[natural sound: Euphoria carnival theme]
Northwestern’s 53rd Dillo Day is less than three weeks away, and there’s a question on everyone’s mind: what to wear? As festival season ramps up for influencers going to Coachella and Stagecoach, prompting a wave of clothing content, Northwestern students are similarly searching for the perfect outfit.
JUSTINE LOFWALL: Well, I’m not sure exactly what route I’m going to go, but I feel like you can kind of go with the carnival character route with like, you know, the clown or like carnival animal, like that sort of thing. Or even just things that I think give Carnival, like polkadots or stripes or the gingham pattern with cowboy boots. Kind of what you might wear to a carnival, combined with just those like, carnival patterns.
That was Justine Lofwall, a Weinberg sophomore. Lofwall is an avid sewer and a member of the Unity Fashion Show. She said she has high hopes for Dillo weekend fashion.
LOFWALL: I think there will be a lot of repeats, like people kind of in the same sort of thing, but I can imagine some people will get really creative with it. And I feel like the setup for Dillo will be really good.
Brett Rogers, a Medill sophomore and a member of Stitch Fashion Magazine’s styling team, had a similar prediction.
BRETT ROGERS: I think there’s gonna be, like, a small group that really, really goes for it, and then I think a lot of people are not gonna go, like, to extreme.
Sitch sets the bar for Dillo fashion every year when it releases its lookbook, giving students an idea of how to interpret the theme.
LOFWALL: I found them very helpful, just in like seeing different options and ways to take it, because at first I was kind of just stuck in like, thinking what you would normally wear to a carnival and not just the theme as a whole.
This year, Stitch partnered with Lost Eras, a vintage costume and consignment shop just off the Howard station.
ROGERS: I mean, the partnership with the consignment shop was great because we obviously didn’t have to go purchase any of the clothing that we were using. I do think that this is the kind of theme where a lot of people will just buy a lot of clothes and then just like donate them, which I try not to do.
Rogers said she is looking to raid her own closet and see what she already has before going out to buy things for Dillo. She compared Dillo to the Eras Tour, when thrift stores filled up with sparkly outfits soon after Taylor Swift left town.
ROGERS: I know students will just sell to Crossroads or contribute back to the local community, which is fine. But it’s definitely something I try to think about, personally.
As for the Dillo theme itself, it’s a matter of what direction to take it in.
LOFWALL: Honestly, I was very confused, just because I wasn’t sure, like, what options there would really be to wear and if it meant summer carnival aesthetic or Mardi Gras carnival.
Lena Rock, a Weinberg freshman, pointed out that the theme could also be interpreted as Carnival, a festival typically held before Lent and characterized by bright colors and feathers.
LENA ROCK: I know some people are like, not doing carnival and instead doing Carnival. And I think that will be really interesting, but also like even in carnival itself, I think there would be some really interesting looks.
Rogers said the carnival theme is all about the theatrics.
ROGERS: This year, it was very much like, what are the different, like, characters you could play? So there was, like ringleader at the circus, like, I know one of them on the lookbook was animal-inspired, like circus animal kind of thing, Yeah, I think we just try to picture it as, like, a story. Like, the theme is a story and then we try to identify, like different archetypes that people could dress as and go from there.
So the million-dollar question — what is everyone wearing?
LOFWALL: After seeing the inspiration, I almost want to go kind of like the vintage carnival route and see if I can find some sort of vintage top or those kind of bloomer shorts with the diamonds, something like that.
ROCK: I’m wearing a black corset, white shorts, probably white girly socks. I thought I could work with that, especially with, um, some of the stuff in my closet already.
Inspired by a stuffed animal hoodie worn by Stephanie Hsu in Everything Everywhere All at Once, Rogers said she’s thinking about sewing stuffed animals onto a pair of green overalls to mimic a claw machine game. But if that doesn’t work out, she’ll be leaning into the clown aesthetic.
ROGERS: I’m just not, like, crafty enough for it, so there’s the vision for that, but I have no way to make it real. But I think I’m gonna end up wearing, like, a little bit of clown-y, I’m going to utilize a lot of makeup.
No matter how people dress, whether it’s in a full ringleader costume or a pair of polka-dot shorts, Dillo is always one of the best days of the year.
ROGERS: Something really special about Dillo is that I feel like, most of the time when people go to concerts, they dress for the artist. And for Dillo, obviously people mostly try to dress for the theme. So one of my favorite parts fashion-wise about Dillo is going and like, obviously the headliner is a rap artist and people will be dressing in their little carnival outfits and it’ll be, like, a little mismatchy, so I think it’ll be really cute.
For WNUR News, I’m Ilse von Heimburg.
[natural sound: Take Care by BigXThaPlug]
