Digital Volume 8 Issue 5

Volume 8 | Issue 5

Standford Lipsey Student Publications Building 420 Maynard St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

ALEX ANDERSEN MACKENZIE FLEMING Editor-in-Chief

Publisher

Creative Director

Marketing Director

Operations Director

JACOB WARD

ALEX CHESSARE

JULIA NAPIEWOCKI

Design Editors

Print Fashion Editors

Print Features Editor

Print Photo Editors

GABI MECHABER EMMA PETERSON

JOSIE BURCK KARLY MADEY

MELINA SCHAEFER

KORRIN DERING ED TIAN

Video Editor

Digital Fashion Editor

Digital Features Editor

Print Beauty Editor

SAM RAO

SARAH ORY

LAUREN CHAMPLIN

YOUMNA KHAN

Finance Coordinators

Events Coordinator

Managing Photo Editor

Digital Photo Editor

MAGGIE CLARK MICHELLE TAO

CAROLINE MARTINO

GABRIELLE MACK

GABBY CERITANO

Human Resources Coordinator

Social Media Coordinators

Public Relations Coordinators

Street Style Editor

SENA KADDURAH

HANNAH TRIESTER APOORVA GAUTAM

DAPHNE PATTON RACHEL PORDY

SUREET SARAU

Digital Content Editor

ALEX STERCHELE

Design Team Andy Nakamura, Sandy Chang, Kai Huie, Christina Tan, Kimi Lillios, Rino Fujimoto, Kali Francisco, Olivia Ortiz, Camille Andrew, Taylor Silver, Nicole Kim, Margaret Laakso

Digital Content Team Neha Kotagiri, Allison He, Christina Tan, Helena Grobel, Sonali Pai

Finance Team Swetha Susarla, Michelle Tao, Emma Lewry, Margaret Clark, Elle Donakowski

Fashion Team Sophie Alphonso, Kailana Dejoie, Chloe Erdle, Isabelle Fisher, Tavleen Gill, Amanda Li, Peter Marcus, Courtney Mass, Noor Moughni, Olivia Mouradian, Natalia Nowicka, Madison Patel, Abby Rapoport, Dhruv Verma Anastasia Hernando, Ayanna Bell, Benjamin Michalsky, Emily Hayman, Gigi Kalabat, Janae Dyas, Jordan Wade, Kathryn Dorfman, Kelsea Chen Meredith Randall, Sarah Dettling, Sandy Chang, Sophie McKay, Victoria Vaz

Features Team Meera Kumar, Brooklyn Blevins, Annie Malek, Lucy Perrone, Ben Decker Cat Heher Neha Kotagiri, Melissa Dash, Patience Young, Janice Kang, Ava Shapiro, Hannah Triester, Heba Malik, Tiara Partsch, Natalia Szura, Jayde Emery, Sarah Stolar Nadia Judge, Katy Pentiuk, Peter Hummer, Christina Cincilla

Photography Team Anna Fuder, Brooke Dodderidge, Chrisitina Merrill, Emma West, Hannah Anderson, Margeaux Fortin, Nolan Lopez, Riley Kisser, Selena Sun, Sophie Hendrich, Tess Crowley, Zahria Jordan

Videography Team Grant Emmenheiser, Madeline Kim, Hannah Mutz, Lisa Ryou, Sara Cooper, Eaman Ali, Rachel Ienna, Samin Hassan, Hannah Hur, Emily Veguilla, Riley Kisser, Coco DelVecchio

Human Resources Team Mary Mack, Lillian Fakih, Jacqueline Choe, Izzy Tuchman

Public Relations Team Megan Eng, Mya Steir, Ava Ben David, Rachel Pordy, Katherine Lambert, Izzy Saunders, Celia Pagnucco, Kali Hightower

Events Team Alex McMullen, Molly Kennedy, Makenzie Kulczycki, Annie Cooper, Liza Miller, Julia Barge, Tiara Blonshine, Anastasia Hernando

Social Media Team Samedha Gorrai, Amanda Sachs, Anastasia Hernando, Makena Torrey, Julia Goldish, Charlotte Foley, Neha Kotagiri, Sandy Chang, Olivia Sun, Carolyn Soltz, Lauren Rosenberg, Megan Eng, Sofie Harb

Street Style Team Sophie Hendrich, Becca Mahon, Calin Firlit, Devon Kelly, Emmalyn Kukura, Emma Moss, Hanna Erhardt, Jenna Frieberg, Leonie Muno, Maggie Innis, Nicola Troschinet, Riley Kisser, Rosalie Comte, Tess Crowley, Victoria Vaz

IN THIS ISSUE 04 Letter from the Editors

30 Raw Progression

06 Ethereal

34 The Embodiment of Strength

12 Fearless

36 Overgrowth

18 Born to Blossom, Bloom to Perish

42 A Collector’s Mind 44 Abundance

20 Metamorphosis 28 Thrifting, Delivered

50 The Right to Flourish

LETTER FROM S

oft kisses of sun rays slip through the curtains of my bedroom window, flirtatious gestures from the coming spring. Soon the green will flood over the ground, re-saturating the land and signaling a season of rebirth, expansion, and healing.

The mornings that I have left in Ann Arbor are limited. This isa realization that many hold as we approach graduation, or even the next year of our time at Michigan. The light of what is to come is exciting and captivating, yet intensely blinding and unknown. With the waxing warmth comes the high expectation I have for myself to thrive, to re-emerge from the winter months in brightness with grace and strength like the flora around me. Of all the seasons, the spring is the most expected catalyst of flourishing, but it feels so idealistic. In reality, thriving is work, really hard work. Feeling stuck in this purgatory of youth and adulthood, freedom and responsibility, chilled and overheated, I resent the typical spring narrative for making the act of blossoming appear so natural.

I suppose I would relate this scenario to New Year’s Day: a fresh beginning seems so enticing, overflowing with opportunity and excitement. It has the same cyclical nature of decline and resolution, guiding the masses toward a better self.

Instead of this traditional view of spring and the New Year as an impetus for action, to begin thriving, I want to reframe it as a check-in, an ode to the growth we have already experienced, and encouragement to keep going. In the spring, we should applaud the resilience we’ve gained through our suffering in the winter, mentally and physically, as well as within our past selves. And while, for some, the beauty of spring comes in the feeling of blossoming, for others, it may simply be that we still have the strength to push forward.

In RIPE, we celebrate growth, exploring what it means to come into oneself, to be unapologetic with our bold self-expression, to thrive, to be resilient. While I hope that this issue inspires you to expand, share your light, and imagine your best self, I hope even more that it inspires you to reflect on what you have already achieved and how far you have come.

Alex Anderson Editor-In-Chief

M THE EDITORS W

ith March comes the promise of spring—sunlight that softens the city’s sharp, frozen edges, leaving Ann Arbor slick and fresh, its skin shining, plump, and alluring like a pair of lacquered lips perched in a pout.

While winter still persists, we remain tucked between layers and wrapped in knit second-skins. But in the comfort of my Kerrytown bedroom, I brush my hands over curves that didn’t exist pre-pandemic. Soft hairs are backlit by the morning sun from my window, the flesh of a peach indistinguishable from my own. I lean into my own touch, reflecting on the version of myself that would have shied away from this type of contact—too much pressure, too direct. Removing my palms to see their red imprints on my hips, bright at first but fading quickly, the ghosts of tender prondings, I grin and inhale deeply; my body inflating with pride, dripping in ecstasy.

This image of myself growing and shifting as naturally as the world around me is, in my definition, what it means to be ripe. To celebrate the new without desperately holding onto the old, to look forward to what’s next without fearing what we’re leaving behind— but of course, these apprehensions are intrinsic to this cyclical growth, for what is a fruit that does not dread its inevitable rotting?

For many of us, that fear of the decline, the fall from grace, keeps us from fully embracing the person we are now and celebrating them for all they have to offer.

In RIPE, we embrace all of us, sinking our teeth into the fruits of our ambition, our love. And by holding each other with a tenderness as supple as fresh berries bursting on our tongues, we prove that gentleness is an act of bravery, that confidence has the power to coat every moment of our lives in sweetness. So take a bite.

Lauren Champlin Digital Features Editor

Ethereal

DIRECTOR SARAH DETTLING STYLIST SARAH DETTLING PHOTOGRAPHERS VERA TIKHONOVA GRAPHIC DESIGNER KAI HUIE MODEL SHAYLIN CIARAMITARO

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SHOOT DIRECTOR ABBY RAPOPORT FASHION ABBY RAPOPORT JANAE DYAS MEREDITH RANDALL PHOTOGRAPHERS NOLAN LOPEZ SIRAPA VICHAIKUL UDOKA NWANSI GRAPHIC DESIGNER ANDY NAKUMARA VIDEOGRAPHER COCO DELVECCHIO MODELS DESIREE FREDA FRIMPONG

Born to Blossom, B

aby, I am plump and ripe / Hanging like a fruit / Ready to be juiced As a college freshman in the fall of 2019, I felt like a flower in full bloom. I was a fruit turning ripe, breaking free from the only home that I have ever known. Just shy of eighteen years old, I was finally entering adulthood and felt as if I knew everything there was to know. Froot by Marina and the Diamonds was the disco, synthpop anthem of my life. I wanted the world to know that I was ready for all it had to offer.

Although I felt ripe and ready, it seemed like no one else around me was on the same page.

Crammed between sweaty bodies in a frat house basement, drinks being spilled on me while I pretended to enjoy the blaring music, I was not living- out my Froot fantasy. It was getting harder for me to make friends, despite my self-assured confidence. Everything around me was growing darker. As the seasons changed, the cold crept in quickly and my motivation and extroversion slipped away just as fast. What was this plump and ripe fruit doing among the weeds? Shouldn’t I have been hanging high on a vine, waiting to get picked? I felt as though I’d fallen straight to the dirt and was beginning to spoil.

Leave it too long I’ll go rot / Like an apple you forgot / Birds and worms will come for me

I feel like I am constantly approaching the point of ripeness, but the fear of decay keeps me from maturing completely. When you’re ripe, it’s only a matter of time before you start to rot.

Deteriorating is a slow process in and of itself, but the hints of fear and insecurity make it feel like a rapidly approaching reality. I worry that by the time I realize I’ve ripened, I may already be starting to go sour. I let these insecurities starve me of my own sweetness.

The COVID-19 pandemic feels like it has stolen years of my life, what were supposed to be my most formative years. I am fixated on having those coming-of-age teen movie moments before it’s too late. For so long, I tried to make the best of this standstill, yet I still find myself getting nostalgic for an era I missed out on.

Gimme love, gimme dreams, gimme a good self esteem / Gimme good and pure, what you waiting for?

At the same time, I am a junior in college, only twenty years old. I hold dear a recent memory of untying the string to my Hello Kitty dollar store kite, careful to not tear the cheaply-made plastic body.

My best friend since 2nd grade and I are trying to contain our excitement while a family a few picnic tables over is hosting their own outing in the park.

We’ve been impatiently waiting for a gust of wind

Bloom to Perish to hit just when I see Darian’s blue hair begin to blow. “NOW!” we yell in unison and take off into a sprint, looking up at the sky, not caring what comes in our way. My $3 kite I purchased earlier that year on a trip to Quebec is taking flight, and I can’t help but scream. Releasing yelps of excitement despite the entirety of the nearby family reunion staring at me, I feel free. “I can’t stop!” I scream as my knees buckle in an attempt to prevent me from crashing into Darian. The two of us tumble to the ground, our bodies enveloped by the dry blades of grass the July sun scorched.

It’s submerged in these memories that I realize that the timeline of being ripe may not be as straight as I thought. It can go through cycles, just as I go through phases as I age and grow. Maybe youth is not reserved for one finite period in life.

I’m forever chasing time / If I could buy forever at a price, I’d buy it twice There will always be a part of me that is chasing my youth, or at least making sure that I bring a sense of extraordinary youthful joy into every new age. However, I seek comfort in the hope that ripeness doesn’t come to an inevitable end.

You are forever outgrowing versions of yourself, shedding old layers for fresh ones to bloom. Your rotted fruit always drops the seed for your future self to sprout. Just when you think you’re complete,

there is another life to live.

You can paint me any color / And I can be your clown / But you ain’t got my number / No, you can’t pin me down “... But I feel bad because I know you have back problems,” I tell my friend as she forces me to use her body as a step stool. Despite my objections, I pulled with all my might on the bars that were three feet out of my reach. After a few stumbling seconds, I’m stable enough to stand straight on the old goal posts of my hometown elementary school’s football field. Tucked away behind the local library on a Sunday evening in July, we exist in an oasis of our own. Six feet off the ground, I feel like I’m the highest I’ve ever been. I stayed there to watch the sunset. It was invigorating, exhilarating—I was invincible.

WRITER BEN DECKER GRAPHIC DESIGNER GABI MECHABER

META

AMORPHOSIS

DIRECTOR SOPHIE ALPHONSO STYLISTS EMILY HAYMAN TAVLEEN GILL SHARIFA DOUDI PHOTOGRAPHER ALEX KIM ANNA FUDER zAHARIA JORDON VIDEOGRAPHER RILEY KISSER GRAPHIC DESIGNER MARGARET LAAKSO MODELS TEMITOPE

Thrifting, Delivered I

n recent years, resale apps like Depop, Poshmark, and ThredUp have been rapidly on the rise, taking over the online fashion game and bringing sustainable, secondhand clothing to the forefront.

Until recently, I myself was unfamiliar with these types of apps. However, as soon as I started using them, I understood why they’re as popular as they are. As the cruelty and adverse environmental impacts of fast fashion brands became a top talking point in mainstream fashion conversations and sustainable retail brands presented themselves as widely inaccessible and unaffordable options, the push to shop secondhand is greater than it’s ever been. Although thrift stores and vintage shops have long been outlets for sourcing secondhand clothing, a major selling point of resale apps for young fashion consumers is their online presence: you no longer have to live in close proximity to a thrift store—all you

need is your phone and a credit card.1 With resale apps, a single piece sold by a fast-fashion company can be cycled between dozens of people and, with an almost certain markdown in the price, people who couldn’t previously afford to shop sustainably are now running the show.

To delve deeper into the motivations and impacts of resale apps, I had the pleasure of talking with a student ambassador for Curtsy—a resale app made by and for college students. Jiawen Qui, a student here at the University of Michigan, has been using Curtsy since she was a senior in high school. College students themselves at the time, “the founders of Curtsy were acutely aware of the amount of fast fashion being consumed by young women around them,” said Qui. “Oftentimes, dresses 1 Mary Hanbury, “Gen Z is fueling the growth of a new breed of secondhand selling apps,” Business Insider, Insider, July 5, 2019, https://www. businessinsider.com/gen-z-fuels-growth-of-newsecondhand-selling-apps-2019-6

that were bought for parties or formals were worn once or twice and never glanced at again. They understood that the best place to provide a platform for sustainable fashion was the very place where fast fashion was unnervingly famous.”

Curtsy’s founders, a group of Tri Delta sisters at the University of Mississippi, turned their love for secondhand fashion into a business that is making a difference in consumer culture at colleges and universities across the country. “The goal was to curb the excessive production of clothing made by fast fashion brands,” stated Qui, “as well as promote a healthy cycle of buying and selling clothes as your fashion style and preferences inevitably change.”

Since these women were frequent users of resale apps themselves, they knew what a college student wants and needs from such an app, and it is truly reflected in the app’s streamlined construction–aesthetically beautiful

as well as alarmingly easy to use as a buyer or seller. Curtsy markets itself as the perfect place for new resellers to get their start; they understand that their Gen Z to young Millennial user base often operate without shipping materials or access to printers, and “first-time sellers receive a free starter kit with Curtsybranded supplies for packaging their items at home.2” Overall, apps that are involved in the resale of clothing items have managed to create a much larger impact on the fashion industry than we might have ever imagined. Resale apps not only promote secondhand fashion but also, the creation of sustainable cycles of use and reuse of clothing in your wardrobe and the wardrobes of others.

2 Sarah Perez, “Curtsy, a clothing resale app aimed at Gen Z women, raises $11 million Series A,” TechCrunch, January 20, 2021, https://techcrunch. com/2021/01/20/curtsy-a-clothing-resale-appaimed-at-gen-z-women-raises-11-millionseries-a/

WRITER MEERA KUMAR GRAPHIC DESIGNER GABI MECHABER

SHOOT DIRECTOR GIGI KALABAT FASHION GIGI KALABAT SOPHIE MCKAY JORDAN WADE PHOTOGRAPHERS MARGEAUX FORTIN TAYLOR JANE GRAPHIC DESIGNER EMMA PETERSON MODEL ETHAN TORAIN

The Embodiment of Strength T

he full length mirror in my bedroom serves as the venue for my daily fashion shows when I’m deciding on an outfit for the day. However, it is also the lens in which I see my body the clearest. For me, looking in the mirror often means confronting the ways in which type-one diabetes has altered my body.

Since I was thirteen years old, I’ve functioned with the aid of an insulin pump. For about three years now, this has been coupled with my Dexcom G6 continuous glucose monitor. Both of these devices require small circular insertion sites that are placed on my stomach, arms, or legs.

For quite some time after I began wearing these aids, I hated the thought that my body required extra assistance to function. They felt like an infringement on my personal style, an accessory that could never be removed. A cute outfit could never reach its full potential with the outline of my glucose monitor showing, and many pairs of my favorite jeans have threadbare pockets as a result of housing my insulin pump.

It took me years to quell my resentment for my medical supports. Until I came to terms with the fact that having diabetes was a part of my life that wasn’t going to just disappear, I considered these supports an irritating addition to my body rather than an extension. In managing my diabetes for so long, both the disease and the devices I wear as a result of it have, in their own way, become a representation of me. I no longer view them as a disruption of my self expression, and instead, I see them as an intrinsic part of who I am.

In our lifetimes, we’re only granted one body.

It acts as a vessel to communicate experience.

We are so much more than our physical forms,

yet they send messages of creativity, beauty, and empowerment. When it comes to strength, muscle mass is not the only indicator. Instead, the variations in our framework serve as signifiers of all we have endured; our own special strengths are preserved in the individual ways in which we bear the weight of life. The body tells a story, and we dress her up to write in our own elements of self expression. Thus, incorporation of disability in fashion is essential.

In seeing differently abled bodies, we get to see varying displays of strength, often in places where we least expect it.

In the 1999 Alexander McQueen “No. 13” fashion show, Aimee Mullins, American actress and athlete, walked as the opening model. What made Mullins appearance so groundbreaking was the fact that as a child, her legs were amputated below the knees, requiring her to wear prosthetics. For his show, McQueen, with the help of orthopedic professional Bob Watts, crafted two solid prosthetic wooden legs, adorned with ornate carvings of flowers and vines for her to wear on the runway.1 In more recent years, model Aaron Rose Philip has made serious headway in terms of breaking barriers in the fashion industry. Signed by Elite Model Management in 2017 Philip became the first Black, transgender, physically disabled model to be repr esented by a major agency. Last fall, she appeared at New York Fashion Week in Moschino’s Spring 2022 show, becoming the first model in a wheelchair to take to the runway for a big name fashion designer. Philip has been a part of a variety of unique photoshoots, many of which incorporate 1 “Pro sthetic Legs,” Prosthetic legs – The Museum of Savage Beauty, 2015, https://www.vam.ac.uk/ museumofsavagebeauty/mcq/prosthetic-legs/.

WRITER BROOKLYN BELVINS GRAPHIC DESIGNER GABI MECHABER

her wheelchair into the look, donning it with flowers, vines, and feathers.2 Collaboration between designers and disabled models works to rewrite the narrative surrounding medical aids such as wheelchairs and prosthetics not only in fashion, but in culture at large. When we see photoshoots in which models are using these tools, we’re reminded just how essential they are. Not only are they portrayed beautifully in a visual sense, but the beauty that is their ability to promote life is reinforced. Seeing Mullins in her McQueen fashion, I can’t help but think about how her prosthetics add to her commanding presence on the runway. Philip’s poses always make the lines of her wheelchair appear sleek and cohesive with her looks. These aids play a critical role in what makes these models themselves, and seeing them photographed this way truly adds to their sense of self and individuality in each photoshoot.

In my own journey of becoming confident in myself, I learned to see how my medical devices represent different facets of my strength. Standing before my mirror, in the moments as I change from one outfit to the next, I am acquainted with the familiar contours of my body. The faces of my thighs dotted with scars from past infusion sites are a testament to their ability to withstand the prick of a needle. Redness after removing adhesives shows the ease at which my body can bond to outside touch. And as I finally decide on what to wear for the day, I’ll remind myself that no outfit of mine would be complete without a few insertion sites here and there.

2 Jennifer Ferrise, “Model Aaron Rose Philip Is Changing Fashion for the Better,” InStyle, November 18, 2021, https://www.instyle.com/fashion/aaron-rose-philipmodel-interview.

T R OVE GROW H

STYLIST MADISON PATEL PHOTOGRAPHERS SAM MCLEOD GABBY MACK RILEY KISSER CHRISTINA M VIDEOGRAPHER RACHEL IENNA GRAPHIC DESIGNER NICOLE KIM MODEL GAGE LARSON

A Collecto I

n the arms of a new love, I laugh: I’ve worn a different perfume each time I’ve seen them. They promise they don’t mind.

I’ve never been one to have a signature scent. Rather, I collect them; I keep every bottle, every sample, neatly stored on my desk, and let them infuse my memories—or perhaps I let my memories infuse them. I carefully attach a few weeks of my life to a particular scent. Whether that be summer bike rides, champagne glasses, or wool-knit scarves, I commit people to memory through whichever perfume welcomed them into my life. And before I know it, one day, that perfume no longer feels quite right, and I leave it behind. For a little while. I never actually throw it away. What if in a few weeks I want it back?

Next on my desk, a porcelain tray, blue and white; it houses my jewelry, hairpins and badges. Necklaces, rings, earrings and reminiscences bask in the morning light.

Scattered among loose pearls lie the remnants of an old bracelet I broke yet never had the heart to throw out. I wear my golden necklaces, turned copper by the sea salt, when I crave the sunshine. My St. Christopher medal, patron of travelers, is a go-to for flights. The golden hoops an old lover once insisted I never take off now make me smile; and the emerald earring, whose matching partner I cannot find, sits on my desk until I unearth the missing one. Perhaps I hang onto things a little longer than normal.

And yet, I love to surround myself with these recollections, these scraps of life. They prolong meaning; on my bedroom wall, in the midst of photographs, some of which I’ve taken, others I wish I had, I stick up post-its, brainstorms and

important thoughts I don’t wa at least. I tack letters on top of in the lyrics I write. It’s funny ho out, after I’ve played it a few tim A Lover’s Discourse and Louis poems find themselves diffu once fell in love with someon the same bookmark. My love their boundaries blur fluidly a The Museum of Modern Art of postcards, purchased while loved,hung proudly above m said lover stopped calling. The my wall for a few weeks, the bed, shoved under a stack o again the next month and c turned into bookmarks, one w other has returned to my wi turn, they take on a different m A stack of notebooks hides my walls: the photographs o do not feel so resonant anym difficult to part with. In my boo I’ll never send; leaves I have co between pages of Mary Olive to read, gifts I do not want to ke place in my room’s transience still, is my collecting remembr Whether it be perfumes, jew create an in-between, an inte

or’s Mind

ant to lose—important for now, f my piano, listening for them ow a melody will cycle in and mes. Next to my bed sit Barthes’ se Glück’s Lullaby. Novels and used by my bedroom lights. I ne simply because we owned for people, my love of things; at times. t, August 2021. A matching set e visiting a person I thought I my window for four days… until e postcards were kept up on en moved to a box under my of textbooks, only to be found cried over, laughed with. Now was given away as a gift. The indowsill. At each and every meaning. s the pictures I have taken off of ex-friends, the quotes that more, yet are still somehow so okshelf, I hide a stack of letters ollected on walks are pressed er’s poetry. Books I do not plan eep nevertheless still find their e. When time has never stood rance? Or disillusionment? welry, trinkets or people, I like to ertwining of past and present. I

live in suspension; I cycle through physical corollaries, pictures, places, things, I infuse them with passion, with youth, with grief, and they grow so full of meaning. Deep down, I know there is a ripening that comes from letting them go. With every ending comes growth and transformation. So why can’t I throw my endings out to make room for the beginnings that follow?

Perhaps, not unlike the difference between forgetting and forgiving, my refusal to let go of ripened meanings does not come from denial; in fact, it may be a form of acceptance. After all, collecting a life lived in scribbles, scraps, and letters is my ode to our everyday transformations: the ones that manifest in the objects and people we choose to keep close, only to let them go when they expire. Instead of forgetting, I capture their essence, and make it permanent. Through fragrances, dogeared pages, and annotations, I forgive and accept the past as an intrinsic part of my present.

There is joy to be found in the piece of candy that was once slipped into my pocket. There is fondness attached to my eighth grade bejeweled headband. There is a kindling in my love letters. And perhaps, like the MoMa postcards, growth is not always linear: ripening can mean letting go, yes, but it can also mean going back; it can mean a return to things that have hurt when the time is right.

Moreover, change is cyclical. While a particular perfume or cologne might feel perfect for a month or two, ripening can also mean exploration—an embrace of the new. And who knows, sooner or later, I might try and stick to a single fragrance. I’ll throw the others out, and I will live solely through memoire d’une odeur; but for now, let me live in my future favorite samples.

WRITER TIARA PARTSCH GRAPHIC DESIGNER EMMA PETERSON

Abundan

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SHOOT DIRECTOR OLIVIA MOURADIAN STYLISTS SANDY CHANG KELSEA CHEN MAKEUP SANDY CHANG KELSEA CHEN EBBA GURNEY OLIVIA MOURADIAN PHOTOGRAPHERS EBBA GURNEY SELENA SUN ALVIN YAO VIDEOGRAPHER GRANT EMENHEISER GRAPHIC DESIGNER GABI MECHABER MODELS AARON GONG ISAAC MAZE NICK PIPPEN

White Shirts - ASOS

SHOOT DIRECTOR ISABELLE FISHER FASHION PETER MARCUS ERIN DAVIS ISABELLE FISHER PHOTOGRAPHER DANTE YGLESIAS TESS CROWLEY PHOTOGRAPHER PEARLRILEY THIANTHAI KISSER VIDEOGRAP HER GRAPHIC DESIGNER MADELINE KIM RINO FUJIMOTO GRAPHIC DESIGNER MODELS RINO FUJIMOTO OWEN SMILEY MODEL ELLA KLEINSTIEN ERIN DAVIS

Plaid Dress - Isabelle Fisher, inspired by Taylor Dorry Fur Coat - Roberto Cavalli

Embellished Jeans - Isabelle Fisher and Peter Marcus Patchwork letterman - Herff Jones

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