April 1, 2010

Triangle of Fashion: Duke-UNC-NCSU

Rivalry is often the igniter of a social, cultural and most importantly educational perpetuum mobile, and few inter-university rivalries are as heated and spread as those between North Carolina's three best universities.


While still in its bud, rivalry in the realm of fashion is yet to unfold and each university has some assets that might help them gain the upper hand. UNC has its School of Journalism and a student body of more privileged origins, compared to NCSU, Duke has the most diverse body of students and plenty of material and intellectual resources.and NCSU has its feet anchored through their Schools of Fashion & Textiles Management and Design.

In terms of publications pertaining to fashion, NCSU is the only one so far that does not have (to the extent of my knowledge) a student-run Fashion Magazine. I've reviewed Duke's new publication DMAG (renamed DFaQ or Duke Fashion Quarterly as of recently) before and I would like to spend a few moments looking at UNC's own Fashion Magazine, Kaleidoscope.




From the two numbers that were available online I quickly gathered that this was a 99% for-girls-only magazine. Taking a peek at the staff roster that was available confirmed it (the only male involved with this creationary process was the photographer O_o)!

Fashion, at least in college, is a predominantly feminine issue/fancy and I could understand why the Kaleidoscope team chose to focus more on their female readers. This however, is completely antipodal to eliminating the male part all together. Even taking into consideration the fact that UNC's female population is slightly larger than its male counterpart does not explain this choice. I am by no means trying to disprove the magazine solely because it's written by Tar Heels and I am a Blue Devil, but I know quite a few UNC guys who would probably be interested in reading your magazine. The content in itself is quite nice and I commend you for your efforts, my only problem with it being as I stated, the unisexist approach.





Sadly even when a male was present at a photoshoot, the focus was clearly put on the girl. Honestly how can he show up in a fashion magazine wearing that!
Events to look out for if you're in the RDU/Triangle area are:

1. DFaQ's Launch Party at the Doris Duke Center on April 26th. Event details here

2. NCSU's "Art To Wear" Fashion Show, April 14th. Event details here.