What’s this?
I started this thing called “@wardrobethirteen” on Instagram to occupy my time once I was done playing soccer — hence the nod to my jersey number, 13.
Admittedly, my consistency and content style fluctuated since hanging up the cleats for good. I began with flat lays, experimented with TikToks (hated it), and attempted to chronicle daily outfits. My initial bio dubbed it a "fashion blog meets digital dream closet." Through trial and error, I got the hang of the dream closet-making, but the blog component has remained elusive.
Until now!
wardrobe thirteen is evolving into a space that explores my interest in fashion more broadly — capturing both style and styling as well as my thoughts on the industry, the culture it exists in, and the trends it produces.
Like a well-curated and well-loved wardrobe, this is my place to go to be inspired, experiment, and hopefully turn out something that conveys what I want to the world.
Why now?
My master’s thesis thesis explored fashion’s brief flirtation with the Metaverse and Web3. Though it felt new and shiny at the time, it was really just an of-the-moment repackaging of a conversation that is kind of always happening: fashion’s ever-evolving relationship with identity formation and signaling, the fight for intellectual property control and brand maintenance, environmental impact, and the unfailing allure of hype.
In the 2.5-ish years it took me to complete my degree, I devoted considerable time to screenshotting and scribbling notes about any and everything even tangentially related to fashion, trends, and commerce. Unfortunately, since hitting “submit” on UVA’s Online Archive of Scholarship website, I have not only stopped consistently documenting my opinions and perspective, but also been locked out of my @ virginia.edu email address — thereby killing my pseudo-critic meets wannabe editor archive of thoughts, pop culture moments, and quotes from people much smarter than me.
Nevertheless, I’ve felt really called to return to thinking and writing about fashion from the lens of an “outsider” (I do not work in fashion nor am I a journalist) this year. So here I am, doing just that!
What’s in it for me?
I hope you think more deeply about fashion, style/styling, culture, and commerce. I hope you screenshot things I share that inspire you. I hope you disagree with me and tell me why (nicely). I hope you drop a link in a group chat and ask what everyone thinks.
This is wardrobe thirteen.
I hope you love it here.