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.

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.

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.