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The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

Isa Escalona’s evolving sense of fashion

Isa Escalona ’18 has a constantly changing sense of fashion. This semester she experiments with pairing more sexual clothing with less feminine pieces. Photos by Emma Carray '20.
Isa Escalona ’18 has a constantly changing sense of fashion. This semester she experiments with pairing more sexual clothing with less feminine pieces. Photos by Emma Carray ’20.
Isa Escalona ’18 has a constantly changing sense of fashion. This semester she experiments with pairing more sexual clothing with less feminine pieces. Photos by Shannon Mahedy ’17.[/caption]While Isa Escalona ’18 doesn’t want to come off like she knows it all when it comes to fashion, she certainly has a lot to share. Last year, after transitioning from a lob (long bob) to a pixie cut, she experienced, first-hand, the disorienting effects of misconceptions. Escalona explains, “People perceived me as being serious. You’ll get taken more seriously, this idea that you’re more put together.” Misconceptions regarding one’s look and identity are somewhat familiar to Escalona, who is Mexican-American. While her heritage has played a formative role in the creation of her identity, it is not explicitly reflected in Escalona’s style. “I think both parts are tied to my identity, and they work really great together, but you won’t really see that from just looking at me,” she explains. On the other hand, her interest in “gender stuff” has undoubtedly shaped her ideas about style.

Given this interest, it is perhaps unsurprising that Escalona’s current style emerged from her past confusion and frustration with gender expression. In elementary school, she “really embraced the tomboy sporty look” by wearing “a lot of basketball shorts and basketball t-shirts.” After reaching puberty, she realized that her style “would look really weird to other people.” Feeling self-conscious, Escalona shifted her approach by adopting popular tween styles. However, high school prompted her to reevaluate her approach to style, as she began to grapple with gender and racial issues, allowing her to explore the societal pressures informing her style. “Now I can dress the way I actually like, or at least try to,” she explains, adding that that this approach felt more authentic and fulfilling.

This shift in approach prompted Escalona to seek inspirations for her new-found stylistic freedom. A proponent of DIY fashions, she “started following more DIY type fashion, so like the random girl who has really cute clothes and posts pictures on the internet, like young women presenting the way they look to the world.” She continued, “Some of my favorite people who I look at online for inspiration are so different. I would never wear anything they wear. But the part that I like is that they’re super genuine, and this is what they like. It’s not a facade. They’re not trying to be someone else who they think is cool.” Escalona is unabashedly drawn to authenticity in personal style, especially considering her initial struggle committing to clothing that made her feel good and confident. At Mac, she admits, “There are definitely those people where I’m like, ‘she’s so cool. I want to dress like her.’ Or ‘that’s a really good idea, I’m going to do that low-key some time.’” However, while it is evident that Escalona has a relatively constant way of approaching personal style, her style is constantly morphing and shape-shifting.

Photo by Emma Carray ’20.
Photo by Emma Carray ’20.
This style often varies from semester to semester. This Fall, she is hoping to see the resurgence of the tube top popular in the early 2000s. She explains, “I really want to bring back tube tops, like the strapless 2000s tube top. I think strapless looks are classic on anyone.” Escalona proposes pairing the top with jeans or sporty pants. Every semester, she asks herself, “What do I want to present? What’s the look?”

This semester, she is embracing “the idea of having tighter-fitted clothing, more sexual clothing, but paired with things that are not super feminine or sexual.” For example, she might pair a “frumpy” jacket with a mini dress or baggy overalls with a bra top.

This goes back to her “relaxed and fun” general approach to life. This outlook emerges in her anecdote about how she “found this hat on the ground at a party, and I was like this is it. I love this hat.” As she told me this story, she pulled out a vibrantly green Ralph Lauren polo cap, with an equally bright orange logo, and smiled. It is this kind of unpredictable and unapologetically exploratory and ephemeral style that makes Escalona’s personal style so exciting. While she makes sure that she feels confident in the myriad styles she adopts, these styles are constantly evolving and completely shifting direction.

Photo by Emma Carray '20.
Photo by Emma Carray ’20.
This commitment to authenticity became apparent when I asked Escalona about her thoughts on fashion at Macalester. Her honest critique will hopefully stimulate a dialogue around campus. Escalona began with the general opinion, “So I gotta say, fashion at Mac, I think, is one of our weakest points. I think that Macalester dresses pretty boring.” She later went on to speak about gender dynamics and underlying pressures stemming from the perceived campus cultural norm “to be serious, almost more masculine.” According to Escalona, “It’s also really cool to look like you don’t put any effort into it. It’s sort of frowned upon to be colorful, or like, happy or feminine.” While Escalona is currently a junior, when she first arrived to Mac, she “wore fun things, with my color and more feminine. After I got here, I realized that it was much cooler to wear brown, white, gray, black.” This commitment to neutrals has a more profound impact on campus culture than a boring color palette, from Escalona’s perspective. “And I think that that is a part of our culture where there’s this low-key slut-shaming. Ultra-femininity and overt sexualization is definitely not a thing here. That’s something that I struggle with, because those are things that I like,” she says.
Photo by Emma Carray '20.
Photo by Emma Carray ’20.
Escalona concedes that individuality can thrive at Mac, specifically regarding the wide range of acceptable stylistic expressions at Mac. She spoke about a time when she wore “a shirt to class that was completely see-through with a bra underneath, and no one batted an eye,” or how she “can wear very frumpy clothing, and no one is going to ask if I’m sick that day.” However, she believes that this lack of judgement is limited to certain aesthetics. “There are certain ways that we can be out of the box, but other ways in which we can’t, like a girl wearing heels and mini black dress to party.”

While Escalona is opinionated when it comes to certain stylistic gender norms, she does sometimes ask herself serious questions like “How far can I push this rule and still be accepted in this space?” This specifically emerges in relation to overtly sexualized clothing in public or work spaces. Escalona’s dramatic hair transformation offers insight into her style philosophy. She likes to mix it up to learn about herself. She explained how her pixie cut prompted her to discover how much she relied on it in a social context in order to avoid feeling awkward. Escalona is constantly exploring new aesthetics and stylistic identities, while staying true to what makes her feel confident and what is best for her body. This is evident in the fact that she is going to dye her hair pitch black next week.

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