughts.

Sometimes I will literally sit in front of my sewing machine and do this. But sometimes I do have to draw it out if I have specific measurements that I have to work on, but my creative process is very all over the place. When I see an item, I’ll automatically already know what I want to make it into.

And because I usually work with patterns, I have to do a very, very light sketch to figure out how I’m going to cut it.

Do you consider yourself an activist? If so, did you expect to become an activist of sustainability/recycled fashion when you first began your YouTube channel?

I would say “activist” is a kind of strong word.

Because whenever I think of activist, I think of people that are just like super gung-ho.

And I am, but I feel that I don’t have enough

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time in that space to be called an activist.

But I do try to voice my love for being ecofriendly and sustainability whenever I can.

So, I would say I’m a trying activist — I try my best to be good. But I actually didn’t think I was going to be such an influencer for eco-friendly sustainability. [But] I really, really love it; I love how it ended up that way.

Thrifting has become a huge part of the Gen Z trend, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic. What’s one piece of advice you’d give to beginner thrifters and DIYers?

One big thing is not to thrift in Los Angeles, because it’s so picked through. I honestly always just thrift outside of LA because there’s just so many great places out there.

So that’s one advice that I would say to anyone that’s a beginner: don’t just go to LA, because I feel like a lot of people think LA is the greatest when it comes to thrifting.

But all of the great stuff is in Melrose [flea market] and it’s twice more expensive. So definitely thrift outside of very popular areas unless you’re in New York. Another piece of advice is if you see something that you really like, and you don’t know what to do with it at that moment, get it because you won’t regret it. The thing is, that piece will never be anywhere else in another store. Once you leave that piece from the thrift store, it’s gone. So I always like to just get a piece when I see it, and then I’ll figure

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out what to do with that at home afterwards. If you still don’t want it, you can always just donate it again. It’s just like a never ending cycle of donated items. The last piece of advice is, when you’re flipping, always cut less than what you want, especially if you’re a beginner — it’s like a known fact in crafting, or thrift flipping, is that you can always take more fabric but you can’t put back [altered] fabric.

Anything in store for you in the next few years?

I definitely think I’m going to be in this whole fashion-influencing-contentcreating space forever. So it’ll be so fun. When I started fashion school, one of my main goals was to have a clothing brand line. But with how the world is going, I’m still in the works of trying to figure out how I can make this as ecofriendly as possible. Just because I can and because I have cute designs, I want it to be very mindful as far as not doing more harm to the earth. If there is a manufacturer out there that has like fabrics upon fabrics recycled material, then that’d be great. It’s still in the works, but I hope that will be something that’ll pop up in the near future.

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Bella Golden, a body-positivity model, flaunts her newest collection in collaboration with Show Me Your Mumu: the Bella Golden x Mumu collection. Golden has made it accessible for women of all sizes to feel good in their bodies — and her ambitions don’t stop there. She seeks to deconstruct the narrative of female bodies being seen as trends, and hopes to show young girls that you can be happy at any size.

When and how did you get started in modeling?

I started when I was 20, [and] I was just starting my second year of college. I enjoy learning, but for some reason when I started school that year, I didn’t have this passion to be at school. I just had this weird feeling like I wasn’t supposed to be there. I can’t even think back to the day [this all began] because it was such a small, miniscule moment that led up to something so big, but I commented on this curve model[‘s Instagram photo], Iskra. [I just said something] like, “you really inspire me,” because it was so true. I love being able to see other people who look like me on my feed [since it] makes me feel represented. Her agent saw my comment, and then sent me a DM [if I was interested in modeling]. And that was so wild, because I just had my little icon photo, [since] I was a private Instagram. She asked me to send her digitals and then pretty soon I was going to New York and fully working. Then I found out I could get signed in LA, so I signed with Willamina Los Angeles. I’ve signed with them in Miami and London, and now I’m

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working with another agency in New York.

It’s kind of crazy to think that I’ve never thought of modeling before [because] I lost a lot of my confidence from [being bullied in middle school, so] I never really saw myself as beautiful for a really long time.

But definitely every day I’m so grateful to get that chance [to do what I love]. It’s really a big opportunity to get to use my voice for [body positivity]. It’s just crazy to think that I was in school, and I was working in Disneyland [before all this].

What has your experience been like in the modeling industry? It sounds pretty positive from what I’m picking up.

Yeah, I mean, I’m definitely grateful to say that it’s been positive because it came from, you know, nothing. I’m really grateful to say it’s positive, to get to work with all these brands [such as Lucky Brand] is really a neat experience. And also, I’m grateful to be coming into the industry at a time where it is starting to be more inclusive as far as [representing] midsize models [and] different ethnicities, cultures — but of course, the fashion industry has a really long way to go, by leaps and bounds.

Considering when I first started modeling, I was often the plus-size representation for the whole website for many brands.

The plus-size representation at a size 10 is so disappointing to many people, and all you’re doing is making people feel like they’re not seen or that they don’t deserve to also be stylish and enjoy trends. I’m also able to be in spaces where there’s a

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lot of women being lifted up and women in power and [getting to] work with female photographers, and being able to speak up when you think that something isn’t right. I know that there’s lots of models that have been taken advantage of and have had negative experiences and so I’m so grateful to [have the ability to use my voice]. I think a part of it is because I started when I was 20, and so I was a little bit older, my body had developed a little bit more, and so I knew more about my body and knew not to take little comments so seriously. To really ultimately know that, in my job, I might just be like a mannequin, but I have so much to offer and to be a representation for those that see themselves in me, you know? [And] something that I didn’t realize [when I first started modeling], was that when I was sharing photos, people that have been going through recovery with eating disorders like to see my posts because they see a different perspective of a happy girl [not at a certain size]. You can be happy at any size; you can really be living your life at any size.

Were there any challenges in particular you’ve faced in the modeling industry?

I’m basically what they consider like a curve model now. It is super weird what they consider a curve or plus model, and I think it’ll just be upsetting to people to hear that. Because even for me it was weird to be put in a box. It’s been kind of interesting to be this size and [be] ethnically ambiguous since I’m Mexican and white.

There’s also definitely the pressure to be

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perfect. And since I started at 20 and [now] I’m 25, I always think about my longevity and the career that I have: how long will they like me? I’ve always had jobs where I just do great at the interview, get the job, and not think about what I look like every single day at the job. It’s not human nature to look at ourselves as much as we do [in mirrors and social media]. On this note, I sometimes see pictures of myself and just hate them and can’t believe it. Sometimes [the pictures I hate are] on a huge website on the homepage. And I’m thinking, “Why did they choose that picture? Why did they edit it like that?” But what it really comes down to is, if a brand thought that that was a good enough photo to represent their whole company, clearly, maybe we just have different ideas of what’s beautiful. It’s really cool to always see a photographer take photos with me, and seeing me from a different way. But that was a tough thing for me to realize at first. Also with clients and custom brands, a lot of times they are just looking for a certain size. Knowing that, believe it or not, goes both ways. I think to myself that if I was smaller, I could get more work. And if I was bigger, I could get more work. Basically, like where I am is very niche. Some brands are like, “We’ll throw in a couple curve models, too.” But it’s just one [secluded] part of the website. But I’d love to see a world, [like] ASOS, having a model for each size. To me, that seems so obvious — why not see somebody that you could imagine yourself in — it’s a great marketing technique. It’s less of challenges, more like frustrations.

Did you ever feel uncomfortable in your body? And if you did, which I’m pretty sure everyone has, how did you learn to feel comfortable in your own skin?

When I was younger, I had a disconnected view of my body. Like [when] I’d go to the beach, I’d be wearing a shirt [over my] one piece [and] I would hide behind people for pictures. [Since] I grew up really tall, I always felt big [and] awkward, especially as a girl.

That created a really unique experience with how I saw my body [and] femininity. I didn’t ever want to be different than everybody else; I wanted so badly to fit in — that made me dull my sparkle for a long time. That already was how it was prior to me going to middle school [where] I got bullied a lot: they were always saying something about my height. And in high school, I just really tried to fit in, which resulted in me not really knowing who I was. So basically, once I got to the real world, which also coincided with me being a model, all at the same time, I’ve had to really figure out who I am, and going into adulthood and being in your 20s, which is such a confusing time. And so with all of this, to me, it feels like the way you feel about your body should come last because you’re working on everything else. I was just telling myself that, being upset about if I gained 10 pounds, or when I lose 10 pounds, and sometimes I don’t even know what I look like. I can’t sit here and nitpick things that I can’t change immediately. So I’m [still] learning to be comfortable in my skin and also to really embrace my style.

For the past few years, I’ve had fun. I mean,

today I’m in a sweatshirt and sweatpants because cozy sometimes wins. The great thing about being an adult when you’re away from all these students, your peers, or your co-workers [is that] you can [be in control of] your environment more. It’s so fun to let it all out, hang loose, and be a maximalist in your life because there’s no one sitting there judging you, and when they are, it’s kind of like well, you don’t even know me. I definitely just started to embrace who I am more [naturally], and with that came feeling good in my body. And plus, I just love getting to do things that are fulfilling, things that make you not think about your body, like when I get to go and walk on the beach at sunset, or hiking and being outside. I used to hate exercise a lot too, because I feel like exercise is always marketed as [a way to] lose weight or change yourself, but in the past few years because we’ve been going out into nature [due to the] pandemic and everything, I found a new relationship with it. I’m going at my own pace, not comparing myself to other people around me and just taking care of myself.

Women’s bodies are often seen as trends — curvy being considered “in” one year, and skinny being considered “in” in another — and social media reaching younger and younger audiences every year has impacted how young women see their bodies. What is something you have to say regarding this phenomenon?

It’s crazy to think that, through our lives, and even our parents lives, there’s a new trend of

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I remember when I was younger, this girl told me I had a big butt, and I was destroyed.

A lot of celebrities dictate the trends, and things come and go. But I’d say trends, when it comes to how you’re perceived or how you [look] like, is really toxic, because [it enforces a] limited beauty standard. A majority of times, it’s super Eurocentric and completely disregards people of color. Or on the other hand, it [exploits and doesn’t credit different communities]. So at the end of the day, you should never let those things tell you what’s beautiful, because it’s such a limited perspective of beauty. You should just feel true to yourself, and embrace the natural beauty that you have. It’s hard to see that, but think to yourself: what is it that makes me beautiful? And experiment more with style than fads that fade because you [shouldn’t] want to ever change what you look like for someone else. And it’s actually never gonna stick around with you. I think that the universe always makes a way for you to stay true to yourself. ‘ve definitely had times where I lost a lot of weight because I was really going through a lot of anxiety.

I wasn’t eating and I was really nauseous.

And I couldn’t even figure out what it was at the time. I was thinking, “Oh, there’s something wrong with me.” But it was truly my anxiety. And that was during the time people would tell me, “Oh my gosh, you look so good.” Then on Instagram, people were like, “You’re getting too skinny, what’s wrong?” [It felt] like everybody was just having different opinions of my body. And I knew I wasn’t feeling healthy. Healthy looks different on everybody, and there’s no reason for anybody to be telling you what you should be doing with how you look.

You mentioned you’re kind of just going with the flow, whenever opportunities come you take it — but is there anything in particular that you’re looking for? What’s in it for you?

I have been in this [mindset] where you might as well just say out loud what you dream of. After I’ve done this line with Mumu, it’s definitely made me think that I want to make more things and I have so many ideas. I’d also love to do a size-inclusive shoe brand as well, which sounds a little random, but I’m a size 11, and normally [women’s] shoes stop at a 10, so I wear a lot of like men’s shoes. So I would love to create like a fun pair of cowboy boots with a wide calf and [comes in a range of sizes]. I want to have more inclusivity in every part of the fashion industry. I’d also love to try runway — I think there’s something so fierce about a woman just walking down the runway. I’m grateful for everything that I have right now, and I’m taking it one day at a time. I’m always open for fun, new, exciting opportunities. I should start writing down my goals, but a lot of them have come true. I’m very, very lucky, you know?

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Born and raised in the Midwest, Leah Thomas first came to Los Angeles to study environmental science and policy at Chapman University. Writing has been a longtime passion for Thomas, which led her to create her own blog, “Green Girl Leah,” and later her nonprofit Intersectional Environmentalists (IE).

news, which was really cool. There were hundreds of thousands of people reading it.

I realized this is something I can do and [it pushed me] to look into persuasive writing and op-eds a little bit more.

When did you start writing? Did you start writing in college or earlier than that?

[During the same time] I was studying environmental science, there were different social justice movements that were and are still happening: the start of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Women’s March, and all these sorts of things. The even more niche topic of environmental justice kind of combines those two things. When I was trying to have conversations with people outside of the environmental community, [I found that] I was spewing out all these things that didn’t make any sense unless you were studying environmental science formally. So I just started thinking: what’s the use if not everybody can understand this information? It should be as accessible as possible. Language and communications can be a tool to get people really fired up to take action about the climate. So I decided to start calling myself an ecocommunicator, just another word that I made up because I like making up words, which basically just means a person who writes or communicates [through] media to talk about the planet and climate action.

And as an eco-communicator, it’s kind of like a puzzle piece [using] persuasive writing [and] different digital mediums to make climate information as easy to understand

I started writing officially in college, probably my sophomore year. I’ve always loved writing, but it kind of happened with a chance encounter when I was getting my hair done. One of the hairstylist knew an actress named Kimberly Elise. She was starting her own blog that was all about natural living, Black identity, curly hair, and using ecofriendly products. My hairstylist was like, I think she needs some writers if you want to try it out. So that was my first writing gig.

I did that for about four years, just writing different sustainable living articles. Then I started to try to write more op-eds, usually just for submitting them to places like Thought Catalog, which was big when I was in school. Also at the time, the Huffington Post had a contributors network, so really, anyone could post. So I would do that. think the piece that made me realize that I can actually do this was a piece that I wrote my senior year in college: it was a critique of my high school, which was really conservative and primarily white — it was all about casual racism that I experienced there. I published it on LinkedIn, and it made local

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When did you decide to intertwine your love for writing with environmentalism?

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for anyone. Because if it’s understandable, then more people will take action. And I really don’t think that environmental data and knowledge should be gate-kept by environmental institutions, because in many ways, it’s a privilege to even go to college in the first place.

So were you prompted to explore the relationship between social justice and environmentalism with the Black Lives Matter movement? Or did it start before?

I would say that definitely propelled me to act because I’m from a neighborhood that’s about 10 minutes away from Ferguson, Missouri. That’s where a police officer was involved in the shooting of Michael Brown, who was a teenager in my neighborhood.

So I was really politically active in the BLM movement because of the way it impacted my community. I was always looking for a way to make a difference with social justice, but then [I was] also studying environmentalism at the same time and thought, you know, maybe one piece of the puzzle could be making sure everybody has environmental human rights: access to clean air and clean water. And I know at first it might seem like those things are unrelated, but I feel like with people having their basic human needs met, having a safe and healthy living environment, they’ll be more likely to lead a joyful and healthy life. And making sure people have their basic environmental human rights met, can hopefully lead to a more just society. Thinking back on it though, I was a sophomore in school, and

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I was just trying to process the trauma of Ferguson and the police officer-involved shooting. I just felt like I had to be a part of the solution. So for some reason, it just made sense for me to explore the environmental angle and connection to the broader social justice conversation that was happening.

When and how did you first get involved in active in the activism space for the environment? Did it happen because you majored in environmental science in college, or were you always super passionate about this?

So there’s a thought — there’s things that you don’t realize until later, like, “Oh, that totally makes sense.” My family made me and my sister go to protests when I was two. I was looking through some archives of my sister and I just protesting when we were young. So I think, yeah, there’s a lot of protests that runs through African American culture. My family was really involved in the Civil Rights Movement, so every Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we would go to a protest downtown in St. Louis. It’s something that’s always been in the back of my head, but I just didn’t even consider it to be a protest.

It was just kind of something that my family did that I [also] did. But looking back on it, I remember my sister started a petition when she was in elementary school because she thought it was unfair that the kids had to go inside only after 15 minutes of recess. So we kind of have a propensity for activism.

I started getting maybe a bit more involved

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in college and high school; I started like a young liberals club — the first leftist club at my conservative high school. Then in college, I started more formally going to protests.

Could you tell us a little bit more about IE: The Intersectional Environmentalist?

At the time, I was furloughed from my job at Patagonia headquarters. It was the summer of 2020. Everything was up in the air with the pandemic, so I had a lot of time on my hands. [There was also the] reemergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, which was always there. But as we know, in 2020, it just really took off. Everybody was talking about racial justice. There were public demonstrations in the streets almost every single day, and this really incredible uprising of people. But I wasn’t seeing a lot of that momentum in primarily white environmental spaces. So a lot of huge ecoorgs were not talking about racial justice, [since] they didn’t know how to talk about it. And as a Black person in the space, it felt really isolating; like, okay, you’re saying we can have a protest for endangered salmon and you want to save the whales. But you have nothing to say when it comes to the people of this earth and the people who are also endangered. I don’t want to be a part of that type of environmentalism.

It was more just symbolic for myself.

And I started saying like, “Okay, I love intersectional theory, I love intersectional feminism, I’m going to start calling myself an intersectional environmentalist.” I posted

about intersectional environmentalism [and] what this concept means to me online with a pledge and a graphic. I didn’t really expect anything, but when I woke up from my nap, there were hundreds of thousands of people messaging me, following me across different social media channels and saying, “What is this ‘intersectional environmentalism’ thing? Like you defined it? You coined it? What is it? How do we get involved?” It was really cool, because I wasn’t thinking that it would resonate with people that way. But I had a real shot to hopefully educate a lot of people about the field of climate justice and environmental justice. [I had no plan, but] I just kind of gathered a group of friends and said, How can we meet this demand for education, because when, again, are thousands of people and all of these companies and nonprofits going to be like, “Hey, give me these resources”? We didn’t know how much time we had for people to care. So we started IE as an Instagram account and website. Our first step was compiling information for people who wanted to know, so organizations and community activists can get involved with spotlighting diverse environmentalists and their work and people could know like, “Hey, people of color out there, they’ve been doing this work for a long time, bringing a nuanced perspective to environmentalism that also includes culture.” Now we’re officially a nonprofit organization, working on programming and expanding to schools.

Like all grassroots movements do, it just happened. And when you find yourself [in

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the momentum] of a grassroots movement, there sometimes isn’t even that much of a goal. Our goal was just, “How do we reshape the narrative of environmentalism so it’s inclusive?” We didn’t have steps that we wanted to take, but we just trusted each other and just went with it.

Is your new book, The Intersectional Environmentalist, an addendum to IE or does it have more in-depth information?

Yeah, so sometimes I think about it and am like, “What was I doing? How did I start? Was I in a trance or something?” But I was writing the book the same time that I was starting IE, and I had reached out to a publisher a week after I started going viral online. I [thought] people [needed] a book. At the same time, I was also shaping what the organization would be. I think the book is very similar; it exists in the same ecosystem as the organization. It just goes into a little bit more depth on what intersectional environmentalism means to me. And not only me, there’s 30 contributors in the book, who have all these diverse ideas, cultures, axnd perspectives. I just feel like there’s not a whole lot of books that are specifically about intersectional theory, eco-feminism, the history of environmental justice, etc. So I wanted to write one.

Where do you see yourself going in the next few years?

I always wanted to write a book. And then I did. It takes me a long time to adjust to things, [and] these are pretty big adjustments — suddenly going viral online and having thousands of people saying like, “Lead this movement!” [and] I’m writing a book. So I think in this next year, I want to just allow myself some time to adjust to the reality of what’s happening [to] just be more intentional and slow down about the impact that I would really love for my organization to have. I’m also working on the book for the UK and Australia and will just be going to a bunch of schools and giving a lot of talks about intersectional environmentalism. Other than that, something I really want to get involved in is exploring other mediums of storytelling [such as] film and documentaries and things like that. So yeah, I’m hoping that’s where I can go next.

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Remy Park is a creator from New York.

Park has seen and been to a lot of different places, doing international living for the majority of her childhood and adolescence to come back to New York for college. She recently moved to Los Angeles as a fulltime freelancer focusing on health/wellness content creation, food photography, sustainability, and recipe development.

Although Park was initially committed to pursuing a corporate path, as she puts it, “it kind of happened by accident, but now it’s a full-time job.” She has done collaborations in content creation for Planet Oat, Samsung, and others through Veggiekins.

You’re an advocate for healthy living and vegan recipes. What got you interested in that realm of vegan and gluten-free recipes, and being a champion of healthy lifestyle as a whole?

I was actually just very unhealthy. I think a lot of people assume that maybe I was always into health and nutrition and loved vegetables. But really, I was just extremely unhealthy — I was struggling with alcohol addiction, and drug and substance abuse.

For that reason, I was in the perfect position to accept a complete lifestyle change. It [also happened to be] around the same time that I really want[ed] to work on my health. I was getting interested in dairy-free recipes, and then stumbled upon veganism.

[Initially,] it was really all about health to start with; I honestly didn’t care about ethics for the environment at all. But the more you get involved with the community

and the more vegans you meet, the more you’re immersed in that world; and you realize that what you’re doing has a positive impact on more than just yourself. So I like to think of it as something that started as a very selfish endeavor that eventually turned into some thing that became, I wouldn’t say selfless per se, but just a lot more mindful of other people, the environment, the animals.

What kept me vegan was finding that aspect of it and sort of putting together the pieces.

In the same vein, just physically being [and feeling] healthier. I just couldn’t keep up with like my drug and alcohol habits, like it just goes right through you so much more quickly when you’re actually healthy. So I think that was when I noticed the huge change. I was in the perfect position, like starting new in college to start fresh. It was a clean break from the environment that I was in, which was really helpful, because your world revolves around that lifestyle [with your friends]. And of course, there’s a strict drinking age in the U.S., so it’s different. I never had to have a fake [ID] until I got back, which is when I realized all these things I’m talking about in my high school experience are not normal. Having something to compare to also gave me perspective. I definitely think it’s a breakout moment for sure. You also have to cook for yourself for the first time [in college], or make your own food choices, rather. So I feel like that gave me a good footing to even question or think about food at all.

Was it solely an internal thing when you first got to college, when you realized the

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need for change? Or did it depend on a lot of other external factors, like your friends and environment?

Honestly, it was very internal — the main thing I was struggling with was an eating disorder. I didn’t even realize that I had an alcohol problem; those things I realized later down the line. I didn’t really want to party [in college] because that was already out of my system. I really just wanted to graduate early, and I focused on studying and internships. I realized, this is my time to get my shit together, for lack of better words.

So what are your goals with Veggiekins?

The main thing was that I wanted to differentiate from just being another content creator. While I do think every content creator contributes something of value, [whether it be] entertainment, aesthetics, or something aspirational, I’ve been doing this for maybe over six years now — so for me, I constantly have to think about, like, “Okay, what if Instagram disappeared tomorrow?

How am I going to continue to evolve and stay relevant?” For me, it’s always just been about adding value. So initially, with the recipes, that was how I added value: I’m providing a resource, I’m providing recipes, I’m providing education on veganism, like how to go vegan, what things are vegan and things to look out for. And now I’m thinking

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a little bit more of what I can contribute offline? How do we take this from beyond just being on Instagram? So it’s been fun because I’m working on a cookbook, which feels nice to have something like tangible and not just online, and working on products that are very aligned with things that I’ve been talking about for years. I think one of the good things that came out of the pandemic is feeling a little bit more of a connection with community and roots, specifically culturally.

Did you expect to become like an activist of healthy lifestyle when you first began Veggiekins? You started doing it for yourself, but now you’re sharing resources for others as well.

Well, I would have never considered myself to be like any good influence [for healthy living] before, you know, going vegan and everything. But in my initial months of being vegan, I was super passionate about it.

Every vegan goes through that phase where you’re so into it, because you just discover it, and you’re telling everybody about it. I did go to like, you know, rallies and events, but I realized very quickly: it’s not for me — it’s very draining. So for a while, I felt like I wasn’t really being vegan because I’m not sharing the message. But I think I found that my activism has been most effective in just encouraging small changes and not even necessarily telling people what to do,

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but more leading by example and providing resources people can choose to take advantage of or not. [An example would be] encouraging [people to make healthier choices] such as oat milk in their morning lattes versus going completely vegan. I think it’s so much more impactful to have 100 people sipping oat milk lattes versus one perfect vegan. There’s like always a little bit of messaging in terms of veganism in my content, but it’s never “you should go vegan.” But I’m always surprised at how many people will reach out and tell me because they watched these videos, it got them thinking [about veganism]. It’s finding activism that works for you.

Where do you see yourself going in the near future?

I think continuing on the path of just figuring out how I can create, or how I can contribute more [in] a tangible way and make a bigger impact. For me, that looks like maybe a product line. And whenever I think about products, I always want there to be a charitable aspect that contributes to animal welfare. I would like to be creating my own products versus just advocating for existing products from other brands. And in general, finding ways to be more intentional about making an impact. I don’t know what that looks like yet, but maybe like a podcast. The cookbook is already in the works. So that is going to be something that I’m really excited about. Aside from that, it’s up in the air. All I know is that it’ll hopefully be something a little bit more offline and in real life. That’s where I would like to be more present and be more hands-on. [The book will be published] in two years time: a cross between a cookbook and short stories.

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Shuba — or formally Shubha Vedula — is an Indian-American singer-songwriter focusing on artistry of pop, rap, and Bollywood infusion who doesn’t take herself too seriously. Vedula began pursuing music some five, six years ago after auditioning for Season 12 of American Idol. Although fully Indian, Vedula was born in New York and grew up in the States, posing herself as a culturally mixed bag. She’s a lover of open mics and frequents small showcase performances. Vedula expresses herself candidly in her lyrics, opening a new medium for her own storytelling.

[are] super supportive of everything I’m doing, which is really cool.

So what would you say your purpose is in creating music? What do you hope to accomplish?

Every time I listen to Freddie Mercury, Queen, Eminem, or Rihanna, I feel empowered, bold, sexy, happy: like I could take over the world. I want to make music that makes people feel that way that I do when I listen to artists I like.

Do you hope to reflect [your cultural identity] in your music?

What would you say are some of the challenges that you faced in the music industry?

I think, for me, it’s more of when it comes naturally. I never want to force culture, or be like, “I’m Indian, so you should pay attention to me.” I don’t see myself as one thing or the other. Like, [for example,] Freddie Mercury is Indian, but we don’t just think “Oh, he’s an Indian [musician].”

Eminem is a white rapper, but we’re not like, “We like him because he’s white.” I just make music, and it kind of naturally picks up on things I grew up with culturally. So that’s just kind of how I see myself. My dad kept on driving me to keep doing this and perform. He was the one who used to force me to sing in public until I liked it. My mom didn’t really see it as a career at first for me, but she did always believe in my voice and talent. She would always try to have me listen to really good songs and teach me a variety of beautiful genres growing up, and

I think the biggest thing is just having people pay attention to you. I don’t think I’ve knowingly been discriminated against or anything like that. It’s more just being loud and learning how to deal with putting all your hopes and dreams into one thing and seeing people respond to it. So you have to drop your ego and attachment. So that’s been a big learning process for me, because at the end of the day, it’s a numbers game, right? [We know so many artists] for one or two big songs, three if they’re lucky. And that’s how we completely identify an artist.

So it’s just a numbers thing. You have to get attached [and] put all your energy into the art you create, but then detach yourself when it’s finally out there. That’s been a mental thing: I’m learning how to put things out and let the world decide, and not have to feel like I have to control that.

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Would you say queens on Eminem are like some of your favorite artists that let you inspect you’re inspired from?

Oh, yeah, I call it the Holy Trinity: Rihanna.

Eminem. Like Freddie Mercury. Those are the people who impacted my life in very profound ways, my musical journey, and make me feel the way I want people to feel.

Eminem is a voice for all the underdog. He’s a voice for everyone. I feel like everyone can see themselves in him, which just shows you that it’s not about race, it’s just sheer life experiences. And it comes from being vulnerable, [in which I’m also trying to be.]

[Being vulnerable] in your music?

Yeah, I think TikTok actually helps with that. I know a lot of people say there’s a difference between songs written for TikTok and songs [you just listen to], I think what TikTok is teaching us is to focus on lyrics now; people want to feel like they have a shared experience. I hid a lot of things from my songs, because I was like, “Oh, shoot, if I release this, my mom will see this or my dad, my aunties and uncles will see this; I can’t say everything.” So I think I’m learning now to just say, “Screw it,” and say everything because the more you hold back as a person, as an artist, the more time it’ll take to connect to someone.

And if you could just skip to the part where you’re unapologetically yourself, life is so much better. Like, why are we wasting all this time with being cordial? Who is this performance for? So I’ve learned to just

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do, say what I mean. I don’t want to wait to be comfortable anymore.

So TikTok was a big influence and how you write your music?

I never cared about lyrics and I’m still kind of getting around to how I perceive lyrics.

I think what actually helped me with that was rap: you can just say very cutting and witty things. You don’t have to be serious.

I don’t make “sad girl” music, but I make my version where it’s sad-themed, but I say them in a funny way. The path I want to carve is like, [life is] not that serious.

Like, this breakup is not this serious, it will be okay. Tiktok [also] taught me to just say what you’re thinking. I mean, Ed Sheeran has been doing it: “the club isn’t the best place to find love so the bar is where I go.”

He’s literally saying what he’s doing. And people like that — people like stories, but then they’re also writers who are a little ambiguous and use metaphors. That’s just not me as a writer, but, you know, I’m at least learning what I do like.

You’d rather tell your story straight.

[In the single] “Icon” that I just released, I’m literally like, “Hi, you don’t know me yet / So let me introduce myself. My name is Shuba / You probably heard me sing as someone else.” I’m literally just [talking] as I would in a conversation with you. But it just comes down to tastes; [for example,] some people really like poetic lyrics — Taylor Swift does a really good job in [merging] poetic with

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literal, but then there’s people like The Weeknd where I don’t understand what he’s talking about, ever. But I still love it; I still love the song. I think lyrics are pretty important, but you don’t need the whole song to be literal. I just like that approach.

Are there any special projects you’re hoping to launch in the next few years? Any goals?

Yeah, I mean, this is a whole journey. I just want to get as big as I’m meant to be. Like, I want to tour the world. I want to travel to every country I want, let my songs to be known to the people in tiny villages in India and small places in the Philippines. I want to be a person for everybody. Everything I’m doing, I just want to keep amplifying it; like, I’ll be touring in the fall, so that’ll be super fun. I’m performing live — that’s my biggest dream. That’s where I’m meant to be. That’s where I’m my best version of myself. So as much as I can keep doing that in my life, putting out songs and creating content — it’s everything I’m already doing. I’m just making them bigger and bigger and bigger.

Bigger is always better. And I think I’m the kind of person who, if I’d done something once, I don’t want to do it again. It doesn’t mean I’m not grateful. It’s just that I think life is [collecting] these little badges in life that you kind of make for yourself. Nothing beats the first million views that you get, the first ten thousand views, the first boyfriend, the first kiss, the first man — it’s just all

these things. I’m a big fan of firsts. So once I’ve achieved that, I want to unlock the next challenge. One day I would love to have a life outside: I want to have a talk show, I would love to act one day, I would love to write a book, I’d love to get an MBA at Harvard — but right now I just want to tour the world.

So you see life as a journey to accomplish these things.

Yeah. I’ll be honest — I don’t know if that’s the healthiest way to see it. I don’t think it is, but that’s just like my world is. I would die a really happy woman [if I did all these things], because I lived the life I wanted to for myself and I impacted people in that short time. And that’s good enough for me.

I just want to have a great, fun life; we get X amount of time to be here we have we have a little video game that we can play like we unlock the levels and I just want to get I just want to do my thing and then get out. We don’t have time at all; so just have fun. I used to hold back so much. I used to not let myself do certain things until I reached this point, and I’m like no, I want to go to Cabo, I want to vacation with my friends, I want to be drunk like it’s spring break, I want to be an influencer but I also want to wear beautiful dresses, I want to perform on big stage — I want to do all that stuff. I might die, you know, be taken any time, so I want to have the best life I possibly can.

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But second thing is being aware that you’re you are in [the present]. There’s a quote from “The Office”: “I wish there was a way of knowing we were in the good old days while we’re still in them.” We are always in the good days. We just have to be present and be like, “Yeah, I’m here,” like I’m doing right now.

I think we all forget that we are always looking at the next step. But we’re not like, “Whoa, look at all this stuff. This is cool, too.” So let the gratitude carry you, enjoy the process, and enjoy the journey.

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Alice Han studies Computer Science and Business Administration (CSBA) and Cognitive Science at the Viterbi School of Engineering, Marshall School of Business, and Dornsife School of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California. She also serves as the Editor in Chief for Haute Magazine.

Ally Wei is a Los Angeles-based photographer who specializes in editorial and fashion photography. She aims to promote empathy and confidence through dreamy, elegant work. Wei studies Media Arts + Practice at the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California. She also serves as the Creative Director for Haute Magazine.

Shreya Gopala is a Los Angeles-based designer specializing in graphic and visual design. Her aesthetic approach integrates intentionality and elegance.

Gopala studies Arts, Technology, and the Business of Innovation at the Iovine and Young Academy, University of Southern California. She also serves as the Creative Director for Haute Magazine.

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POMPOMS-TAYO

ROCHA SHREYA GOPALA

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SIMONE ROCHA

SHREYA GOPALA

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Photographer Simone Rocha graduated from Central Saint Martin’s College, London with a Master’s degree in Fashion. Rocha has displayed her collections in London Fashion Week since 2010 and has been featured in come of the most culturally relevant buildings like Tate Modern and The Royal Academy of Art.

Shreya Gopala is a Los Angeles-based designer specializing in graphic and visual design. Her aesthetic approach aims to integrate functionality with simple elegance. Gopala studies Arts, Technology, and the Business of Innovation at the Iovine and Young Academy, University of Southern California. She also serves as teh Creative Director for Haute Magazine.

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SIMONE ROCHA

SIMONE ROCHA

SHREYA GOPALA

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MARISSA DING

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Marissa Ding is a Los Angeles-based Asian American portrait and editorial photographer from Minnesota. She studies Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Science, University of Southern California.

Sarah Chan is a Los Angeles-based graphic and visual designer who specializes in a minimalistic yet deliberate aesthetic approach. Sarah is studying Human Biology with a minor in Health Care Studies at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California.

Model Angelica Eun

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IN OTHER WORDS

SARAH CHAN

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BLACK WOMEN IN

LUXURY

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XYLA ABELLA + KASSYDI RONE

EMMA CHEUNG

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From I n s tagram f e e d s to TikTok trends and Pinterest moodboards alike, the # B l a c k Wo m e n i n Luxury aesthetic has made its mark in the cultural enclaves of social media. Under this hashtag, audiences are exposed to lifestyles filled with milk-and-honey moments, all garnished with the — newest, limited edition — topping of chocolate. While it is no surprise that this movement has gained widespread attention given the history of mutual exclusivity between Black femininity and wealth, it is harmful to ignore the fact that Black women have to facilitate their own separate environment to express depictions of affluence because they are not incorporated otherwise.

Principles of exclusion are certainly not a new phenomenon regarding Black women within the media sphere of glamor. Algorithms themselves serve as systems of oppression, defaulting to the overrepresentation of whiteness in any simple search, including that of “woman” or “luxury.” Google, a company renowned for its search engine, has responded to this issue, disputing any claims of racism with the rationale that its top results are not representative of their values. However, seeing that many social media platforms have adopted this form of deflection, it poses the question: if these companies are not responsible for their algorithms, then who is?

In the case of #BlackWomeninLuxury, the answer lies within the societal deficit that measures the success of women of color through their proximity to whiteness, which makes their genuine integration into luxury virtually impossible. There is a paradoxical significance in play, as this movement rightfully facilitates a sense of power in the attainability of wealth that is newly plausible for Black women while

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simultaneously maintaining a separate label that perpetuates the idea that luxury alone is inherently white.

As the reflection of normative racial biases continues to permeate luxe-based search engine optimization, Black women have become accustomed to internalizing the equation of Eurocentrism to opulence. In doing so, the segmentation of wealth in media aesthetics has catalyzed both intercultural and intracultural othering that pins marginalized women against one another. There becomes a need for typification within these already nuanced categories that ultimately praises those who replicate the gold (or white) standard and deplatforms images of minority luxury that do not appear to be white-adjacent.

Take the “ABG” (Asian Baby Girl) subcategory of modern luxury as a contextual framework that exists outside of the realm of Blackness. Prominently featuring East and Southeast Asian women of fairer complexions with expensive and party-esque taste in brand names, the ABG aesthetic has been idolized by many for its positive responses in mainstream pop culture.

In the nomenclature alone, there is already a difference in how this particular trend of wealth is perceived because of skin-deep representation. Unlike Black Women in Luxury — which creates some notion of a disconnection between Black women and luxury, making it seem as though luxury is just something they happen to have and not something that they are — the label of Asian Baby Girl does not immediately suggest a separation between culture and wealth upon first glance. This is very likely due to the fact that lighter skin allows for

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uptianima dolorum quo molo velliquo qui dolorese volupta nat. iae. Obisti asit ut pro in pedis aliquis sunt, sa dolupta sunt que il es ape la pla quates re eatiantur re eiciandi cus et quasincia arum eiunt odit voles molesequo doluptat. ntem ium cus si aborati busaped eatemo consequia quide versperem ex et et latument offictur? nati oribus, ipsumen iendaecta ne volorum solecab orepelest, si nonem rero optat eum ut eniendit versper itatemporrum iliqorem volupti aborepero iumquat ioresendes parum et ex essitatur aditatio. Nequatia nulpa volor ad qui doluptat parchitatur Theseillorpo women are stereotypically confined to the hip-hop 90’s style and quae ea et mi, quam facepraecae strunt. generally disregarded by top-name brands unless they’re looking for their token voluptatquos of diversity. moluptae.

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Black women are helping to diversify the narrative of luxury

by creating content that highlights Black abundance and agnim faccae nustiis dolorerum ex eatinte modicil illaut fugia pa corempo reiunt eumstruggle, volorit officium combats generational feelings of intorepro inferiority, and adipsunti dem xceate nonsed ex eos idelisqui officaecus et ium quiaeprat. (ingrained prejudice against Black women). misogynoir

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192 00 m sunt, volut fuga. Tem dolo min pelesecaerum quidusae et aut quam iducietum, tempe nobis et quo earitate cum, que nis

Xyla Abella is a fine arts/editorial photographer with aspirations to be a museum curator. She often utilizes storytelling within her photographs to communicate with her viewers. She is pursuing a BFA in Fine Arts and Curatorial Practices at the Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California. Abella also serves as the Assistant Director of Photography for Haute Magazine.

Kassydi Rone studies Journalism at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California.

Emma Cheung is a Los Angelesbased designer specializing in UI/ UX design. She aims to use visual storytelling to create inspiring and impactful pieces. Cheung studies Computer Science and Business Administration at the Viterbi School of Engineering and Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.

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Models Rachel Osei Matheo Mine Rachel Bryan Christian Bryan Angel Gaia

EMMA CHEUNG

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brian

DINH ALEXANDRIA SANTANA

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BRIAN DINH

ALEXANDRIA SANTANA

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For Brian Dinh, juxtaposition and contradiction are exhilarating and powerful — a rebellion. Dressing himself is representative of a companionship with himself.

His exploration of the two-dimensional world of painting led him into the 3D world of fashion, with clothing becoming his second language. He originally created Koredoko to document his journey learning how to sew, upcycling and repurposing old clothes. Dinh realized the influence he could wield: “I can make you want something.”

Dinh describes his painting style as “sculptural patchwork,” making texture a keystone of his work. This translates into his clothing; while designing, he loves to play with form, putting emphasis on proportion and structure, and view clothing as architecture, focusing on silhouettes. Dinh draws heavy inspiration from the 30s and 40s. But lately, his inspiration is comprised of 90s model off-duty looks, French Rococo style, Catherine the Great, and “Bridgerton.”

But what really draws Dinh, or anyone, to want to dress this way? What is opulence and why do we crave it?

Is it as inaccessible as we think it is? After asking Dinh what opulence means to him, he says, “It’s timeless. It’s decadent and alluring but also something you can only have once or you’ll get sick of it. Everyday life isn’t opulent.

Opulence is anti-everyday. It is larger than life, much grander and feels very loud. It stands alone. Lavishness can garner opportunity or notoriety. The beauty of opulence is that it’s often a one-time glance, just for a moment.

Opulence is a moment, it is not frequent, it is time specific.”

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Ally Wei is a Los Angeles-based photographer who specializes in editorial and fashion photography. She aims to promote empathy and confidence through dreamy, elegant work. Wei studies Media Arts and Practice at the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California. She also serves as the Creative Director for Haute Magazine.

Angelique Ayoadé studies Theatre at the School of Dramatic Arts, University of Southern California.

Alexandria Santana is a designer with a focus on visual design and marketing. She loves to take on projects where she can make a positive impact and fuse her passion for combining design and business. Santana studies Design at the Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California.

Model Brian Dinh

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FASHION S UNAPOLOGETIC NONCONFORMIST

A tech engineer, a professional equestrian, or a fashion figure. These identities have little in common, but meanwhile, they all are possibilities for those who can choose their future based solely on their passions rather than financial needs. Daughter of two Chinese immigrants, Jaime Xie grew up in an Asian household based in Silicon Valley. Like most Asian kids, she was more familiar with school and tech instead of fashion and style. While most of us might know Xie from her glamourous appearances on the Netflix series Bling Empire — a show that documents the lives of a few wealthy Asian American friends in Southern California — there is a different side of her personality, and an nonconforming life story unheard by many.

If you search up “Jaime Xie” on Google, one of the first facts you will read about is that her father is the billionaire founder and CEO of a cybersecurity company.

Despite her tech-oriented family background, Xie actually grew up as a competitive equestrian. She loved riding horses so much that she frequently missed school for training and national competitions. Although she grew with great discipline, her childhood was unlike most of her Asian American counterparts. Traditionally, the typical Asian childhood is that parents steer one towards tech. However, the amount of wealth that Xie was born into immediately ensured that, from an early stage on, she did not need to follow strict academic paths as did most Asian kids her age. The anxiety and lack of freedom for career development were never of her concern. Instead, throughout her teenage years, Xie was focused on finding personal hobbies and passions that she enjoyed, and turning them into real professional pursuits.

Xie’s parents were very laissez-faire in raising her. She has never been forced into anything she didn’t like or wasn’t good at.

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ISABELLE LIM

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As the oldest sibling with two younger brothers, she was always the first to explore many things. Apart from horseback riding, she would spend all her spare time shopping or playing dress-up in her mother’s closet, putting together different outfits. It was her favorite pastime and distraction from competitions and training.

Even when they had uniforms back in middle school, she would find different ways to express herself such as wearing fun jewelry or switching up nail colors. After high school, Xie was accepted into the Parsons School of Design, but chose to continue her education at The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. A year later, she realized that the school environment was not for her. During that time, her mom played a very present role and invested a lot of her time supporting Xie’s fashion interests. Sometimes, she would book her flights just so she could attend fashion shows in other states, or even countries. Xie tried drawing and designing and absolutely hated it. But with more exposure to fashion events, she dug deeper into the industry and realized that she enjoyed styling and modeling the most. That was also when Instagram was starting to gain popularity.

As a young model and actress, we see Xie as not only a figure defined by wealth and materialism, but also an individual with a strong curiosity and appreciation for artistic possibilities. Xie started her fashion influencer journey shortly after college, working within the fashion industry and attending runway shows throughout the years. She also started a YouTube channel where she posts videos of herself traveling and unboxing luxury designer brands. As she gained more popularity, there began to be voices critiquing the image of wealthy and luxurious lifestyle that she portrays. In response, Xie made Q&A videos where she shared her life stories and cleared assumptions about her spending habits. She views shopping as a very personal experience, as she enjoys boutique stores over department stores for they are more intimate and interactive.

It became obvious to her viewers that despite the money her family has, Xie is a very disciplined spender. She currently only uses her own income to purchase outfits, and no longer depends on her family’s wealth.

Constantly drawing attention with her bold clothing choices, Xie stands out from other influencers. Her style

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reflects her love for personal expression and creativity. We can see that from her appearance in the show Bling Empire. Unlike her fellow cast members who only wear the most luxurious labels, Xie views fashion and luxury in a different light, and aims to bring awareness to lesserknown brands. She supports young designers’ fashion labels — such as Alexandre Vauthier, Alessandra Rich, Paco Rabanne — and believes that these special brands deserve a lot more attention. Moreover, she donates all the clothes she doesn’t wear after every two years. Since she personally doesn’t need the money, Xie believes that donating these clothes will go towards a good cause, and there’s always going to be a second home that loves them more. In her videos, she repeatedly mentions how grateful she feels that her parents taught her the value of money and to not spend recklessly. There is also a philanthropic side to her. Driven by Xie’s devotion to fashion, her family is involved in philanthropy through their non-profit, the Xie Foundation. As much as Xie loves creating content, she continuously realizes that there is so much more that inspires her and motivates her to give back.

There is often a stereotype of affluent people living in Los Angeles. However, Jaime Xie caught my attention as an outlier: the contrast between the rigid Asian culture she was brought up in and the spontaneous lifestyle that she lives now not only reflects her personal beliefs and artistic creativity, but also the changes in values and priorities among the Asian American community over time. Traditionally, advertising and communications for luxury brands have heavily centered on the Western market, thus there was a lack of diversity in the representation of the brands. In recent years, Asian culture is on the rise. Luxury brands are banking on this trend to garner greater attention to their brands through appointing more Asians to be their ambassadors. Xie’s experience serves as an example of the Asian American community’s evolving position in the luxury and fashion industry.

Meanwhile, on a more personal level, Asian Americans are readjusting the typical lifestyles defined by their parents’ expectations. They are continuously moving away from the selected few professions towards a broader range of career options

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led by individual creativities and passions. With elevated financial resources, the lifestyle of a population slowly shifts focus. There’s less of a need to conform and play safe, and more freedom to be adventurous and express themselves.

Here, we begin to see a connection between opulence and originality.

There is a fine line between extravagance and using wealth for positive social impacts and creative inspirations. For Xie, luxury is a lifestyle.

Through her elegant and refined disposition, one can feel that Xie is a humble and appreciative individual. In this sense, the concept of nonconformity is double-faceted. Her parents serve as a counter-example of typical Asian parents’ stereotypes, and her family background and upbringing allows her to display a high level of maturity. Wealthy or not, her poise, demeanor and elegance are simply admirable. Although Xie spends an inordinate amount of money on fashion and luxury items, she does so in a way that expresses her confidence and free-spiritedness. She embraces her luxurious — but not lavish — life, maximizes all her resources and connections, and strives to bring positivity to others. She is someone who unapologetically stays true to who she is without dismissing the realities of life.

Rebecca Feng studies Communications at the Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism, University of Southern California.

Isabelle Lim is a New England-based graphic designer, digital illustrator, and UX product designer. Her design style is bold yet intricate. Lim studies Business Administration at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.

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Ginger Gordon is a New York-based photographer and actor.

They study Theater and Cinematic Arts at the School of Dramatic Arts, University of Southern California. In addition to working with Haute, they are on the photography team for Sunstroke Magazine, Our Era Magazine, and Backward Noise Magazine.

Ry Hermann is a Los Angeles-based digital artist and graphic designer. He studies Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation at Iovine and Young Academy, University of Southern California. Ry’s preferred design aesthetics are pop art, new tech, and soft grunge.

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TELL ME SOMETHING,

CREATIVELY “Tell me something, Art. You know what it’s like Awake in your dry hell Of volatile synthetic solvents.

Won’t you help us brave the elements Once more, of terror, anger, love?”

James Ingram Merrill from his 1972 poetry collection, Braving the Elements

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Tell me something, Met Gala.

There is no hesitation in what comes to mind with the word opulence. As the ultimate crossover between traditional art and pop culture, the Met Gala is the luxurious night for high fashion and wealthy celebrities to flaunt their status to the masses in recent years.

Established in 1948 by fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert as a means to fund the newly opened Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Met Gala has humble beginnings. Tickets were just $50, or approximately $583 when adjusted for inflation.

Only when the French-American fashion editor Diana Vreeland joined the consultation for the event did the soiree become a more exclusive occasion when she introduced the yearly themes. Now, Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue, personally approves every guest that attends the ball, and these carefully selected guests must pay at least $30,000 for a single ticket while tables can cost around $200,000 to $300,000. Interestingly enough, the event’s growing exclusivity over time parallels the time it took for the Met Gala’s origins as a humble exhibition for the artform of fashion to become a lazy exhibition that disrespects both fashion and activism.

Before the second part “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” makes its debut this May, it seems only fitting to review last year’s Met Gala, “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion”, as it felt like the culmination of everything that makes the Met Gala a lukewarm presentation of fashion in recent years. To mirror the showcase of designs from the 1940s to present America as the nation moved away from European influence in fashion after World War II within the exhibit itself, the two themes intend to explore and appreciate the evolution of the American style. However, many celebrities seemed to forget this.

Billie Eilish, for example, attempted to follow the theme but largely fell short. Her inspiration was from Holiday Barbie, but her hair and outfit made it difficult to believe. There was a lack of notable references ­— no red color scheme, no long curly locks. Many believe she was referencing Marilyn Monroe because of her hair, but even then, the American icon is so commonly referenced that it would have been interesting to see a different interpretation of the figure. With the point of the Met Gala to be a representation of the artform that is fashion, it was just an underwhelming experience when she walked onto the red carpet.

Another let down from last year include Cara Delevingne’s “Peg the Patriarchy” bulletproof corset-vest. Delevingne proudly wore the statement without contacting the queer woman of color, Luna Matatas, who licensed the slogan. Matatas felt that the model did not accurately represent her intentions, which makes this case a prime example of white feminism.

Regardless of Delevingne’s intentions with her piece, she conveniently forgot that women

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of color experience distinct forms of oppression that white women do not. Not contacting the person who created the phrase to encourage dismantling the patriarchy while considering the role of race within that structure, comes off as Delevingne overlooking the role of whiteness in the conversation about inequalities between the sexes. Humans are more than one identity — to ignore this fact ultimately ignores the suffering that many people of color endure.

While Billie Eilish and Cara Delevingne, among many others, showcased their shallow interpretation of the Met Gala theme, several other celebrities took the theme and created a beautiful response. The denim piece that Lupita Nyong’o wore is a perfect example of how to honor history through art — not only did the material shape the working-class culture of America in the 1800s, but cotton and indigo were cultivated by enslaved people in the South.

Her hair was just as intentional, as the shape of her afro was inspired by the works of AfricanAmerican artist Lorna Simpson highlighting Black women’s experience with hair in America.

Nyong’o’s artistic decision echoes the ongoing protests against discrimination in the workforce highlighted by the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Black women are further honored through the piece that Nikkie de Jager, better known by her YouTube name NikkieTutorials, wore. Nikkie came out as a transgender woman in 2020 when she had nearly 13 million subscribers online. Through her blue dress adorned with flowers at the Met Gala, Nikkie references transgender activist and prominent figure from the 1969 Stonewall Riots, Marsha P. Johnson, with the dress’ “Pay It No Mind” embroidery. The quote is representative of the middle initial in Marsha P. Johnson’s name, as it was her typical response to questions about their gender identity. As it was Nikkie’s first time attending the Met Gala, she wanted to focus on the LGBTQ+ community and essentially tell queer youth to be their true selves unapologetically.

If the first part of the “In America” theme raised the question of who gets to be American, the second part is a more straightforward historical examination of American fashion. It looks at the economic growth the United States experienced between the Civil War and the beginning of the 20th century. The theme is a potentially controversial choice — with the Gilded Age being a hypocritical period of exploitative robberbarons. With the immense wealth inequality and political upheaval post-Civil War mirroring our modern age in a pandemic that exposes the flaws in our society, there is a lot of room for creativity for the Met Gala outfits in this second part.

The issue where these celebrities do not follow the Met Gala theme can easily be written off as a superficial, first-world problem that is a privilege to discuss in and of itself. The fashion industry — or just the concept of fashion in general — is often seen as a shallow one. However, these wealthy celebrities have teams of designers and months to plan out their outfits. They have no excuse for their lackluster responses to the theme. Moreover, fashion is an everyday form of art. After all, the way that Zendaya broke free from the Disney child star image that

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TELL ME SOMETHING, CREATIVELY many from the industry struggle to escape was through her weilding fashion as an expression of idiosyncracy. Every outfit she was photographed in was intentional, so when she took on more mature roles, it would be almost obvious to do so in the eyes of the general public.

Tell me something, Generation Z. As the generation that grew up with social media, Gen Z has mastered the art of critiquing anything on social media. Twitter has become a playground to criticize celebrities for their uninspired and unimpressive outfits the moment they step on the Met Gala red carpet. While some can be attacking, most of the comments are fair takes. Known for being unabashedly honest and valuing transparency, it makes sense that Gen Z’s fashion style reflects their boldness. Just sitting at Alumni Park while students go to and from class is like sitting at a USC fashion show. Upon asking where they got their pieces, or why they chose certain articles of clothing, they respond with stories. They share how they spent the summer with their grandparents in a different country and raided their closets; they share how they went on a random adventure with friends in a small town to find a vintage piece; they share how they randomly stumbled upon it in a flea market. Students here show so much creativity in their outfits that it makes me believe that they’d do a better job putting together a Met Gala outfit than some of the wealthy celebrities who have teams of professionals that are paid to do it for them. When the Met Gala tickets are $30,000 and high-end luxury brands work with celebrities for the event, their lack of effort in their looks can be an insult to fashion as an art form when, in comparison, teenagers on a budget can express themselves better with clothes from their grandparents’ closets and $15 pieces from the thrift store.

We express ourselves through what we wear. It is the reason why dress codes are controversial — fashion can change our perception of other people, and we can control that perception.

If art can create a conversation that challenges the cultural perception of social issues, then the Met Gala lets more people contribute to a dialogue that was typically reserved for the wealthy elite. Especially with the growing popularity of the event on a global scale due to the accessibility of social media, people can critique in real-time and learn more about the history of art and fashion.

America is not accurately represented by the 1%. The elements that make up America are so much more than high-profile events — we are made up of immigrants who braved the journey to cross lands and oceans for the chance at a better life. We are made up of first-generation students that braved long nights of studying to pursue higher education. We are made up of families that endured generations of time to build our towns and cities. We are made up of languages, cultures, and ethnicities that the Met Gala does not recognize nor promote. That is why I am asking you to tell me something.

Tell me something.

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Katie Luo is studies Media Arts + Practice at the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California. She is passionate about merging the technological and physical world through creative mediums. Luo’s art aims to navigate her lived experiences and social justice topics.

Aerin Oh studies Communications at the Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism, University of Southern California.

Shreya Gopala is a Los Angeles-based designer specializing in graphic and visual design. Her aesthetic approach integrates intentionality and elegance. Gopala studies Arts, Technology, and the Business of Innovation at the Iovine and Young Academy, University of Southern California. She also serves as the Creative Director for Haute Magazine.

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Tai Campbell is a photographer and filmmaker from New York City. She is currently a freshman studying Communications in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California.

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Model Gabe Tolson Prop Masters Jentrie Gordy Lindsey Housinger Tai Campbell is a New York-based photographer and filmmaker. She studies Communications at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California.

Alexandria Santana is a designer with a focus on visual design and marketing.

She loves to take on projects where she can make a positive impact and fuse her passion for combining design and business. Santana studies Design at the Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California.

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DADDY’S

MONEY Let’s get one thing straight: I love Taylor Swift — which is very difficult for me to admit being an artist myself in the alternative rock world. However, I also despise her very much. Before all of the Swifties get upset and skip ahead to the next article, let me explain.

Swift is immensely talented and easily one of the most important musical forces of our lifetime. Her voice, songwriting, and storytelling abilities are all amazing.

Although I do not believe awards determine whether you are successful or not, she has won 11 Grammys out of 42 nominations and sold over 13 million records — a number that is only going to increase over time. Even true rock n’ rollers download her work; I blast Swift in my headphones while walking through campus (as long as no one actually knows).

I also believe that being born into a very wealthy family had a major impact on the beginning and rate of her success. For those who don’t know, Swift’s father Scott was a top-end financial advisor and marketing executive at Merrill Lynch.

Therefore, she was always more than financially stable. Her first car as a teenager was a convertible Lexus and she even lived on an 11-acre plot of land in Reading, Pennsylvania: one of the nicest parts of the state. Furthermore, her father even moved his office to Nashville just to help her kick off her dream of stardom. When none of the record labels were reaching back out to Swift, Scott decided to buy up part of Big Machine Records who, consequently, went on to sign the young country artist. So, I guess we will never know who made the Taylor Swift we all know and adore. Her father or herself?

Regardless of these advantages, I still think that Swift more than likely would have become a successful artist based on the Grammys and units sold. But, it begs the question: do we as the audience need to further evaluate how a star becomes a star? In other words, do we need to separate the artist’s wealth pre-stardom from the art that first launched them into stardom?

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I apologize for singling out Swift. There are plenty of other well-known artists who are guilty of the same benefits. Billie Eilish, Clairo, Lana Del Rey, Adam Levine, Ed Sheeran, Miley Cyrus, and basically any rockstar’s child who decides he or she wants to be in the music industry just to name a few.

So what are the “advantages” of not having the same wealth and connections as a young artist? Well, in all honesty, it would probably suck. Firstly, you are starting from little to nothing. You have to go out and make the connections yourself. You have to work shitty jobs to not only take care of yourself but afford any gear you need to record and release music. Secondly, you have no fallback plan or reliance on others for money if your dreams don’t work out. You are either all in and have to live in a van for a few years or you give up on your dreams and pull up daily to your soul-crushing 9-to-5 in a cubicle.

However, one of the best things you can get from this is an unstoppable work ethic. You have to put 110% into your art in order to hopefully succeed in the industry. You have to work hard and cannot rely on any easy ways out. As a result, your

Marissa Ding is a Los Angeles-based Asian American portrait and editorial photographer from Minnesota. She studies Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California.

Connor Fife studies Creative Writing at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California.

Sadhana Sarma is a California-based designer specializing in digital experiences. Her works aspire to be bold yet minimalistic. Sarma studies Business Administration at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.

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music will be well-crafted. You are forced to write great songs if you want any chance of joining Swift on top of the mountain.

Additionally, your work may include themes of perseverance and struggle which can inspire anyone who listens to it.

Instead of resorting to the cliche extreme of someone who came from rags to riches like Michael Jackson, I would like to examine a globally successful band that originated from the working class. Oasis was a band from Manchester, led by brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher. If you don’t know them, they are the ones responsible for the guy at the party picking up the guitar and proceeding to play “Wonderwall” with the hopes of impressing a few girls — I may or may not be guilty of this at least on one occasion.

They grew up in a very impoverished, industrial town under the roof of a single parent after their father split at a young age. The brothers shared a tiny bedroom and wore raggedy clothes hand-stitched by their mother. As a family, they were able to get by day to day, however, paycheckto-paycheck living is not a very desirable circumstance.

Without making this a feature article on the Mancunians,

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the group essentially wrote genuine, catchy songs in their rooms and practiced in a dumpy space underneath a boardwalk. They’d pitch in to rent a cheap van and — hoping it didn’t break down — would drive all across the UK to perform, living mostly in their automobile with only a few pounds a day. Eventually, a record label noticed them at a gig and signed them. Although they might not compare in many people’s opinions to, say, Swift, they still reached a high level of fame and success that most artists dream about.

It is the work of bands like Oasis that I enjoy most. They, along with many others, have an urgency in their music that can be heard instantly. There is a fight; a will to survive. A chip on the shoulder to prove that you can be the best at what you do without mommy and daddy’s wealth and connections. These types of artists who don’t have millionaire or celebrity parents have put (and are still putting) every fiber of their being into the music. It’s genuine. It’s passionate. It comes from a real place of overcoming obstacles and determination.

I do not intend to invalidate Swift’s pain or struggle in her life and songs, but there is an undeniable difference between singing mostly about celebrity boyfriends breaking up with you and singing about trying to escape a broken and impoverished home.

As a musical artist myself, I can surely relate to Oasis more than Swift. It is rough having to work in order to earn everything you get. Somedays, I would like nothing more than to be Paul McCartney’s son or Justin Bieber’s brother. However, I much rather prefer the different path I am on now. Every time I save up enough money from jobs bussing tables or cleaning public pools to buy a new guitar or some monitors for my bedroom “studio” or when I spend hours figuring out how to mix a track on some mediocre software, I feel a great sense of pride and accomplishment.

Every step of the process means so much more. When everything is said and done, I just want to know that if I become successful within the music industry, it will be because of who I am and what I have done — not who I am related to and what others have done.

At the end of the day, all that matters is the music. If you write good songs and the masses enjoy them, I guess it really doesn’t matter where you came from or what socioeconomic advantages you had. So, if you listen to an artist and you think they sound good, fair enough. If you don’t care how they got to their level of success, fair enough. However, it is fun once in a while to be jealous of those who have it better than you, isn’t it?

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Xyla Abella is a fine arts/editorial photographer with aspirations of becoming a museum curator. She often utilizes narrative elements within her photographs to communicate with her viewers. She is pursuing a BFA in Fine Arts and Curatorial Practices at the Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California. She also serves as the Assistant Director of Photography for Haute Magazine.

he Romantic Era, the notion that clothing gender while also traditional aesthetic. ontemporary editorial y of work displays the pression in clothing.

Arya Tandon is a Los Angeles-based graphic designer focused on visual design and user experience. Tandon’s designs navigate the intersections between accessibility and aesthetics. She studies Cognitive Science at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California.

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THE HUMANS BEHIND THE

LEGACY In the past nine years, the Korean idol group BTS has built an empiric fandom, amassing listeners globally and exposing the world to a wave of Korean culture — most pointedly, the Koreanpop industry.

With South Korea having one of the most restrictive beauty standards in the world, it’s crucial to note that appearance is considered culturally important for jobs at all levels because it signifies an avenue towards social acceptance.

As the K-pop industry has a longstanding history of emphasizing these aesthetics, idols have been manufactured to maintain a perfect facade. Appearance becomes one of the first boxes to be checked off before any type of fame and success can be achieved: the money, the outfits, the brand sponsorships. Aesthetics take precedence Being cultural representatives of their nation, Korean idols must maintain a strict outward appearance. Thus, part of an entertainment company’s job is to ensure that their idols, like BTS, uphold and maintain such standards. When such South Korean celebrities fail to meet their country’s values, there’s often an outpour of criticism because the significance of looks has become a deeply ingrained value for citizens to have.

Yet, what BTS does is shed light on how material wealth isn’t the end all, be all. Social wealth is just as, if not more, important.

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But as they slowly become more significant and relevant in the industry, BTS found themselves as brand ambassadors with the likes of Samsung, Louis Vuitton, Hyundai, Fila, and Coca-Cola.

This increased their name value as they began to find themselves bolstering their influence. Attaining the title of “National Treasure”

by South Korea, they’ve both literally and figuratively become the prominent images of wealth.

Throughout their album, “Map of the Soul: 7,” the members expressed how the stardom they’ve achieved has forced them to drift from the original reason they started being idols in the first place: their love for music. Whether that was singing about their darkest fear of their music one day ceasing to move listeners, their individual journeys with music, or dealing with being the targets of anonymous hate, there’s an honesty that shines brighter than any amount of wealth could possibly radiate.

BTS’ passion and candidness also inspires their fans, known as “Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth” or ARMYS, who have gone on to champion humanitarian causes like no other.

To date, ARMYs across the fandom have run over 600 charity projects. From providing medical care to Syrians and supporting businesses ran by sex trafficking suriviors in Mozambique and El Salvador, all the way to creating a job networking site and building a hospital, what BTS has become is a model that sparks inspiration to guide others through their darkest moments.

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Thus, the artist group is measuring their wealth not by money and clothes, but by emphasizing how they’ve managed to onset a wave where people advocate for different causes — penetrating a deeper layer of what wealth really looks like.

As BTS continues to break records, what the idol group has managed to create is a community of people who seek to illuminate the world for the better.

As time passes, it’s an artists’ legacy that often speaks to their success — the awards, the money, the outfits, and the music.

What BTS’s legacy will be surpasses the material wealth that stereotypes what life as an idol and celebrity entails. Their legacy lives on in the actions and efforts of ARMYs globally.

In a speech accepting the Artist of the Year award at the American Music Awards in 2021, Namjoon stated that BTS are just, in the end, “Seven boys from Korea, united by a love for music, met with the love and support from all the ARMYs all over the world.”

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Jacob Yeh is a Pasadena-born and Los Angeles-based photographer who specializes in portraiture, abstract, and editorial photography. He studies Communications at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California.

Serena Ngin studies English at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California.

Anoushka Buch is a Bay Area-based designer specializing in graphic design. She seeks to design in a way that is subtle yet beautiful. Buch studies Design at the Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California. She also serves as the Assistant Director of Visual Design for Haute Magazine.

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Michael Solomon studies History at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California. His piece, which juxtaposes damaged clothes with a serene background, demonstrates the ephemeral and superficial nature of material wealth. The presence of jewelry amid flourishing nature also functions as a commentary on permanence and authenticity.

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Jared Tran is a Los Angeles-based designer specializing in graphic and visual design. His work exemplifies a strong understanding of composition and form. Tran studies Design at the Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California.

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The concept of “Hollywood Dream” is to bring attention to Asians and Pacific Islanders who have received little to no screen time in Hollywood films. The misrepresentation of Asian Americans in the medıa has only perpetuated misconceptions and stereotypes.

“Hollywood Dream” seeks to highlight the beauty and power of embracing Asian culture with old-time Hollywood.

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Emi Yoshimo is a Los Angeles/Orange Countybased photographer who specializes in portrait and production photography. With her experience in Stage Management and Photography, she has gained a passion for storytelling and entertainment. Yoshino is currently pursuing a BFA in Stage Management at the School of Dramatic Arts, University of Southern California.

Emma Cheung is a Los Angeles-based designer specializing in UI/UX design. She aims to use visual storytelling to create inspiring and impactful pieces. Cheung studies Computer Science and Business Administration at the Viterbi School of Engineering and Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.

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Ally Wei is a Los Angeles-based photographer who specializes in editorial and fashion photography.

She aims to promote empathy and confidence through dreamy, elegant work. Ally studies Media Arts and Practice at the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California.

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UNINTENDED INFLUENCES OF

influencer

culture Everyone loves Emma Chamberlain. Or do they?

The 20-year-old YouTube and social media star launched herself into the public eye in 2017 with a video reviewing dollar store items. Now, she’s an internationally recognized name, a Met Gala attendee, a millionaire, a podcaster, a coffee and merchandise brand owner, and, mainly, an internationally recognized influencer.

But what exactly is an influencer and what does that word mean today? It was historically used to exclusively refer to changemakers with impactful voices and positions. And to some extent, this definition holds true today — the only difference is that the term now refers to those with impactful voices and positions on social media. And like anyone with a powerful voice and position, modern influencers face a lot of scrutiny.

In a conversation with Vogue in 2021, Chamberlain reflected on her tenure as a viral content creator. She said prior to her overnight fame she didn’t experience much anxiety, but that once “the criticism started rolling in, as it always does, the anxiety started.” She proceeded to discuss feelings of burnout with her online presence, her struggles with perfectionism, and her experiences with intense anxiety and depression, all of which are exacerbated by her social media fame and the hate that she often receives from the crowd of millions who view her content.

Her openness to discussing her mental health issues on a large platform was refreshing, but the fact that her mental health issues stem from her position as an influencer is disturbing.

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Other influencers like Charli and Dixie D’Amelio have spoken out about how the hate they receive surrounding their content harms their mental health and also took substantial breaks from social media.

Influencers appear to lead a life that is the epitome of luxury and seem like they have it all — an “easy” yet lucrative job, a mansion, a nice car (or cars), celebrity friends, and status. A “perfect” life. But with more of them speaking out about the difficulties of the job, it is clear that they each have a less than perfect job and life, despite the appealing optics.

The New York Times spoke with young influencers and content creators in the summer of 2021 about “the draining work of building, maintaining, and monetizing an audience,” especially during the pandemic. They all echoed Chamberlain in their comments on burnout, depression and anxiety, and the volatility of TikTok fame and influencer status. Many of these influencers feel pressure to create a picture-perfect life, but that often happens at the expense of their life outside of the frame.

Influencer culture is not a healthy place for content creators; but what about

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content consumers who don’t often see the cracks under the facades?

Dozens of psychological studies and reports prove that there is a strong link between social media use and decreased self-esteem, increased anxiety and depressive feelings, and worsened body image. Psychologists Mary Sherlock and Danielle L. Wagstaff studied a group of teens and adult women who viewed posts from beauty and fitness Instagram influencers, and most of those women felt worse about their bodies, their attractiveness, and themselves after they viewed 30 posts from the influencers.

And that’s not to say that influencers are pushing thinness or normative beauty standards intentionally. Or that all influencers fall into the category of thin, traditionally pretty, cisgender, and heterosexual women. Or that there aren’t some influencers who post regular content about living with mental illnesses or their own body image or any other struggles that could help their followers to heal. There is

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a significant amount of evidence, however, that points to influencer culture creating more harm than good.

More data collected from The Morning Consult found that 88% of Gen-Z and Millennials surveyed say that authenticity and genuinely caring about their interests are some of the most important qualities they look for in an influencer.

But can an influencer ever truly be authentic when they are standing in front of a ring light in full glam, recording themselves performing a rehearsed video?

The sad truth is that influencer culture tends to cause harm to both the giver and the receiver. Still, the culture is firmly cemented in the digital world. The only reason why the culture holds so much power and is so influential is because of how profitable it is.

Some influencers earn a living (and then some) off of sponsorships, partnerships, and advertisements on their social media platforms. They push products to their millions of followers and act as the newest and hottest online marketing tools. It’s a clever idea to take someone who has a trusted and loyal following and try to influence that following into buying things they probably don’t need. And it’s good for both of those parties. The company gets more sales, the influencer gets a cut of those sales or a flat rate, and everyone is happy.

But as we know, there are so many more problems that crop up when zooming in on the life of an influencer and the culture their work creates.

Beyond the mental health issues, influencer culture promotes materialism, consumerism, and wastefulness. Followers see their favorite influencer wearing a skirt they think is cute. They use the code “AMANDA20” for 20% off. “Amanda” makes some money, the clothing company makes some money, the follower spends some money, and then she eventually throws the ultra-trendy skirt in the trash after a couple of wears once the fad fades.

The influencer system persists because it benefits businesses, both large and small, but we fail to look at the many detriments the system generates in the name of profit. But the system could be on the brink of a big change.

Emma Chamberlain, the quintessential influencer, announced in early March

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2022 that she was stepping back from her YouTube presence. In her podcast, she explained that she felt stressed about the fact that creating content was her job, and said that she doesn’t understand “the concept behind YouTube.”

“I got to such a dark place in this hamster wheel of being a YouTuber that I said, you know what, I can’t do this at all,” Chamberlain said in her podcast. “I need to step back completely. I need to step back and heal from the years and years of burnout and give myself weeks, months, years if I need to figure out if it’s something that I can do in a healthy way.”

Chamberlain’s announcement might have come as a shock to influencers and followers alike, but maybe her small step towards a more emotionally sustainable online presence could mark a bigger step towards a healthier influencer culture in the future.

Maybe we can reach a place where the influencers don’t feel pressure to be or look perfect, their followers don’t feel pressure to be or look like influencers, and companies value influencers and consumers as human beings, not tools for a quick buck.

Maybe we can make the internet a kinder place for influencers and the influenced alike.

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Kaitlyn Huamani studies Journalism at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California.

Ginger Gordon is a New York-based photographer and actor. They study Theater and Cinematic Arts at the School of Dramatic Arts, University of Southern California.

In addition to working with Haute, they are on the photography team for Sunstroke Magazine, Our Era Magazine, and Backward Noise Magazine.

Sarah Chan is a Los Angeles-based graphic and visual designer who specializes in a minimalistic yet deliberate aesthetic approach. Chan studies Human Biology at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California.

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Alaric Ma is a Los Angeles-based fashion photographer.

He studies Fine Arts at the Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California.

Arya Tandon is a Los Angeles-based graphic designer who has an interest in visual design and user experience.

Tandon’s approach to design navigates the intersections between accessibility and aesthetics. She studies Cognitive Science at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California.

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Jacob Yeh is a Pasadena-born and Los Angeles-based photographer who specializes in portraiture, abstract, and editorial photography. He studies Communications at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California.

Borja Schettini is a Los Angeles-based designer specializing in graphic design and creative direction. His acute understanding of the principles of design makes way for his experimental style to push those boundaries while creating artwork. Schettini studies Communications at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California. He also serves as the Director of Content for Haute Magazine.

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HAUTE MAGAZINE Based in the University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA Follow us on Instagram @hauteusc Visit us at hauteusc.com