Quad Style: Jena Yang

Mar 14

Mar 14 Quad Style: Jena Yang

Today, we're featuring Jena Yang, a third year from Seoul, South Korea. Jena is also one of style editors for MODA Magazine!

Can you introduce yourself to our readers?

My name is Jena and I’m a third year majoring in Psychology and English.

What are you wearing?

I’m wearing an Alexander Wang turtleneck with a Comme des Garcons skirt and Topshop coat.

How would you describe your personal style?

I think my style is too undefined for me to be able to describe — I feel like what I wear depends so much on my mood and how early I wake up in the mornings and how behind I am on laundry that it ends up all over the place. I guess people say I always wear too much black but really that has more to do with me spilling too much food all the time to be able to wear light clothes than personal style.

Where do you find style inspiration?

I watch videos of runway shows sometimes when I have time. I like watching videos because you can see how the clothes move on the bodies and understand more how the designers envisioned their collection being worn. I used to really like street style photography but not as much anymore because I feel like so many of the people getting photographed look like they tried too hard to get photographed — like they all wear the same Vetements sweatshirt and seem to lack any individual understanding of fashion. I usually get inspriation from Instagram — my favorite people are Jayne Min and Margaret Zhang because they both have really individual senses of style and actually work within the industry as consultants and photographers.

Where do you like to shop?

I used to really like shopping and go downtown on the weekends or after (maybe during) classes but not as much anymore — I always get tired and online shopping makes me feel guilty for wasting time when I should be applying to internships or whatever it is I should be doing instead. I like looking through ssense because of how curated it is and so I can keep up on new collections but I think the only thing I could maybe actually buy from that site is like a pair of white gym socks for $90 or whatever the markup is for printing “Vetements” on something. I usually shop the most when I travel so I can find clothes that are hard to find elsewhere.

Do you have any fashion regrets? What’s your biggest fashion faux pas?

I used to have this weird obsessions with giraffes so I wore this really horrible neon blue shirt with a cartoon giraffe in sunglasses around like every single day in seventh grade.

What is your relationship to fashion? Has it changed over time?

I became interested in fashion during high school. I think I felt like I was losing my sense of who I was — like getting reduced to my grades and ranking and how good I was at extracurriculars — so I started experimenting more with how I dressed because it seemed like the only way to feel like an individual outside of my college application. I think my relationship to fashion has definitely changed in that I care less about how I personally dress and am more interested in understanding the industry and the artistic value of fashion.

Why is fashion important to you?

I read this interview of Rei Kawakubo where she said that she decided not to install any mirrors in the first Comme des Garcons store because how clothes make you feel should be more important than how they make you look. This sounds really dramatic but this understanding of fashion really changed my life and completely expresses why fashion is so important to me.