The Beach Boys predicted it decades in advance. And now, the
sunshine-loving bands of “The OC” are singing about
it.
California is the new New York.
New York may be the high-fashion capital, but recently, due to
the influence and ubiquitousness of Young Hollywood, Los Angeles
has been stealing the fashion scene.
Whether stars are on the red carpet or simply buying organic
milk at Whole Foods, they are always well dressed (or not), and
ensure that their latest fashion conquests are captured by the
paparazzi.
“You look at the tabloids and you see stars walking down
the street with their “˜normal’ clothes, and trends
start right from there,” said Grace Lin, a second-year
business economics student at UCLA and aspiring fashion
designer.
It’s easy to envy these stars at first for being wealthy
and beautiful. However, thanks to tireless tabloids and gossip
blogs, it’s become easy to live vicariously through them. In
recent years, celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan
have been more in the limelight than ever before, resulting in more
press for their fashion choices as well.
Diana Kim, a fourth-year communications student at NYU who has
spent her entire life on the East Coast, says the media’s
influence is inescapable.
She notes that tabloids are on constant repeat with the same old
celebrity lineup of Mischa Barton, Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan,
all of whom mimic one another when dressing. But more
interestingly, these flashy starlets actually try to downplay their
wealth ““ making formerly expensive fashion affordable to
fashion-conscious fans.
“Celebrities in L.A. are dressing to showcase that they
have money, but (Barton, Richie, and Lohan) try to contradict this
by going with the vintage scene, to display their wealth
subtly,” Kim said.
It seems to be working. It was Young Hollywood stars like Lohan
and Richie who propagated the bug-eye sunglasses of seasons past as
well as the ankle-cut skinny jeans that have spawned the copycat
versions on young women in Los Angeles and in New York.
One student who doesn’t adhere to Lohan’s brand of
style but can’t help noticing it taking over is Bernice Shaw,
a second-year economics and philosophy student. Shaw is a member of
UCFAST, an organization at UCLA that holds a runway show with
student designers’ fashions each year.
“We mimic them because we can’t do much with fashion
now, what with celebrities and TV shows like “˜The OC’
and “˜Laguna Beach’ dictating what we wear,” Shaw
said. “We’re about young, teen pop culture.
That’s what we think is real, so we’re going to want to
follow what the prominent people in society are doing.”
New York has long been the barometer of the American fashion
world, thanks to high standards and top-notch fashion weeks that
showcase revered designers such as Donna Karan and Derek Lam.
Trends have always begun on the runways at New York and trickled
down to the rest of the country. But now, things are changing.
Even New Yorkers admit to being influenced by star-endorsed
fashion.
Aria Woods, a native Southern Californian, is now a second-year
premed student at Columbia University in New York City. Her recent
move to New York has helped her contrast the differing fashion
scenes.
Woods affirms that celebrities play a sizable role in
instigating fashion trends in both Los Angeles and New York.
“In the mainstream culture, Young Hollywood has shifted
the fashion capital to L.A.; you see these celebrities everyday in
People (magazine),” Woods said. “But fashion is always
regressing and reinventing itself, so it’s hard to say who
will be ahead in the future.”
New Yorkers pride themselves on having their own look and being
eclectic, a trait Kim says Los Angelenos lack.
“If you walk around New York, fashion-wise, everybody is
so different, whereas in L.A. people are more into main
brands,” she said.
However, the brands in question are often out of reach for
students on a budget. Still, attaining the goal of looking like our
favorite stars is never too hard on the wallet, with readily
available knock-offs such as those carried at Forever 21 and
H&M.
“(What’s) in style is changing at such a fast pace
that we’re going to wear whatever is in fashion at the
moment, and then in a month or two we’ll want something
completely different,” Shaw said. “So it’s good
that we have affordable items; we’d be spending enormous
amounts of money just to keep up with all these trends
otherwise.”
Lin said she would never shell out the cash to actually purchase
items worn by celebrities, nor would she buy a runway look. Rather,
they are an inspiration for her style.
“I go on Style.com and read Vogue, but as for actually
making my wardrobe follow the runway, I wouldn’t do that as
much because it changes so often,” Lin said. “I
don’t have that much money to spend.”
New York’s high-fashion runways, on the other hand, are a
little harder to translate to the typical consumer, which may be
the primary cause of the shift to Los Angeles.
Haute couture caters to size-0 slivers of human beings, waifs
chosen more for the artistic purposes of the fashion designers than
for any practicality in actual dress.
For both monetary reasons and the super-skinny look itself,
students on both coasts are just not having it.
For her part, Kim agrees that the high-fashion ideals of beauty
from New York’s catwalk can be difficult to maneuver.
“I don’t really follow the runways that much. You
just can’t wear those clothes unless you’re really
skinny, but I’m not a size 0,” Kim said. “When I
wear skinny jeans they don’t look as good on me as they do on
a model.”
As “The Devil Wears Prada” proves, New York fashion
definitely equates with sophistication. With its mass appeal,
California has taken advantage of the fact that it has become the
new trend-setting capital of the nation, though some worry a
celeb-driven fashion landscape is a devalued one.
“Young Hollywood has definitely shifted trends,”
Shaw said. “Young people want to buy and wear what people
their age in the tabloids are wearing. … So much about fashion in
L.A. is not about style anymore; it’s about branding
yourself.”