Fashion is a visual marker of human evolution. It reflects history and cultures by specific styles or fabrics utilized. Senior Syd Stone follows historical fashion trends in her own style today as a way of expressing herself, her creativity and her personal identity.

Choosing to reflect history through her fashion sense, Stone feels connected to the past in a way.

“I love being able to express myself, and there’s just something so- I can’t find the word for it- just so incredible about connecting to history on a whole different level. Because you can read like the textbooks, and you can read all of the information about the past, but like, it was different to dress in an instance,” Stone said.

Through her childhood, Stone’s mother, who majored in WWII History during college, played various old films, and Stone fell for the sense of style reflected in these films.

“I remember watching any Jane Austen movie with my mom and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I want to dress like that one day,’” Stone said. “And she’s like, ‘well, you know, people don’t usually dress like that now,’ I’m like, ‘But why not is cool people should.’”

Stone’s mother also required her at a young age to remember three dates by heart: her mother’s birthday, her father’s birthday and the date of the Pearl Harbor tragedy.

“Since that time, [when] I was three, every week my mom would ask me the three big dates. I had to forget my mom and my dad sometimes but I, by God, I know Pearl Harbor,” Stone said.

Stone specifically follows the style of Robyn Adele Anderson, an American singer and stage actress, as her original source of inspiration.

“She is a singer who does covers, but she does them in like 1950s [or] 1930s [style]. She wears, like, the dresses, 1950s dresses, and like teen 20s dresses anytime she performs. And so, I started getting into her like fifth grade and I was like, ‘Oh wow, I really like this’. And then I started  looking at more than fashion and I was like ‘oh my gosh, I really like this’,” Stone said.

After establishing her interest in historical fashion, Stone did personal research of the fashion to begin wearing her own.

“I gravitate more towards 1950s and  1840s, like with the A line.I really love the A line, like the ballgown because it flares out at the end and it just, I don’t know, there’s just something so beautiful about the shape it gives. It’s like nothing else that you can find now,” Stone said.

Stone’s style has not always been accepted by the public, however, and that dampers her ability to fully express herself.

“I have been barked at. I have been harassed. I haven’t been physically assaulted. I’m very lucky for that. But there are times like even now I wish I could dress like 1910s ish. Like I love that kind of fashion. But I feel more comfortable in 1950s, just because I feel like that is kind of more socially accepted,” Stone said.

Stone assumes that these reactions come from the stigma around certain eras where women were mistreated, and these people believe she follows those traditional beliefs as well.

“I think a lot of people don’t like it for that because they think that it’s like oppressive and also, I don’t really understand it that much because like, you know, just let people dress how they want to dress. It’s just how they express themselves, and anybody should be allowed to express themselves through fashion,” Stone said. “You know, I wish people wouldn’t think that just because I like dressing in the 1950s that I want to be like a stay at home housewife. Or that I want to be like a family woman or like all that kind of stuff where you know, my life is centered around a man. No, it’s just I like the fashion and I’m doing it for me. I’m not doing it for anybody else. I’m not doing it for attention. I’m not doing it to make a political statement. I’m literally just doing it just because it feels right to me.”

Stone’s love for history goes beyond just her sense of style. Stone plans to minor in history, undecided on the specific era, and major in pre-med for her psychiatry degree. Stone recognizes that even though not all history is good history, knowledge over past events is crucial to society today.

“How do people like not want to learn about this kind of stuff [historical events]? I know the majority of my friends are not taking a history class because they said that history sucks. And like, that’s just so sad to me. Because like, history is so important, and people just don’t want to learn it because they say it’s boring. Well, even if it is boring, you need to learn it, so stuff like that doesn’t happen. We won’t have to repeat it[historical events] in like, there are countries right now, where genocide is happening like in World War Two. So it needs to be talked about so at least,” Stone said.

Overall, Stone believes all of society should be aware of the past, stating that the past will always have something to do with the current society.

“History is a very big part of society. It ties literally into everything we do. It ties into math, whether or not you want to believe it, it turns it ties into science, whether or not you want to believe it. Everything we have now is because of history. So I think we should give it the respect it deserves and people should appreciate it more because without ancient Turkey, and then we wouldn’t have like math. Without the ancient Greeks,  we wouldn’t have philosophy. Without the Chinese, we wouldn’t have all of our inventions we have today. We need history.”