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

Being Thrifty Isn’t Just About Scoring Secondhand Finds. At Freeman’s Creative, It’s Also About Patching Holes.

The Beauty Industry Sells Us Skincare as Self-Love, But Maybe We Should Listen to the Stories Out Wrinkles Are Telling

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

Preservation NC Saved Two Queen Anne Homes Built by Former Slaves and Turned Them Into Its New Raleigh Headquarters

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?

I’ve Known Hats: A Poem


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Sarah Edwards is culture editor of the INDY, covering cultural institutions and the arts in the Triangle. She joined the staff in 2019 and assumed her current role in 2020.