Senior Sophia Rosewell expresses her creativity and artistic passion through creating, altering, and tailoring clothes.
Senior Sophia Rosewell is very interested in fashion and art. Rather than buy all her own clothes at the mall or an outlet store like most other high schoolers, Rosewell alters and sometimes makes her own clothes.
“I’ll just be watching a movie or a show and think, that looks cute, I want something like that,” Rosewell said about where she gets her inspiration from. “Sometimes it comes to me when I’m sleeping. I’ll have a dream and wake up wanting the shirt I was wearing in my dream, so I make it.”
Rosewell started getting into fashion during 8th grade when cow-print pants were trending and after not being able to find any at the store, she went to Joann’s Fabric and decided to make them herself.
“I realized she kinda did her own thing when she wanted to wear the cow pants. I was like okay, that’s different. She wanted to wear the cow pants out and we took pictures of her at the art museum,” social studies teacher Joe Rosewell, Sophia’s father, said.
Rosewell’s motivation to make and alter her clothes comes from her distaste with current fashion trends and options at the store.
“I buy most of my clothes from H&M, but when I buy fabric it’s from Joann’s,” Rosewell said. “Usually I don’t like the clothes in the store enough and I know they have potential, or they don’t fit so I alter them to make them fit. There’s so many ugly clothes in the stores these days and I’ll see something and feel like I have to fix it.”
Rosewell thinks her love for creating clothes comes from when she was younger and liked to make stuffed animals, which required sewing. Her dad agrees.
“She definitely gets her artistic influences from her mom. Her mom was an art teacher and still does art so she definitely gets it from her, not me,” Mr. Rosewell said. “From the time she was a kid, my wife was doing art with her all the time, so I think it’s something she just picked up.”
Although Sophia loves to make clothes, she doesn’t always show them off.
“Not a lot of people get to see these outfits, they’re special. I don’t just wear them out to school,” Rosewell said.
One of the biggest benefits Rosewell gets from making her own clothes is saving money. Some outfits take her longer than others, but most aren’t too much of a hassle and last through all the fashion trends and fads. She describes her fashion sense as older, coquette, and eclectic taste. She’s worn some of her grandparents’ old clothes like her grandma’s wedding dress and her grandpa’s high school letterman jacket.
“She is very independent-minded. She kind of does her own thing and doesn’t really worry too much about what other people are thinking about her, even her parents sometimes,” Mr. Rosewell said.
“I think it’s great because she actually wore my mom’s wedding dress to one of the dances. I thought that was so cool. We took a picture of her in the same pose as my mom at her wedding and showed it to my mom. That was great,” Mr. Rosewell said.
He describes her fashion taste as classic with her own spin on it. However, he does not take fashion advice from her.
“Definitely not. I’m a fashion icon, just ask anyone in this building. No, but I’m independent-minded too. I’m gonna wear what I’m gonna wear,” Mr. Rosewell said.
Although Mr. Rosewell and Sophia may share lots of things in common, their fashion style isn’t one of them.
“I would not wear cow pants,” Mr. Rosewell said.
