Rihanna is spotted in the front row as Cara Delevingne struts down the runway. Karl Lagerfeld directs from backstage, and I’m at home in my pajamas reading all about it in the latest issue of Vogue.
Besides the occasional scroll through style blogs, as a student with a busy schedule, it’s hard for me to keep track of the clothes featured on fashion runways and even harder to afford them.
Some of the necessary evils that usually come with being a student are tuition, fees, expensive textbooks and most importantly, a budget. Often excluded from most student budgets are high-fashion clothing pieces. Being on a campus that is only a couple of miles away from high-end shopping districts like Rodeo Drive and Robertson Boulevard, the distinction between high fashion and fast fashion can be all too apparent.
It’s this disparity between student budgets and designer label prices that makes me wonder if it’s at all possible to have a wardrobe that contains a balance of both. Can students find alternative ways to obtain high-fashion pieces?
Personally, the only designer item that I currently own is a sad, beat-up Marc Jacobs wallet that I got during my freshman year of high school, probably because one of my friends also had one.
However, just a couple of months ago, I remember walking into a designer store in West Hollywood with the intent of giving high fashion a chance. Yet, what resulted were only feelings of being intimidated by the employees and overwhelmed by the price tags.
(Evaneet Sidhu/Daily Bruin)
The whole experience was all very reminiscent of “Pretty Woman” minus the “Big mistake. Big. Huge,” part, as I didn’t get to walk away with shopping bags full of pricey shoulder-padded suits and comically large hats. Sadly, the confines of living within a student budget prevented me from buying a single large hat that day.
While I haven’t had the best luck in finding a feasible way to afford high-end clothing pieces while on a student budget, others at UCLA have.
Second-year Asian humanities and molecular, cell and development biology student Ty Lee said he uses online marketplaces and fashion forums like StyleZeitgeist and superfuture to buy and sell designer clothing at prices lower than retail.
“I’ve recently been looking for an affordable Helmut Lang bomber jacket, and I was able to find it,” Lee said. “When I put it on, it feels like I have a piece of archival history from a designer I really respect and admire, so it’s a really good feeling.”
Some find affordable designer brands through collaboration collections, where well-known designers often partner with mainstream retailers. Target is especially known for this, carrying at one time collections from Carolina Herrera, Missoni and Diane Von Furstenberg, just to name a few.
Target’s most current collaboration is with the brand Peter Pilotto, known for its prints and draping. The Target collection features a mix of geometric and organic floral-printed clothing, accessories and swimwear, all priced under $60.
These collaboration collections have also appeared at many other retailers. One such highly anticipated partnership is between H&M; and Alexander Wang, creative director of Balenciaga and designer. The collection is titled “Alexander Wang x H&M;” and is set to hit stores on Nov. 6.
While not all mainstream retailers collaborate with designers, they find other ways to offer looks similar to those shown in New York Fashion Week.
For instance, retailer Zara, to the chagrin of many high-fashion designers, offers looks that are extremely close reflections of what is seen on the runways. At times, I feel that without a label and of course with some difference in quality, it is almost impossible to differentiate between a look from Zara and its high-fashion counterpart.
While Zara’s typical prices lie within the $50 to $200 range, their pieces are still in sharp contrast to actual designer clothing, which can cost almost ten times more.
Students who don’t shop for collaboration collections at Target or at more fashion-forward stores, like Zara, choose to get their designer fix through a more unlikely channel: thrift store shopping.
Consignment shops, like Jet Rag, Wasteland and SLOW, which specially curate vintage styles, specialize in selling designer labels from past and present. They are all conveniently located around five to six miles from campus near Melrose Avenue.
With a bit more digging, the more affordable Out of the Closet, which is just two-and-a-half miles from UCLA, can lead to those designer finds as well.
While I have yet to delve into all of the alternative ways of getting designer labels on a student’s budget, I’ve learned that the world of high fashion and the world of the college student may not be all that far apart.
Do you think it’s possible to buy designer labels on a student’s budget?