Photos by Jade Wilson. Design by Annie Maynard.
Wrinkles are in, high-end is out—and maybe it’s time to mend some neighborly fences and worn-out pairs of pants while we’re at it.
The INDY’s fourth-annual Style Issue is dedicated to the beauty of what exists, to exploring what it means to embody a fierce DIY aesthetic. So while you’ll find our usual roundup of local brands and retailers—please support them—you’ll also find experiments with personal style, like when photographer Jade Wilson took a group of kids to a thrift store to explore how to creatively express themselves for twenty bucks.
This DIY spirit can also be found when no money changes hands at all—like with the Facebook group Bull City Shares, which is predicated on the value of sharing with neighbors—as well as in efforts aimed at repurposing and preserving. Check out our profile of Durham’s sewing collective, Freeman’s Creative, and read about the restoration of two historic African American landmarks in Raleigh.
Sometimes appreciating the beauty of what you have means confronting your deepest fears and shaving your hair off, as Leigh Tauss explains. Other times, it might mean waxing poetic about the fine lines that are beginning to set into your face, as Sarah Morris discovers.
Joan Didion has said that style is character, and when we look around the Triangle, we see that adage fleshed out everywhere—in the ways that people shop, improvise, form communities, and get dressed every day (you can catch a glimpse, too, in the street-style package).
Ultimately, style doesn’t need to have a brand or dollar price attached to it. What matters is that it makes you the most joyous, fully realized version of yourself.
Table of Contents
Carl McLaurin Wants to Bring Big Apple Fashion to the Bull City
On Confronting Your Deepest, Darkest Secrets in a Barbershop
Why Bull City Swap Gave Up Swapping and Became Bull City Shares
In Illuminated Dresses, Local Women Tell the Stories of Their Lives Through the Clothes They Wore
Six Kids, Twenty Bucks, a Thrift Store, and a Mission
Local Shops & Brands: Where to Go to Get the Goods in the Triangle
Street Style: How Do You Make Your Clothes Your Own?
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