Part one of a three-part series.
— Introduction
At times, being a student on College Hill can feel a little like being Rapunzel atop her tower, understanding that you’re within some sort of seclusion without knowing what you’re not seeing. As an international student a year into Rhode Island, yet still only a breath into America, I finally found a question that I might be able to answer.
What is the fashion culture in Rhode Island?
Fashion culture, beyond being more fun to say than “The culture of fashion,” I see as the way that people in a given space or environment engage with fashion – what they choose to wear and why. So whether or not these choices feel as though they have either agency or gravity behind them, by existing in relation to other people, fashion culture encompasses everybody that sees and is seen in clothing, contributing to a larger behavioural structure of fashion within a community, as though a scent that follows you from the busiest street to the privacy of an empty house.
So then what is the fashion culture in Rhode Island? What are people interested in wearing and why? What informs their approaches to dressing? And could there be a distinctive “Rhode Island” style? For some insight, I thought I’d reach out right to the sources.
— Part 1: Against the Gradient
The first thing that I learned was to differentiate between the major cities and particularly, Providence. Factors like its large population of college students, its vibrant LGBTQ+ scene, and strong artistic history are tenets making up what is generally described to those unfamiliar like myself, as the arts.
In Providence, I’ve found the term, the arts, as used more to describe the culture of the town than any sector or movement in particular. That vibe you can’t quite place downtown: the arts. Brick laden towers with only murals breathing life into them: the arts. Industrial warehouses carrying the scent of parties two decades ended: the arts. Bars that used to exist on Thayer Street and students that used to leave it. This reverent remembrance of something undefinably present, and yet unrecognisable and untouchable. Providence has appreciated, presupposed, loved, and lost the arts in the way it thought it once had them.
Some Saturday nights ago, on Sims Avenue, I found myself at what I understood to be a sort of costume party at the Wooly Fair’s Lint Ball, an event welcoming and celebrating eclecticism and stylistic eccentricity. Among a futuristic, otherworldly decor galore, lit to the warm eye and tuned for easy stepping, was an array of handmade, plucked, curated and sought pieces worn by the guests, with their only similarity being their difference. Large furs, hand-stitched accessories, irregular cuts, bold colours, bold hair and makeup, outfits not only meant to be worn but to be seen. Innovative thinking rendering no two people the same.
Later, I’d recalled this event when discussing the different ways that people participate in fashion culture. From conversation, many people perceived fashion culture to be most actively led and participated in by “creative subcultures,” described as a unit, much like “the arts.” However, what I think people are referring to, as shopowner Brie, from Siren Saint Vintage later discussed with me, is Providence’s underlying interest in fashion, visual art, and creativity that encourages creative expression by showing that it is welcomed and supported. Underground subcultures in their nature push against some sociocultural gradient, thus making a more welcome space for creative expression just by existing. These communities may not be easy to find, nor do they function to alleviate the general public’s impression of the Underground, but despite their in-the-know nature, I’m told that they are very welcoming communities. And the longer the hike, the better the view, right? Someone used to “digging deep” told me of finding underground parties and events, through Reddit, Google, Internet Archive, and general word of mouth. If what they’ve heard is true… they might even be waiting for some secret mailing.
“Creative spaces (like the Wooly Fair) allow for expression,” a young man called Leo told me. Leo had moved to Providence only a month prior when we spoke, giving him the perspective of navigating a new cultural quotidien and exploring the bounds of his own self-expression within it. He told me that Providence being such an “expressive community” creates a vibe that makes him feel more comfortable to express himself as well.
Similarly, Brie considered the commitment of subcultures to using fashion as a form of creative expression as a proactive reaction to a larger culture that doesn’t completely value individuality. Questions like, “Why are you dressed so fancy?” had not been uncommon to Brie, and reflected what some described as an unmotivated fashion culture across Rhode Island, where people feel that they need an occasion to wear something out of the ordinary or dress up. Later, in discussion with Sarah from Astral Plain’s Vintage, she too had described women in their twenties branching into vintage with the intention to find pieces “to wear at dinner parties,” thus still necessitating a reason to feel as though you’re engaging with fashion. Even the concept of what counts as “dressing up,” though contingent on personal interpretation, seems to be held at a more casual level, which encourages less effort to be put into personal styling. This continues a feedback loop that tells people that they’re “dressing up” by wearing something a little more styled, which not only can discourage people from wanting to be seen as “doing too much,” but also fundamentally misunderstands how people participate in fashion, putting it in a binary of either “active” or “passive” dressing, depending on the extent to which someone thinks that they have carefully chosen an outfit rather than just “thrown it on.” We neither evade the choice of what we wear nor its contribution to a collective culture by thinking about it less.
So far, I’ve gathered the impression that a large portion of Rhode Islanders see “active” fashion as something temporal, dipped in and out of as necessary. If the Wooly Fair was a conjunction of creatives going against the gradient, I’d like to next get a sense of what the gradient is.
See where this fashion exploration adventure leads in part II, next issue.
Keep up with Brie at @sirensaintsvintage, and Sarah at @astral_plains_ on social media!