Age: 20, Los Angeles
The Fashionista
Jessica has been an Outlaw Trendsetter for one year. She hangs out with the Silverlake hipster set on the bourgeoning east side of LA, where she lives and breathes fashion, constantly hunting for unique clothes when she’s not making her own. A quintessential Gen Yer, Jessica is a perfect clothing trendsetter and has also contributed to our broader generational studies.
 
Job “I’m going to school full-time for fashion design. I also work full-time at Urban Outfitters as a shoe specialist.”
Hobbies “Going out dancing. I’m not 21 so I can’t go to a lot of the best dance nights in the city, so a lot of the time we’ll go to gallery openings. Those are great for dancing.”
Summer plans “A lot of my friends are renting out gallery spaces for the summer, creating their own temporary shows and exhibits. I’m going to submit some of my designs to those. People are really into starting their own clothing labels, opening up boutiques. Everyone wants to buy limited-edition runs and local designers so we’re all trying to get into that area.”
On music trends “Everything is electronic right now. We used to be into Death Cab for Cutie, angsty stuff like that. Now it’s Justice, Daft Punk, or other smaller obscure DJ’s who make that kind of fun electronic music.”
On clothing trends “I really wish people would stop wearing gladiator sandals. It’s totally saturated. Whenever I see trends like that, I just want to run away from them.”
On vintage looks “I think vintage is really coming back. For a while it died down because there was the whole American Apparel epidemic – we all got into shopping there and buying newer stuff. But now people are back to wanting one-of-a-kind, retro pieces. And for me it’s about the hunt – I want to find some really great piece and say ‘I paid five bucks for this!”