When I saw it I knew that was going to be my staple vest, and after one month of it sitting in my cart, I finally purchased it. I spent a few months on Depop as I wanted a piece that would last me a lifetime, and I finally stumbled on this rare JPG piece. My motto has always been to live and dress BOLD! Even throughout primary and high school, I was always made fun of for dressing ‘extra.’ So, I wanted to invest in a vest that was bold and could be styled in multiple ways. “I started to try to figure out my true personal style by examining what clothes I consistently wore outside, and I noticed myself wearing vests and bustier vests.

After stumbling on videos on TikTok and reading articles regarding the fast fashion waste crisis and its impact on the environment, I knew that I needed to make a change. For the past few years of being a fashion content creator on social media, I was endorsing fast fashion brands and did not have a personal style. “This is a late 1980s Jean Paul Gautier bondage vest that I purchased second-hand on Depop. What is the story behind this piece and why is it meaningful to you? “I’m all about collecting pieces that make some sort of statement, or that expresses a piece of me in some way.” Below, a few of our favorite emerging tastemakers show us how they style their own spiritual equivalent of my trusty leather jacket and give their tips for tuning out Instagram trends in favor of your own sartorial voice. “When self-expression is the end goal with every look you put together, you won’t pay as much attention to trends,” commented Clara Perlmutter AKA a TikTok star known for her brilliant, sometimes polarizing, garment pairings. However, at least on my side of TikTok, many content creators have found ways of indulging their love for style without buying into the culture of disposability. A recent Guardian article attributed this dissonance between Gen Z values and spending, in part, to the proliferation of social media and influencers’ promotion of fleeting trends and overconsumption (hello, 100-piece haul videos). Of course, it is useless to blame Gen Z for overproduction and trend cycles going turbo mode when the industry is most often run and marketed by Boomers and Millennials, but Zoomers are the target audience. Over the past few years, the fast fashion conversation has turned towards Gen Z and how the generation known for their climate activism can’t stop buying ASOS and Shein. This, at least, is what I tell myself when I get that midnight Urban Outfitters sale blast. Not a wardrobe of basics in neutral colors but a curated collection of expressive, quality, versatile garments that I love.

If I had my way, most of the clothes in my closet-besides maybe socks, underwear, and a few flimsy going-out tops-would be of this kind. We all have trend cycle-transcending pieces like this: pieces you have rediscovered over the years, that have accumulated significance with each 4 AM memory made or life milestone achieved while wearing them. It has outlasted five apartments, three boyfriends, four jobs, and survived seven New York winters. Sophomore year of college, I thrifted a leather jacket that remains one of my wardrobe staples today.

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