The Colorful Life of Lillian Brown
Lillian Brown sits in her apartment and explains her unique style and her views on issues relating to the fashion industry. I I Photo credit to Paige Hagy
Lillian Brown pulls a floral pink blazer over her green dinosaur t-shirt. She wears red Converse All Star sneakers, defying the fashion faux pas of wearing red and pink together.
“A lot of times people come up to me asking, ‘How do you wear all these crazy things?’ Or somebody will come up to me and be like, ‘I could never pull off what you wear!’” Brown says. “But then I usually just say, ‘No, you can!’ I think if you want to wear it and you feel confident in it, you can pull it off.”
What people first notice about Brown is her bright, genuine smile and her quirky fashion style. Her outfits consist of colors, patterns and fabrics most people wouldn’t think to combine. She wears her style with boldness and makes it look effortless on a college student budget.
Her creativity is not only expressed through her fashion. The walls of her eclectic apartment feature maps of the world, a red rose tapestry, and a Vasily Kadinsky print from MoMA. Dried roses decorate the shelves and countertops. In the center of her kitchen island lives Junior the beta fish whose bowl is topped with a plastic, jeweled tiara. Her hobbies include journaling, theater, and photography.
Brown’s two style muses are her older sister, Blake, and Wes Anderson, the film director of The Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom. In middle school, she watched her sister wear whatever she felt was cute with little regard for what other people might think. Most of Brown’s clothes are either hand-me-downs from her sister or bought secondhand from thrift stores.
Anderson’s films also influence the way she constructs her outfits.
“I get inspired by the colors in those films, not necessarily the clothing people wear, but just the colors and patterns and how they’re mixed together,” Brown says.
The playful colors and fun patterns in her outfits reflect her creative and original personality.
I I Photo credit to Paige Hagy
“Her outfits fit her personality,” Brown’s roommate, Sofia Valdes says.
Mae Easterbrook, another roommate, comments on Brown’s wardrobe as well.
“She’s so bold and so incredibly authentic,” Easterbrook says.
Brown understands that the fashion industry has a significant societal, economic and environmental impact. Brown emphasized her concern with fast fashion, the rapid production of clothing by brands such as H&M and Zara, highlighting its major contributions to pollution and use of child labor. She still buys some new clothing from stores like Urban Outfitters but tries to reduce the amount she buys there.
As a college student living in New York, she offers tips for buying clothes on a budget:
Frequently go through your closet to know what you don’t wear or haven’t worn for a long time and do not need anymore.
After sorting through your wardrobe, sell certain items to make a small profit rather than throwing them out.
She says thrifting is hard work but offers tips for that as well:
Look in sections you wouldn’t normally browse through in a normal store. Brown finds some of her favorite pieces in the men’s or miscellaneous section.
Try everything on before you buy it. Some things look bad on the hanger and much better when it’s on.
I I Photo credit to Paige Hagy
Brown also talks about Billie Eilish’s style and the artist’s intention of dressing in a way so that she is not sexualized.
Brown had mixed reactions: On one hand, she does not think women should be changing the way they dress for society, but, Brown admires Eilish’s individuality and use of fashion to make a statement.
“In a perfect world we would be able to wear whatever we wanted to wear… and not be afraid of being judged by other people,” Brown says.
Having lived in the city since her freshman year of high school, Brown intends to stay in New York long-term. She doesn’t see herself living anywhere else in the U.S. besides New York or California. Her dream career is doing something creative, whether it be as a filmmaker, as an actor, or writing for a magazine.