Slinging a black scarf with white grid lines over her neck, Jada Li ’21 fitted a salmon pink trench coat over a white turtleneck sweater. Li finished off her outfit with a pair of black block heels.
“[My style] depends on my mood, and a lot of times my clothes don’t go together at all, but I like exploring a lot, and putting things together that don’t always work,” said Li.
Despite an admitted lack of cohesiveness, Li is known on campus for statement pieces that stand out, particularly her shoes, according to Aidan Burt ’21 and Lizzy Glazer ’21, friends of Li. The Andover Edition, a virtual campus lookbook, recently showcased one of Li’s outfits and noted her blue Adidas Gazelles.
“They’re my go-to pair of shoes. Since I’ve had them for over the last two summers, they’ve gone to a lot of different places with me, which is why I have a few rocks stuck in the bottom from New Zealand and other places,” said Li.
In addition to her many heeled boots, Glazer says she can spot Li from across the paths by some of her distinct coats.
“One of my favorites is a pinkish furry trench coat that she wears sometimes. She finds a way to pull it off and look great, even though most people probably wouldn’t be able to,” said Glazer.
According to Li, her preference for basing an outfit off of one unique item may stem from observing her sister, who has made Li more conscious of how she presents herself. Her sister aspires to have a career in design, which has in part sharpened Li’s view towards fashion.
“[My sister] likes to use statement pieces a lot, so there’s always one main focus in her outfits. She keeps her everyday fashion to a more normal state, but she has a lot of thoughts about high-end fashion and designing — that’s something that I find really cool and inspiring,” said Li.
At the same time, Li enjoys diverging from her sister’s more business casual look to take her outfits to a different level. For example, on Halloween, she dressed up as Bambi’s mother, complete with a graphic wound to the forehead. According to Glazer, this was a classic example of the unique, fun, and thought-out approach Li takes to her regular style.
“Yeah, I have some articles of clothing that you just can’t wear every day. I mean, I don’t put a fake bullet wound on my head everyday, but I have a lot of trousers, which is kind of strange. I have a lot of different patterns and flowy ones in different colors,” Li said.
While Li believes that her style is defined more by individually bold pieces than knowing how to put outfits together, both Burt and Glazer believe that the final product speaks to her confidence.
“She definitely takes pride in what she wears and how she shows herself to other people,” says Burt, “and she’s just really confident about her sense of style.”
