Macalester students’ fashion tastes are pleasantly difficult to describe. From donning the uniform sweatshirts bannered with “Macalester College” in orange lettering to sporting full outfits from the Free Swap, the student body has participated in global fashion movements and created the college’s own microtrends. Mac students all have different stories and the places they come from and the things they do have significant impacts on their personal style. I asked three Macalester students with unique personal styles to break down their outfits and inspirations. Here’s what Cade Klein ’27, Lou Williams ’28 and Carissa Bolante ’25 shared.
In a sea of athleisure, business casual and standard jeans-and-top outfits, Klein stands out. If you aren’t immediately struck by his towering New Rock shoes armed with razor blades, the spikes and chains snaking around Klein’s wrists and neck will do the trick. The sophomore’s style is influenced primarily by his music taste, paying special homage to a favorite artist, Bladee, whom Klein arrived back from seeing days before his interview with The Mac Weekly. He’d flown home to Dallas, Tx., to see the artist live, and shared some of the pivotal aspects of Bladee’s style that impacted his own jewelry layering and selection.
“The way I wear my necklaces is kind of religious — even though I’m not religious — and that’s based in some artists like Bladee… they wear jewelry in a way where they’re not attached to the religion, but the symbol is still interesting.”
Klein’s outfits are a puzzle of primarily black pieces punctuated by striking jewelry. His hands are decorated with a ring on nearly each finger, from skulls to skeleton hands to stars, and the silver stands out against the black of his outfit base and nail polish. The pieces he wears themselves are emblematic of so much more than Klein’s self-defined alternative identity — they also represent his relationships with the people he loves.
“Right now I’m wearing three gifts,” Klein remarked. “My mom sent the New Rock shoes to the mail room without telling me. And so I went to go pick them up and it was this huge box, with these cool shoes that are so expensive, and so that alone makes them one of my favorites. The things that are associated with other people are definitely my favorite.”
Klein’s style continues to evolve as his favorite artists grow and he learns more about what works for him, highlighting the Goodwill Bins as a favorite place to shop. Wishing for a custom pair of New Rocks in the future, his love for jewelry, footwear and cohesiveness fashion choices streamlines well within the Macalester community, where the intersection of fashion and comfort is continuously emerging.
For first-year Lou Williams, style is much more than simply the clothes one wears everyday. From the coordinated color palette and casual fit of his clothing to the geometric placement of his piercings, Williams presents a relaxed approach in his fashion choices, influenced both by his hometown of Seattle and his skateboarding background. On the day of his interview, Williams wore a pair of mint Urban Outfitters pants, checkered vans and a Gildan hoodie with a Palace logo that he had tie dyed, bleached and dyed again before adding his own metallic studs.
As Williams arrived at college and was forced to downsize his wardrobe, a new priority emerged for him: the crossroads between ease and consistency. His personal taste in clothing continues to come into shape in tandem with his primary fashion influences: A$AP Rocky and Pharrell.
“[Pharrell] dresses pretty uniform. And that’s what I’ve been looking to do, like how can all of your things work well together so that I can randomize it a bit and it looks, you know, interesting. Not necessarily good, but interesting.”
It’s impossible to discuss Williams’ style without mentioning his flourishing jewelry and piercing collection. With multiple lobe piercings, an eyebrow, nose piercing and his signature tooth gem, the first year emphasizes the importance of piercings for his everyday look.
“At a certain point I was like, wait a minute, just practically speaking, you don’t have to take jewelry off the way you do clothes,” he realized. “And my lobes have been pierced since I was two months old, so I’ve always had something… I truly think that if someone puts their jewelry on well they can literally wear anything and it looks good, which is appealing to me.”
When asked about future plans for piercings and tooth jewelry, Williams affirmed his wish for a new tooth gem and the possibility of more face piercings. “I just like looking in the mirror and seeing the jewelry, thinking like ‘that’s me,’ it’s sort of grounding.”
Carissa Bolante spends every day in a dance studio. When she’s not there, she’s frequently using her dance attire as a base or springpoint for layering, pointing to her identity as both a ballerina and a street-style dancer. Her love of different textures and styles has carried her from center stages to the streets of New York, where her journey with personal style truly began.
Bolante grew up in the Philippines, where the lack of seasons and strict school dress codes shaped how she viewed clothing. In ballet schools, dancers are frequently assigned colors and styles based on level of technique. When Bolante graduated to the highest technique level, she was allowed to pick both the style and color of her leotards, catapulting her relationship with dance and fashion.
“For the longest time I would play around with different necklines,” the senior remembered. “Right now I’m wearing a boatneck. Typically when I’m wearing a halter leotard I like wearing something with a lower neckline on top so then you can really see the halter, and if I’m wearing mesh, I’ll put something on top that shows little peeks of that mesh material under.”
Bolante’s relationship to both ballet and street style have significant influence on her outfits, from her love of the baggy silhouette to her passion for textures and fabrics. She highlighted a key memory in her time as a dancer thus far, reflecting on how it feels to wear a costume that has been in company storage (meaning several dancers have worn the piece for a variety of performances).
“I just love hearing about the previous dancers and their stories and where they are now … and seeing all the different ways it’s been altered, all the different clasps in different places and things. And at the end of the day it’s like a fifty-year-old costume that’s been constantly altered and altered for ballet and the different people wearing it.”
Bolante’s style continues to evolve as she explores new places, citing that her favorite way to shop is to simply enter a store and “see what speaks to [her].” Her identity inside and outside of the studio blend beautifully to create a cohesive and graceful portfolio of outfits that transition seamlessly from performance to everyday looks.
Whether through gifted items of personal value, a self-made uniform or waiting for clothes to speak to you, Macalester’s fashion is constantly evolving with incoming classes and trends. Personal style remains an essential part of students’ self-expression, connecting them to their passions, homes and identities. The unique tableau of outfits, piercings and accessories displayed across campus both represents and defines the Macalester identity as ever-changing and distinct. As the leaves fall and temperatures drop, students look ahead to what old and new concepts and styles will emerge in the upcoming winter months.
