Going your own way

By Ruby F

Walking around Yerba Buena, you may see many familiar faces. Let it be strangers we haven't met yet, friends, acquaintances. But today I'm going to tell you a little bit about someone you might see often and usually dressed with style: Lisa Pham.

From afar, Pham is very uniquely styled and dressed. When asking about where this sprouted from, I was very surprised with her answer.

Pham: “I'm not really interested in fashion. I think I'm always playing around with all the beauty stuff, but it's not a subject that I want to dedicate myself to or be so invested in. I just like it.”

This really intrigues me. With such an expressive fashion style, I further wondered, “What sort of elements do you look up to for your style?” Pham then described all the different fabrics, what it looks like under light. She then goes on to say how “when I see an outfit, I see the elements that make that outfit and go off of that.”

I took this as a chance to get to talk about how Pham views fashion as a sort of self expression, or art. Pham goes on to explain how she primarily views it as self expression leading into art.

As our conversation carried on, she opened up about how “my mood that day really depends on how I represent myself through what I wear. It's like experimenting on how you view yourself; you don't have to be a certain person.”

Now that I have listened to Pham’s view on her perspective on the fashion industry, I wanted to learn more of how she came to run a fashion club.

When bringing this up, one of the first things that was said was how Pham was not initially enrolled in Yerba Buena.

Pham: “I was actually attending Evergreen. And Evergreen being a very academic school, was not the best at having the more funner clubs around. So when I came here and I heard that they had a fashion club, I really wanted to dive into it.”

I wanted to bring up this last question I had for Pham: “How does the fashion club support you?”

Pham: “Most importantly, going into the roots is more of helping other people with what they want to do in their lives. I remember in sophomore year, I didn't know what I wanted to do with anything. If I could help other students figure out what they want to do with their lives, then it'll help support me with staying motivated and wanting to create.”

What I found to be most striking is ending it off with saying this.

Pham: “Yeah, fashion is fun, and you don't have to make it a career to be in it. But I want to introduce students to the fact that you can take this seriously, right? It's not just a simple hobby and that is what I think that fashion club supports and carries me.”