With the conclusion of New York Fashion Week for the spring season, it is time to do a full Anna Wintour-style review of PHS. As teenagers who are constantly consuming media, we are impacted by the trends and styles that we see in high-end fashion brands, whose products are considered to be the finest, most exemplary creations in the fashion world. However, the attire that most students at PHS come to school in seems to take no influence from the people that consume so much of our time on social media.

Since the beginning of American history, style standards have become more and more relaxed, much to the benefit of those who no longer need to wear corsets or cumberbunds. From the 1970s to 2000s, school style stayed relatively consistent, with students wearing jeans, T-shirts, and casual street wear. Although some students occasionally break out of the style, for the most part, school style has stayed very consistent for the last 40 years.

However, in the past ten years, that standard has almost disappeared. Although many of us are happy to have the flexibility to wear sweatpants to school, should pajamas and loungewear really be the standard of what we wear to school? If clothes are a way to express ourselves, then we should be trying to wear outfits in school that break from the norm and express how we want to look.

Since we came back to school following the pandemic, it seems as though there’s been an upward trend in the loungewear that we see worn at PHS. For over a year, it was perfectly normal to wear pajamas to Zoom class. In fact, not having to worry about how our clothes were perceived

by others was a major relief. When we returned to school, we tried to wear clothes that represented the way that we wanted to appear to the world or stayed in the clothes that we wore all throughout the pandemic. The majority of students maintained the norm that was established during the lockdown, wearing sweats to school. But as this routine continued, it became even more difficult to break out of it. When we see others wearing pajamas to school, we are more likely to do the same, wanting to blend in. But if that does not match your personal style, you shouldn’t be so influenced by other people to copy that look. Individuality and self-identity are significantly more important than the desire to dress identically to the people you surround yourself with. Only a temporary feeling of “fitting in” is gained from doing so, and eventually, discomfort, knowing that you don’t actually fit into the boxes you’ve forced yourself into.

Not only does keeping up with the latest fashion trend eliminate personal style, but it’s also exhausting. Fashion trends change so often, meaning that they’re almost impossible to keep up with. When you do so, it ends up being tremendously expensive. If we rushed to the shopping cart every time we saw a pop-up ad for the most-bought item at SHEIN, our hauls would overload our wardrobes, and our financial struggles would only be amplified. It’s easy to get sucked into a frenzy over fast fashion, because at first glance, it might seem affordable, but like anything else, the price tags add up. Oftentimes, these clothes end up in the trash due to the ever-changing trends. Alternatively, people might throw these clothes away due to the poor-quality materials used in these “cheap” products, just to follow their actions up with another clothing haul, continuing the cycle. This amounts to a large amount of wasted products that are costly not only to our wallets but to the environment. The non-profit organization Rest of World conducted an investigation that discovered that between July and December of 2021, SHEIN added between 2,000 to 10,000 new styles to their app daily. With such insane numbers, it comes at no surprise that the company’s carbon footprint is worse than very poor, producing 6.3 million tons of carbon dioxide yearly, according to a 2023 study by Time. The environmental damage caused by SHEIN and other such fast fashion brands simply cannot be ignored, and it is a major reason to completely ditch fashion trends which encourage consumers to keep buying more and more products. SHEIN also does not produce the types of clothes that are particularly representative of personal style because they sell clothing that is simply meant to check a box for what’s trending at the moment. When so many consumers shop from the same brand, the clothes they wear look the same as the ones worn by everyone else, which makes fast fashion not only environmentally unfriendly, but also lacking in individuality. A more sustainable way of cultivating personal style is thrifting. Not only is thrifting inexpensive, but it allows you to repurpose already created clothes, and the items that you find are almost always unique and for a good price.

It should become more normalized for students to actually represent themselves through their appearance when they want to. What we really want is for PHS to be an environment in which people feel comfortable wearing clothes that they think represent their interests, personal identity, and the way that they truly want to be seen by others. What we truly want to see is students abandoning their pandemic habits of comfort over self-expression. Fashion trends are harmful to our ability to self-express while simultaneously hurting the environment around us. There’s no reason to prioritize trends over using clothes as a method of showing the world who we are. It seems that the true line between loungewear and Dior is simply what you feel comfortable in. Truly wearing what you want to convey about yourself should come first, not the influence of other people and the media. If that happens to be sweatpants, then that’s absolutely wonderful, and if it is a full petticoat and stays, that is wonderful as well.