
College duds for fashion honor roll
By DIANA RANSOM
With jeans in hand, Stony Brook University student Christina
Merritt will continue shopping for sweaters, button-down
shirts and sneakers.
"My whole summer job went straight to my wardrobe," said
Merritt, who isn't done yet.
She said she still needs to purchase sweaters, button-down
shirts and cute sneakers like Pumas, Adidas or Converse.
Like most students eagerly preparing for school, she wants
to be properly outfitted for the fall without spending more
than she expected to spend. That means buying clothes that
have a designer look without the couture price tag, and buying
accessories that can travel from one season to the next.
"The number one fashion statement for back-to-school
is denim," said image consultant Elena
Castaneda, owner of New York Image Consultant.
They are as basic as a white T-shirt or a little black dress,
and they never go out of style. This season, however, looking
fashionable in your denim may require a bit more attention
to detail than it has in the past.
"I've been going crazy over jeans," said Jenni
Schuman, 23, Corporate Communications Major at Baruch College. "A
lot of jeans are, like, $200. What are they made of, special
denim?"
Realizing the need to look fashionable for less, Merritt
bought herself a $29 pair of hipsters from American Eagle
Outfitters at a fraction of the price she would have spent
on jeans with a designer label and a similar look.
Expecting the huge demand for denim, retailers like American
Eagle, Abercrombie & Fitch and Gap have stuffed their
sales floor shelves full of jeans.
Retailers learned a valuable lesson this spring. Many stores
like Abercrombie & Fitch didn't stock enough jeans and
lost sales because of it, analysts said. To curb this, Howard
Tubin of Cathay Financial said, retailers are increasing
their inventory of jeans and others like American Eagle and
Gap are marking them down to spur even more traffic.
"I'm not talking a Gap jean," said Castaneda.
Hoping to cash in, "both Abercrombie and American
Eagle are offering new fits and new styles and they are offering
more distressed or destroyed denim than they had this spring," said
Tubin, whose company doesn't own any shares in either retailer. "That's
it, it's new fits, new washes and new styles."
Destroyed jeans have pre-made holes, patches or loose threads.
If you really want to make a back-to-school statement, Castaneda said,
the look this year is more about finding jeans that fit,
offers unique details and doesn't eat away at your summer
job savings.
New York Image Consultant owner Elena
Castaneda offers this advice for picking fashionable
jeans for the new school year:
Check out the hardware. Interesting pocketing is where
jeans stand out. Look for unusual seams and metal attachments
by the pockets.
Keep the calves covered. A little longer is better than
too short. You'll want to give yourself a generous break
in jeans that you can wear with various shoes.
Beware of overly cut-up jeans. Instead of stonewashed distressed,
you should look for a graduated "Ombre" wash, which
is a kind of shading that goes from light to darker down
to the bottom. Fading on the side and on the rear can make
you appear thinner.
Don't buy if they're stiff. If a pair of jeans can practically
stand up on its own, it's going to stand away from your body,
and it's going to be uncomfortable. The softer, more pliable,
the jeans is to the touch the better they will mold to your
body.
Allow for none to minimal stretch. Usually jeans without
stretch hold their shape better. The problem with stretch
jeans is if there is too much they lose their shape too quickly. |