“Women who wear black lead colorful lives,” says senior psychology major Maeve Sloan, quoting Neiman Marcus. While Sloan may not wear bright flashy colors, her typically all-black ensemble has proven effective in helping her establish her own distinctive style.

“I think it’s easy to notice someone who wears all black, actually, especially at Whitman where I think people wear like, a lot of prints and a lot of flannel, and … a lot of puffy jackets and stuff,” Sloan said.

Describing her own preferred wear, Sloan says, “I pretty much always have a long, black sweater of sorts on, like floor-length, which is, I think, maybe, a little bit weird to some people.” Additionally, as she points out, “I [usually] have like … punk black boots, and my black really high-wasted pants.” The most distinctive features of her style, according to Sloan, are her constantly down bangs and her consistent use of lipstick.

The key, for Sloan, is wearing strictly black, as wearing a color typically makes her feel “pretty uncomfortable.” While she may use jewelry and lipstick as a “palate,” in her words, for other color, she does stress that “my whole closet is black, and my shoes are black.”

This distinctiveness, while not constantly on Sloan’s mind, is something of a conscious effort. “I’ve really tried to keep myself really, like, true to who I am,” Sloan said.

“I remember in freshman year thinking that I like, needed to buy Clogs and needed to buy Birkenstocks, and then I mentioned it to my mom and she was like, ‘That is not what you wear, Maeve. You wear, like, heeled boots and like, that’s just not what you do.’ And ever since she said that to me, I was like, ‘Alright, whatever, I’m just gonna wear whatever I want.’”

Sloan stresses that her preference for black is not a reflection of a dark personality. “My personality is not very dark, and I’m like, pretty talkative and social,” Sloan said. “I think it kinda surprises people that I dress the way I do sometimes.”

Instead, Sloan’s fashion choices are, in many ways, representative of the many places she’s lived. Referencing her current home in New Mexico, Sloan says, “I like to wear really Southwestern pieces to kind of show I’m from a different place, because people will always ask, ‘Where did you get those?’ and then I’ll say, ‘I got them from Albuquerque,’ and they’re like, ‘Why’d you go to Albuquerque?’ and I’m like ‘I live there!’ which is not common here [at Whitman].”

Additionally, Sloan mentioned, “I was influenced a lot by living in Paris, and I saw … all the girls and they’re like, all black and red lipstick and they all had bangs. So I think that’s definitely influenced a lot of what I wear.”

Growing up, Sloan recalled an incident where a teacher dissuaded her from wearing pants that “showed off” her hips. Though not thinking much of it at the time, Sloan now prefers to “wear things that really, like, show the female form,” stating, “I think that’s a beautiful thing, and I think that more women should do that and not feel self-conscious about doing that.”

Lastly, Sloan, as a senior on the verge of graduation, stresses the importance of not changing when you come to Whitman. Though she acknowledges the difficulty to resist the temptation of fitting in, she adds that, “I think it’s such a cool thing and such a beautiful thing to be able to stick out here and have people recognize you as your own entity and your own identity.”