While living in my hometown, Los Angeles, I had always felt at ease. The weather was relaxing, you never had to walk anywhere, and options felt endless. One could explore the LA Case Study homes, see the installations at The Last Bookstore, get bespoke leather sandals at Amanu in West Hollywood, eat at Gjusta in Venice or wake up early on a Thursday to watch the LA Philharmonic rehearse at the Hollywood Bowl. The constant stimulation was something I took for granted but approached enthusiastically with a sweater tied around my waist, open-toed heels, a green juice in hand, sunnies, a LV speedy tote and a beach towel in the trunk of my car - just in case. The goal was to always look “off-duty,” whether that was an off-duty model, actress or professional personality. A true LA native knows that no matter where you’re going or what you’re doing, you should always look like you’re avoiding someone.
Quintessential LA girl Cher from Clueless had the same priority as all native teens: get a driver’s license.
While getting my bachelor’s degree, I decided to transfer from Santa Monica College to the University of California, Santa Cruz. The idea of moving away from the noise pollution and body modification advertisements spoke to the softer, more sensitive, side of my personality. No more road rage or breathing in smog on the freeway. No more club promoters coaxing you to get out of bed at night to “literally just Uber to Sunset and Cahuenga,” so they can make their quota. It would be a lifestyle change, as Northern California is generally more studious, the weather is colder and the industry is centered around tech versus entertainment. (I know Santa Cruz is central California, but it was a move up north for me. Hell, some of my friends have never gone north of Malibu). So, anyways, when I packed to move there, I felt like I needed to shed some of the sartorial articles that made me too LA.
The UCSC campus was a lot more down to earth, to say the least.
Consequently, my LV speedy tote was the first thing to go, since I was afraid the label-heavy design would give off the wrong impression. My heels were next, because the UCSC campus was placed on a mountain and was actually legit cardio. The style on campus was pared-down and heavily influenced by the skate and surf culture there as well as 60s counterculture (it was like the Y2K raunch movement never happened). And now, I have skated, and I have surfed before, but Rip Curl gear is not my bag. Moreover, I wasn’t trying to completely change who I was, but to test my sense of self outside of the boundary of my hometown, my center of gravity.
Not to be dramatic, but a city bitch is to nature as a fish is to oxygen. Going on hikes? Fine. To the beach? Cool. Live in the woods? Okay...hesitance. To better envision myself doing so, while living on UCSC’s Redwood-ensconced shoreline campus, I began packing flowing bohemian dresses, ankle boots and wide brimmed hats; imagine a Free People fall catalogue. It was actually really cute, with navy Hunter rain boots and midi dresses under chunky knit sweaters. I swam in the Garden of Eden (a swimming hole deep in the wilderness found in a local state park), bought a cranberry-red acoustic guitar and took the Amtrak up to SF while studying Beatnik poetry.
Me in Santa Cruz, embodied by MARNI’s ‘Wandering in Stripes” campaign.
Homesickness emerged around springtime, when I began to miss how vibrant the LA smog made sunsets over the freeway. I missed the eclectic nightlife and driving down Ventura Blvd. Most importantly, I missed myself and the life I had left behind. The fear was that the cost of autonomy, testing boundaries and exploring “the self” was losing a part of me that took so long to cultivate. That, in the midst of wearing so much floral, I may have lost a bit of my edge, that “L.A. crass” Lana Del Rey has sung about. To cope, I started to regress back to styles that had worked for me at home but were thought to be “too L.A.'' to ever consider wearing at UC Santa Cruz. These ensembles included see-through black ruffled shirts, designer anything, plaid miniskirts, chunky jewelry and “unstable” platforms. I knew I had reached a tipping point when I was walking to class, in heels, on what the other students called “cardiac hill,” which was literally the steepest hill on UCSC’s mountainous campus.
It’s odd, having a face-off with who you’ve been and who you’re becoming, but that’s how I would describe walking up the hill that day. I wasn’t going to allow myself to become that infuriating stereotype of the airhead “L.A. girl,” who ends up in the nurse’s office because she fell down cardiac hill trying to get to class in 5-inchers. And so, I let go. (Metaphorically, of course, at that moment every muscle was engaged to maintain my hand-eye-coordination). And, overtime, with that acceptance I was able to outgrow the fear of losing myself in a new place. More loungewear was introduced into my wardrobe, some Patagonia and chunky “daddy” sneakers (thank god for the Balenciaga Triple S takeover at the time). The relaxed wardrobe better reflected my surroundings as well as my own mentality while being there. In the end, I grew more style-wise versus streetwise and still look for signals in my clothing today. Impractical as that growing stage was, I learned how truly symbolic style can be.
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In the world of post-pandemic dressing, one word has taken social media by storm: cheugy (pronounced: chew-gee). In the worlds of fashion and lifestyle, cheugy describes a look, a thing or a person that’s considered out of date.