Social Media, Culture, Identity, and Fashion at Kean University

By Keyon Gardner

The culture of fashion in the United States and globally has changed dramatically over the last few decades thanks to social media and some of the fashion industry’s most fashionable icons such as Asap Rocky and the late Virgil Abloh.  

 “I think fashion is a part of globalization, only because Western culture nowadays I feel like is being derived from other different cultures that aren’t western,” senior Karen Garcia said. “I think the impact of how we view other cultures and how they dress is how I think we would also like to imitate ourselves.

Fashion is a form of self-expression. It is another form of art that has a unique style and is another tool for people to express themselves. 

The fashion culture at Kean has a wide range of students who are involved in expressing themselves with the clothes they have. For some students, their ethnicity plays a big role in their styling selection. Many different cultures around the world follow the trends pertaining to their own country’s demographic. 

For instance, Filipinos’ sense of fashion is their adherence to appropriateness “Throughout history, Black fashion pioneers and African-American designers like Zelda Wynn Valdes and Stephen Burrows used their talent to make a name for themselves in a highly competitive Eurocentric and predominantly white industry” According to L’officiel Magazine.      

“In the Filipino community, we are strict on how we present ourselves and hold ourselves to a higher standard,” junior Spencer Fabe said.

 Spencer mentioned he was a big fan of Top Man which was a UK-based multinational men’s fashion store chain founded by Burton in 1978 and Zara a Spanish apparel retailer based in Arteixo, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain that specializes in fashion. Both stores are quite popular amongst the large demographic of young people due to their superb quality or high-end line of clothing. 

“I feel like fashion is a circle coming around,” said Andre Siron, a sophomore who was noticeably quite stylish with his cotton fur hoodie with straight sweatpants and purple Nike air jordans 1 mids.

Spencer had an 8 am class and mentioned that he doesn’t put a lot of effort into styling his outfit and that he usually tries to plan his outfits the night before. “Most of the time I wing it,” said, Siron

 Most Kean students have a pretty good understanding of putting a good outfit together without having to put much effort into it. 

Another Kean student, Antonio Scott who I ran into that I noticed was rocking a Kean hoodie apparel mentions that he doesn’t get inspired by other people and that he sees a certain outfit he likes he just puts it on himself. “ Everything is from my interest and colors of the stuff I find attractive to my eye,” he added.

 Isaiah Manuel, a Kean student, describes social media as playing a big role in the way we like to style our clothes and dress because we are influenced by artists and celebrities and aspire to look like them even though we would never want to admit it. 

“Whatever I wear has meaning to it, everything you wear has meaning to it, you don’t just put something on be like no, you want people to see what you wear and they will get an opinion of where you are from what you’re wearing,” Scott said.

With the times changing and the rise of new influencers in the industry of fashion, this generation we live in seems to be shifting towards more of a judgment-free zone when it comes to styling a certain outfit together.  

“Well fashion comes with the culture, your culture is what you wear,” Scott said.

Your cultural background will always play a part in how you dress and ultimately view yourself when putting on an outfit. We often get inspired by our ethnic backgrounds’ choice of style and it can impact our style preferences.
“I’m an African male but I also have Cherokee in my bloodline, but however the African American background being that I’m very in tune with my culture, it does impact how I dress being street fashion or professional,” said Scott.

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