Sean Olin broadens the horizons of male fashion

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people were forced to spend months of 2020 isolated in their own homes. This extended period of isolation led people to express themselves by exploring new creative outlets. For junior Sean Olin, this creative outlet was fashion.

“I started dressing the way that I do because it was hybrid school two years ago,” Olin said. “I wasn’t sleeping well because the sleep cycles were all screwed up from sleeping at home every day [for] half of the day. I just felt horrible, and I was wearing the same four outfits of the sweatpants and sweatshirt variety every week and I decided to renovate it a bit.”

Although he puts more effort into his style now, Olin still enjoys prioritizing comfort when at home.

“I count school and in public in the same category of trying to look a little fancy, but presentable most of the time, at the very least,” Olin said. “Versus at home, where it’s almost entirely oversized T-shirts and pajama bottoms.”

Olin, who buys the majority of his clothes from thrift stores, and occasionally uses pieces given to him by his grandparents, has found that people tend to have mixed reactions to his style.

“I’d give [people’s reactions to fashion expression] a C,” Olin said. “That’s a weird way of writing it, but I don’t think anybody is going to get beat up about fashion, but it’s not great. It’s not the worst. It’s suburban Kansas lukewarm.”

Although Olin has never been dress-coded, he explains his fear of wearing certain outfits to school.

“I do have a couple of crop tops that I like to take out sometimes,” Olin said. “I’m always a little scared that I’ll walk through the main hall and [administration] will call me out on it.”

While Olin’s new appreciation for fashion has challenged gender norms within the school, this has led to people making inaccurate assumptions concerning other aspects of his life.

“I was at play practice last year, and I’m standing there, just hanging out in some cool turtleneck,” Olin said. “A student walks up to me and goes ‘Hey, Sean, I love your style!’ I go ‘Thanks, I’m trying to dress less like sweatshirts and sweatpants.’ He goes ‘Yeah, that’s great. So are you, like, gay?’ Then I walked away from him.”

According to Olin, people tend to make these assumptions because male fashion tends to be limited, leading him to look into more stereotypically female fashion aesthetics.

“I do have to go into the female fashion types,” Olin said. “Because there’s three types of male fashion which are hoodies and sweatpants, suit and tie, or the scale of fanciness, and gay [with a] capital G. Without going gay, capital G, there’s not a lot there.”