How to Style a Fashion Show: JRat's "HOMESICK, AGAIN"

Everything from souvenir keychains to cow-print clogs to spools of thread in mohawks.

Hi! Today is the promised breakdown of my styling strategies for the Feb 9th JRat fashion show, HOMESICK, AGAIN, I worked on. Linked below (above the paywall) are all of the people involved in this incredible project, alongside an outfit-by-outfit look at the creative decisions that went into the styling and conceptualizing of the show. Thank you again, Janelle and everyone who worked on the show, for your brilliance!

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THANK YOU for being here, and I am always available @that.esque on Instagram for sartorial scandals/situations/summons. Here is a little (big, actually, this time) preview of what’s below the paywall:

Venue: Kaleidoscope @kaleidoscope.bk

Music: Keyes Wiley (DJ Dark Wiley) @dark_wiley

Lead Stylist: Em Seely-Katz @that.esque

Hair Artist: Ryuan Kennedy @sexyscalps

Hair Assistants: Jet Keefe @jetkeefebeauty

Toireza @killerheads

Caeli Harris @caeli.harris

Ondine @ondine_ondine

Lead Photography: Blue @sustainablequeer

Assistant Photography: Lu Testa @107_luvt

BTS Photography: Victoria Campa @vwcampa

Videography: Nina Bowers @ninabowers

Assistants: Zoe Waechter @zoewaechter

Theo Chhan @overbit333

Models (in order of walk):

Akeem @akeemasmith

Veronica @veroocampos

Cristina @pmoyacristina

Debarati @whilingaway

Ellen @thanksalotellen

Zo @mingus.14

Niz @nizjahangir

Adiam @adiammyemane

Sarah @sarahhhhhart

Bryan @bryantesta18

Caitlin @caitlinmayernik

Bonnie @bon.bon.mot

Sophie @atomheartmommy

Jalyn @jalynpostadan

Aline @bichobk

Aurora @aurorasanmiguel

Stassii @stas.sii

Midiya @midee_ya_1

Valentina @vacavache

David @davidrosslawn

Two days before the show, we packed into a tiny corner in the back of Kaleidoscope studios as the rest of the space was used as an art studio and hurriedly transformed into a party venue (that night, they would be doling out shots of “placenta”—concoctions of reddish liquor containing slippery gobs of lychee—and we’d find small, sticky cups in odd corners when we arrived on Sunday to prepare the space). Janelle wore a purple skirt suit with a drapey scarf that she’d reprise for the show, jot caring whether or not it was stepped on as it skirted the grimy flooring. We only had one tiny rack upon which we hung the pieces most in need of steaming, and the rest of our styling was done from the open maws of three suitcases on the ground.

My process for styling is collecting decent flatlay or hanging photos of each garment, then removing their backgrounds and puzzling together on my collage app of choice, Pixelcut. I’m not proud that it uses AI, but I genuinely think that removing photo backgrounds is one of its few decent use cases, as I cannot afford the money and time that would go into doing this all manually in Photoshop. This is probably my biggest transgression against society at the moment, and until I can afford to hire a beleaguered Graphic Design undergrad, I am at piece with that!

Above are eight of the initial concepts I came up with for looks that each ended up translating directly onto the runway. There were a few more, and then about half of the looks were developed on-site or were comprised of prefab sets or dresses/jumpsuits that were a matter of accessorizing and tweaking on the body, not really composing a whole look.

The above dress was one of the first pieces I saw of the collection, and its piled-upon fabric in shades of maroon and brown made me think of Tibetan Buddhist monks’ garb (one of the reasons I styled it with socks and [heeled] sandals):

This, plus another piece that I loved but sadly didn’t make it in to the final styling:

made me think that there was something sacred, near-religious about HOMESICK, AGAIN—I thought about how the first HOMESICK had been like the morning of a day spent home from school, full of watching the TV you’d usually miss and devising snacks out of odds and ends left in the fridge, while the afternoon brings about it a more solemn, almost spiritual edge: the feeling of deep loneliness from not seeing your school friends for just 24 hours, the post-afternoon-nap grogginess, the feeling of slowing down enough to realize how quickly your childhood is passing by AS it happens. I wanted to impart HOMESICK, AGAIN with this near-spiritual experience.

Hair-wise, I presented the incredible Ryuan Kennedy with the concept of each model having fallen asleep with wet hair in their craft supplies—I wanted the looks to be closer to the head than last season’s frizzy, voluminous ponytails, but with a few cowlicks and tchotchkes/scraps from the collection matted into the gelled parts of the hair. I showed her a simple Pinterest board:

And she worked her magic, translating the bleary-eyed but beautiful vision into stunning works of hair art. Here are some of my favorites:

SHOUTOUT P!NK!!!!!!

The models did their own makeup (or went bare-faced).

Now, some of the looks: