When you think of Boston, your mind may go to baseball games at Fenway Park or lobster rolls at Faneuil Hall, but Boston doesn’t necessarily scream “fashion” in the way that New York City might.
Meet Emilie Hibbard, Meghan Cronin, and Luc Belder. They are three Boston University CGS sophomores, who want to change that perception with their Instagram @fashionatbu featuring the street style of fellow BU students. I got the chance to speak with Hibbard, who spoke on behalf of the group, on how the account got started, how the process works, and even her own personal style.
From left to right: Meghan Cronin, Emilie Hibbard, Luc Belder
HC: What are your roles on the account?
EH: Meghan and I started it last year. She had the idea and started it through the Fashion and Retail Association and we got the foundation started. We’re both friends with Luc and he has a really good understanding of menswear and street style, like hype beast stuff. I basically do all the social media, like the entire Instagram and the reaching out to people to shoot, finding new people, that kind of thing. Meghan’s the photographer, she takes all the pictures and edits them. We all network and reach out to people collectively. And Luc helps with picking the pictures, getting the shots when we’re actually shooting, making sure the frames are good, and that we’re getting all the aspects of the outfits that we want to cover.
HC: Is fashion only a hobby, or do you all want to work in the fashion industry in some aspect?
EH: For Meghan, it’s a really good portfolio for her photography. I think Luc is interested in going into the fashion industry. He’s from the Netherlands, so he wants to go back to Amsterdam and do some stuff there. My entire experience and work history are in fashion. Ideally, I would love to go into it. I think I’m going to do the sustainability and development track for IR, so pairing that with my experience in the industry to go into sustainability in fashion would be a dream.
Olivia Manni
HC: Do you find people to feature through social media? What do you look for specifically?
EH: We started just featuring people we know. We were all in the CGS Boston-London program together. A lot of the features are CGS kids just because that’s who we know. Now, more recently, as we’ve been trying to grow more and do more in the whole BU community, we’ve been reaching out to people on social media and also people we see in our classes. People really like getting that acknowledgment when you see them in class and they’re dressed really cool.
HC: How long does the whole process take, from finding someone to feature to get it up on the account?
EH: We have ongoing lists of people that we are planning to reach out to at all times. We always want to have someone going every week, basically. But because it’s so hard on everyone’s schedule, it ends up getting drawn out. That’s why, this semester specifically, we have so few shoots because we finish CGS this semester. Everything was so condensed and we were all so busy that everything was much more drawn out. Typically, if we are being productive and using our time efficiently, we can get everything done in like a week, from reaching out to the person, shooting them, editing the pictures, picking the ones to post, and getting the interview questions done.
Giancarlo Lobo
HC: What do you think about the fashion culture here at BU and in Boston?
EH: I have always been into fashion and have traveled all over. I’m from the UK. I’ve spent a lot of time in London, New York, and I live in New Jersey now. My dad also lives in Hong Kong. Seeing all of those places, which are literal hubs for fashion and then coming to Boston is very interesting. At BU, specifically, it definitely has to do with the amount of money people have, which is something we try to avoid, but it does influence it. Even if you’re not wearing the Balenciaga dad sneaker, you still see Filas everywhere on the street. People are still imitating that. There will always be the higher end stuff that people look to for guidance, and it’s just more excessive here. There is a lot going on with the fashion industry in Boston, it’s just not as crucial to the entire industry. It’s just a subcommunity here, which is cool, but different.
HC: What does the future of the account look like, and where do you want it to go?
EH: We’ve been talking about this a lot recently. We really want to make it more of a community and have it more interactive with people we’ve featured in the past, and people we continue to feature. We still work under Fashion and Retail Association, so getting more involved with that club and doing events with them. And just spreading around campus in general, getting into different groups of people that we wouldn’t normally interact with because it’s also just so cool to meet new people since we wouldn’t have crossed paths otherwise. Last week, I did a “Get Ready With Me in the Morning” with an outfit of the day. We want the old features to do that, and we already have a few lined up to go in the next few weeks. We also want to get interns and expand into different classes too, because we have a lot of people from the class of 2021, so getting more underclassmen would be good just so we know we have someone to pass it down to and keep it going. It’d be pretty cool to have that legacy.
Zoe Allen
HC: How would you describe your style?
EH: I would say very eclectic. I just throw a lot of stuff together. I like very neat silhouettes and incorporate a lot of menswear. I also alter a lot of my own clothes, like men’s pants. Whenever I find stuff, I just run with it.
HC: Who are your style inspirations?
EH: I get a lot of style inspiration from English Youtubers like Estée Lalonde and Lizzy Hadfield. She’s from Leeds, and I’m from Sheffield, so I have a connection with her. I also look a lot at Danny Lomas from PAQ, who lives forty minutes away from where I’m from in England. He and my cousin used to skate together. They always feature Magnus Ronning. I really like him and his style. I draw inspiration from a lot of places. Partially because of Luc, I’m into men’s streetwear, like hype beast stuff. I follow that a lot. I draw inspiration for my entire looks from that because I’m not going to go wait in line at Supreme.
HC: Where do you shop in Boston?
EH: I shop a lot at the store I work at on Newbury, which is LIT Boutique. They have a lot of cool boutique brands from LA and NY. I know the owner and she curates all the stuff so well, which I really appreciate in a store. Other than that, since I’m biased, I really like Reformation, Aritzia. If I have to shop at stores like Zara, H&M, and Forever 21, I will, but I try to avoid it. I even went through a period recently of not buying clothes at all, only buying something that has been worn before because of the whole fast-fashion, consumerism crazed mentality. There’s no way the industry can go on without changing completely.
“The goal of the account is to create an active, current fashion community at BU that’s about executing looks, visions, and working together to network and built your portfolio, resume, or whatever you’re working towards, rather than strictly being about an Instagram account.”
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