Coco Chanel once said that “simplicity is the keynote to all true elegance.” Ignoring the cliché of quoting Chanel in fashion writing, I think that my approach to style is perfectly encapsulated by this quote. I am a girl who believes in fuss-free minimalism—that wearing less is more. Hence the abundance of monochromatic outfits and scarcity of decoration that you will see in my future posts.
My name is Emily Cheng and I am currently studying Communication and Consumer Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, but I like to think that my interests run the full gamut of “creative.” As a self-confessed graphic design geek, I spend hours on Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign creating quirky illustrations and curating beautiful publications. As an avid fan of modern architecture, one of my favourite pastimes is documenting urban structures on my (predictably black and white) Instagram wherever I go, whether it be the Bauhaus buildings of Berlin or the futuristic skyscrapers of my home city, Hong Kong. Of course, I’ve always been drawn to fashion and writing the most, perusing the pages of Vogue, The Atlantic and The New Yorker whenever I could. Aside from writing for my personal fashion blog Girl Gone Vogue, I’ve also been involved creatively as a writer and stylist for my school’s fashion publication, The Walk Magazine. CollegeFashionista was the obvious next step, a space where visuals and words collide.
This is my first semester contributing to College Fashionista, and I’m incredibly excited to use this space as a visual diary to document the fashionable individuals around me. Most of all, I want to be able to convey my style mantra of less is more, in hopes that none of you will get tired of my eternal reverence for Helmut Lang and Alexander Wang. Let’s see what you think of my sartorial eye.
