clothes as community - styled by emily

there is so much more than meets the eye with emily. her style is forward and wild but behind it are even more radical ideas about fashion. she expands on the stories her clothes tell, below.

describe your style.

my style is all about communication with the world. i want to be striking up conversations with this city's wild people, funky freaks, believers in freedom; the people that are busting out of the mundane and prescribed. i'm attracted to clothes that reference cool people throughout history. i've made so many friends by walking up to someone at a show and sincerely liking their shirt or being approached about a wacky pair of pants and for me that is the end goal of fashion and style; creating community. what we wear is a medium, an extension of language.

you've been wearing a lot of cool, unusual pieces lately. who makes them?

i try to wear clothes made by or given to me by friends everyday. an object that is filled with the energy of someone you love has so much power to protect you and carry you through your day.

i wear earrings by my friend amy b most days of the week.  she uses clay to form her shapes and I love the idea of wearing something that a friend touched and molded, used her heat and force to create.

for the shoot, I'm wearing my favorite jeans by my friend sonya sombreuil-cohen who designs under the label come tees. it takes so much consideration, time and physical effort to make these jeans and it feels amazing to wear anything filled with so much intention.

in your opinion, how do feminism and fashion relate?

fashion and feminism are deeply connected, if sometimes at odds. i feel lucky to live in a time when more fashion lines are presenting gender neutral lines, using models of different ages, giving transgender people more of the spotlight, and sometimes making clothes that don't ascribe to unreachable body goals. fashion shouldn't be about aspiration. it should be about fantasy, conversation, costuming, fun, expression and protection from a sometimes hostile world. every time any woman wears exactly what she wants without concern for convention or societal expectation, that is a micro act of feminism and should be celebrated.

for my part, i will keep wearing things that are wild, funky, ugly, sexy, elegant, dirty, frumpy, sophisticated, silly, bizarre, and inconvenient.  i want to be constantly reminding everyone that women are all of these things because women are human.