Standford Lipsey Student Publications Building 420 Maynard St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
BOBBY CURRIE Editor-in-Chief
ERIN CASEY GRACE DONNELLY Co-Publishers
Marketing Director OLIVIA WIMPARI
Print Fashion Editors
CERIDWEN ROBERTS
EMILIO RODRIGUEZ
Fashion Film Editor AVA TUNG
Digital Content Editor HANIYA FAROOQ
Digital Fashion Editor ELENA SHAHEEN
Events Coordinators ALIA GAMEZ SAM TANDY
Print Features Editor MARXIE COLLIVER
Operations Director TEMMIE YU
Print Photo Editor HANNAH RUFFIN
Video Editor JASMIN RHYMES
Digital Photo Editor NIAH SEI
Digital Features Editor TESSA VALERA-CASTRO
Finance Coordinator KATIE BURGIN
COMING SOON
Print Beauty Editor MILES HIONIS
Digital Beauty Editor MARGUERITE SMITH
Social Media Coordinators CHRISTIAN HERNANDEZ MACKENZIE RADLE
Welcome back to SHEI Magazine and a new visual excellence.
This first issue of the new year is a glimpse into SHEI members. Independent Projects takes you down low to the ice-bitten floor. Colors clash grading and optical confusion.
As a young creative myself, SHEI is the avenue interests in styling, creative direction, and the fashion Projects as the perfect time to take a risk, push within the publication calendar of our University-sponsored
There is beauty in the mundane, and this issue the everyday. Our childhood backyards, the black and the basements of our overpriced college houses is a little stretch of the mind.
With that, I invite you to sit back, relax and enjoy
new year’s promise of creativity, exploration and
into the unique talents of some of our most gifted you on a journey up high to the aerial winds and and stories soar through SHEI’s signature color
avenue where I first discovered my own skills and fashion industry. I remember my first Independent my own artistic limits and showcase who I was University-sponsored publication.
issue asks us all to find art in the dreary, the boring, black ice tripping us on the way to North Campus, houses can contain creative treasure; all it takes
enjoy SHEI’s January issue, “Independent Projects.”
Bobby Currie Editor-In-Chief
WRITER
MARXIE COLLIVER
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
AVERY WHITE
The Internet raised me while I played God on Sims 3. I hold the Sims’ WooHoo mechanic responsible for my sexual awakening— bug-eyes fixed on the fuzzy pixel-porno I’d directed. Even God goes blind to the making of true love. This was my sexual awakening: warm bodies replaced by the cold glass of a computer screen. I hosted parties for my real friends, who were always impressed by my playlist full of Simlish pop. Here, language could be anything I wanted it to be. I could translate any sound into common ground and a false sense of community. Inside the screen, I could orchestrate my own social inclusion; a sense of belonging that never downloaded onto the outside world. Imagination was inexhaustible in the face of humanistic innocence, isolation was a memory. But it was destined to be ephemera; nostalgic even in its novelty.
My childhood backyard was the desktop home screen on the family computer, my sandbox was Frutiger Aero. The hills rolled skeuomorphic-green into the horizon, barricaded by carbon-positive super-
skyscrapers. I took deep breaths beneath the branches of the almost-trees and relaxed into a spurious sunny day. With my arms rested behind my head, I watched the clouds drift to the corners of my vision like the DVD logo. Bouncing up…down…left…right…lost in a trance. I could happily lose days inside of this simulated world. Bubbles floated above my head like dreams I forgot to pop, while the butterflies fluttered glitter trails in their wake. I’d dance among them like we were one in the same: girls having fun. When my body tuckered out, I’d prance to the channel for a drink. In the water there I almost saw my reflection. It was perfect. Then the screen turned black, and I’d truly see her—sitting idle for far too long. How naive of me to assume a permanent symbiosis between the technology of nature and the nature of technology. How foolish of my inner child to believe it could happen again.
Now my eyes sail across the blue-light sea, trying to destroy the dam that separates information overload from sanity. Maybe later this week, I’ll break a personal record on the
dopamine threshold; I’ve always been one to push the envelope. The feedback loop is a beast I will never satiate, so I submit.
In the midst of losing my juvenility, someone overrode the controls on my godhood. The powerful omniscience I once feigned on Sims as a child was no longer accessible. I forget my pixelated childhood dreams and transform them into virtual figurines, being bought and sold for sanctity. All the symbols are the same—even angel numbers read as advertisements, but I guess biblically accurate angels look more like algorithms than the things with wings. Commoditized bodies line up for prophecies, products artlessly crafted—just for you!—in a boardroom. They fit spirituality into a 16x12 Amazon box and trapped God inside the Internet. Creativity kills itself in the artificially intelligent consumerscape. My friends tell me stories about receiving karmic symbols from God: golden ratios hidden in brain-rot, eternal knots captured in aura photos. They tell me it all starts with accepting cookies on my browser, with letting
Meta know every interest. Beautiful people waste their time trying to be young again. What was once 3-dimensional has flattened into a memory disk; my childhood compressed into a single file. I scroll endlessly trying to mute the voice in my head that begs for just one more sunny day, even if it’s fake.
I touch the world and neon pixels spring back. Utopia has lost all its texture; the future is smooth as a useless brain. Reality never rendered in, only nostalgia for an era lost to binary code. Only digital footprints remain, and me, forever tempted by the intangible.
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
JASMINE BARNES
JASMINE BARNES
PHOTOGRAPHER
PHOTOGRAPHER
BEE WHALEN FASHION
BEE WHALEN FASHION
BEE WHALEN
BEE WHALEN
BEAUTY
BEAUTY
BEE WHALEN
BEE WHALEN
MODEL
MODEL
STELLA WHALEN
STELLA WHALEN
Inotice I have a strange relationship with humanity. I find such immense beauty and love within those around me, I find the sculpture of people’s faces so beautiful and picturesque, yet at the same time, I find an uncomfortable lack of connection between myself and others from time to time. There’s something I feel I’m missing, like a special puzzle piece everyone’s already found and picked up. There’s a piece of me I find lacking.
Yet, even though I fear I’m missing something vital, a heartbeat everyone else has, I also adore chasing after that beat that brings so much uniqueness and vulnerability to each person’s demeanor. In middle school, when the world shut itself down as the pandemic raged on outside my backyard, I discovered the art of photography. I explored snapshotting up close pictures of my pets, the cracks running through the bark on the trees and the colors that bounced off a droplet of water that landed on a flower petal. Seemingly simple things for class art projects that opened a gateway to a new way to view things. I searched endlessly for disruptions in nature, irregularities in flowers, insects and reflections, and it all slowly led me down the road towards bringing up a camera to someone else’s face.
My first true test subject of portrait photography was my brother. I remember how determined I was to create a photoshoot, even with the major amount of limitations I had. I became a momentary stylist and dressed him in different colored fabrics, I tossed him countless props and toys, tied an aquatic looking tie around his neck awkwardly–and eventually, I found my shot. My brother, holding up a large wooden barracuda I thrifted from Vintage Eastern Market while standing in the bathtub, helped me produce my first true, high quality portrait on my grandmother’s Nixon camera. It was eventually plastered in the window of Conor O’Neill’s, alongside the other students’ fish themed work. I was very pleased with my work, although my little brother was a bit em-
barrassed to have his image floating downtown for all to see. But even as I delve back into my portfolio and pull out the image again, I always catch myself sinking into the portrait, always mesmerised by the look of his eyes.
In cinema, it’s stressed that “eyes are windows to the soul”. When filming, we’re taught to zoom all the way in, settle on the eyes of the subject, then adjust the focus until their pupils and iris are clear. Then zoom out to the desired shot size. Even though it’s a subtle yet necessary habit, the emphasis on the eyes alone in a shot brings such attention to how much you can see in a feature some are fearful to stare at for too long in real life. That initial feeling I felt when capturing my brother’s eyes in such great focus is something I have chased after continuously. I fuss and mess with the resolution quality, how sharp the image can get in desperation for that feeling to not only be available to myself, but the viewers of my work as well.
In the past year, I’ve managed to capture more than twenty people through the lens of the Nikon camera that launched me into focusing on photographing people all those years ago. Each time I spill the photos from the SD card onto the desktop of my computer, surrounded by the faces of my friends, family, and peers, I’m met with such a rush of honor that I’m able to capture people’s memories in a delicate, simple but everlasting way. Even if it’s with a simple quick shot, as long as their eyes meet the camera–their soul is forever celebrated in the frame of the digital memory pulled from the endless expanse of floating millions of pixels. I might be lost in my ability to connect with others, from time to time, but even so, I’m still able to feel the connection of their liveliness through my work, and their spirit from the image. Photography, as I have learned, is meant to illustrate reality, and celebrate those who live within it.
SNAPSHOT OF THE SOUL
WRITER
BEE WHALEN
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
CAROLINE KEGG
Black
Black Ice
PHOTOGRAPHERS
GABRIELE SHEPHEARD
LILLIAN SHEPHEARD
STYLIST
GABRIELE SHEPHEARD BEAUTY
GABRIELE SHEPHEARD
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
MITCHELL
GABRIELE SHEPHEARD
FROM BUSINESS CARDS TO BRAND DEALS
“I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I’ll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches…After I remove the ice pack, I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower, I use a water activated gel cleanser. Then a honey almond body scrub. And on the face, an exfoliating gel scrub. Then apply an herb mint facial mask, which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an aftershave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.”
Does this sound like your favorite lifestyle influencer or the inner ramblings of a cold and psychopathic killer? The answer is both. They sound the same, at least in this situation. This monologue is from the 2000 horror film American Psycho, directed by Mary Harron and starring Christian Bale. In the movie, the protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is an 80s finance bro living in New York City, who leads a double life as an emotionless serial killer with incredible mood swings and an endless need to one-up his coworkers. Bateman’s internal monologue is scattered throughout the film and his inner voice is sometimes even more frightening than his behavior. So, why have I suddenly started talking about some random horror movie from the 2000s? Well, this movie is super culturally relevant and reveals some concerning things about our current values, particularly in the digital sphere. Like I said before, Patrick Bateman’s
morning routine is eerily similar to what I see every day scrolling TikTok from many influencers, on both the micro and macro scale. One could even go as to say that Bateman was the precursor to Cassie’s 4 am routine from Euphoria, and now the influencer morning routine.
There are some blatant connections between the American Psycho morning and that of influencers right now. Bateman pays careful attention to his skin care, diet, and exercise much like those we see on the internet. In the film, he even uses the same L’Occitance Almond Shower Oil that went viral over the summer. This serial killer is literally using the same products that your favorite influencer is. The similarities are uncanny. Honestly, his tip about not using products with alcohol could be useful, but it’s still unsettling to think about. This also connects to the concept of conspicuous wellness. Bateman doesn’t appear to actually be doing self-care for himself, but rather for the appearance (and feeling of superiority) that comes as a result. He even says that his actions are “because I want to fit in,” and not for his actual well-being.
In another prominent scene in the film, Bateman and his colleagues are talking about their new business cards, and not in a subtle way. They’re trying to one up each other with their cards font and color that, to me, look exactly the same. This is not easy for Patrick. He seems to have an internal breakdown over the fact that someone else topped what he thought was his superior business card. I have always thought that scene was kind of funny, because
why does it matter if he has the “best” card? This behavior is one that continues to exist with modern influencers. The most direct comparison that I can think of is the drama with influencers at the University of Miami that occurred recently. The school’s student newspaper, The Miami Hurricane, did a story on student influencers, with a front page that showcased three creators, while others were given features elsewhere in the publication. Much like Bateman, this did not go well for Sienna Long, a micro-influencer and student at UMiami, and one of the creators featured in the news story. She immediately went to TikTok to voice her tearyeyed opinion and frustration with not being more prominently showcased. She said she felt like “microinfluencers don’t get enough recognition” and “I just don’t feel appreciated right now”. I’m going to emphasize again that she was given a feature in the newspaper, she just was not on the cover. The way that this influencer reacted seems extremely similar to Bateman’s reaction with the business card incident, just slightly more public. This influencer had a breakdown because she was not the “best” of the micro influencers in attendance at UMiami. This is a culture phenomenon I find interesting, but also slightly frightening. The weight that we give essentially meaningless cultural
entities, like the look of a business card or a feature in a student newspaper, is growing and becoming something with a considerable hold on us. These status markers don’t really mean anything, other than the perceived value and immense power in our lives we allow. This phenomenon clearly existed in the 2000s when American Psycho was adapted to film, the objects that were given social weight were just different. It’s no longer business cards that have this hold, it’s brand deals.
So, what’s the point? Why am I making this comparison? Obviously, this is an extreme example of the dangers of influencer and digital culture and I am definitely not saying that influencers are moonlighting as serial killers. I am hoping that you will examine yourself, and your relationship with digital culture. Be the anti-Bateman. Be your own individual and the kind of person that Patrick Bateman would hate, because that probably means you’re doing something right. So, I leave you with this question to think about: Why has the routine that once was considered to be psychopathic, insane, and absurd become normalized in online (and offline) culture?
HOW PATRICK BATEMAN FORESHADOWED THE INFLUENCER ERA
(con)strained
SHOOT DIRECTORS
HANNAH RUFFIN
MARXIE COLLIVER
PHOTOGRAPHER
HANNAH RUFFIN
GRAPHIC DESIGNERS
CORNELIA OVREN
CAROLINE KEGG
MODELS
LILIANA RODRIGUEZ
YAZAN JAMES
WILLIAM HERZOG
GABEY TACEY
JONAH OWEN
MARXIE COLLIVER
WRITER LOLA POST GRAPHIC DESIGNER CHLOE BRATTON
p i r r r s s l l m m s y p
v e e
It’s Halloween, and I’ve decided to move in with the lovely woman I’m seeing. We find a place, unpack, see a cockroach, and move out. It feels like a sign, so we separate and find our own apartments. She throws a housewarming party to celebrate her new, beautiful, cockroach-free home. I go, of course, but she acts as if she doesn’t know me. Then, another girl wraps her arms around her. I wake up.
Even though none of this was real, I questioned her the next morning anyway. I kept replaying the dream in my head, convinced that something meaningful had slipped out of my control while I was asleep. The feelings the dream left me with lingered throughout my day, even once the scenes completely faded.
I started tracking my dreams about a month ago because I was curious as to how my dreams could feel so vivid but get forgotten after five minutes. My girlfriend sleep-talks but never remembers the conversations we have at night, and it made me wonder how much of my own subconscious I was losing each morning. I expected to see symbols or patterns I could interpret, or at least a sense of disconnectivity I could dismiss. I had always believed that my dreams were just a continuation of whatever I had been thinking about right before falling asleep, so I definitely wasn’t expecting new content.
Instead, when I read back through my notes-app journal at the end of the month, I found scenes I didn’t recognize and words I had no recollection of writing down. My dreams were vivid, stressful, and often violent, populated almost entirely by people I knew. My closest friends, parents, exes, and lovers were each placed into situations charged with fear. I wasn’t surprised by the intensity of the dreams, as my dreams have always invited strong emotional responses, but I didn’t expect their familiarity or consistency. My subconscious seemed to be assigning threats to the people closest to me.
Popular dream culture tends to treat dreams as puzzles to be solved. Betrayal dreams are supposed to mean insecurity, violence means repressed conflict, and familiar faces stand in for unresolved feelings. I tried to read my dreams like that at first, searching for explanations to make these uncomfortable situations become manageable. The longer I tracked them though, the harder this approach became. My dreams felt more situational than symbolic, staging meaning through immersion into moments of fear.
In another dream, I was staying in an unfamiliar house in Florida with my family while an enormous bear was killing people outside. We locked ourselves indoors and watched as a storm rolled in. The water began to rise around us, flooding the house,
so my dad drove us away from the beach and we sheltered in a tall restaurant. The men present soaked their shirts in water to weigh them down in preparation for fighting the bear. I had just begun to feel safe in the corner with my mom until a tree crashed into the building and everything went dark.
When I wrote this down the next morning, a lot more scrambled than above, what struck me wasn’t the heavy amounts of fear and violence, but the futility. The two most important adults in my life were present, among many others. Everyone was trying, but none of it mattered. There was no version of the dream where safety was possible.
This pattern repeated itself across the month. The threats obviously changed, but the structure stayed the same. I was surrounded by the people I loved, yet somehow every safe moment seemed to go wrong. Sometimes the fear was external, like a storm or a bear, but other times it stemmed from insecurity, like being ignored at a party or stressing about hypothetical grad school rejections. I kept expecting the dreams to tell me something concrete. I wanted them to point toward a specific fear I could name or a problem I could solve. The only way I was able to interpret them, however, was as a reminder that the people closest to me are also where my anxiety lives. My subconscious doesn’t need to invent strangers to hurt me, it can use the familiar faces that already have the power to.
I don’t think this means I distrust the people I love. I’ve read online that a friend in a dream can represent a part of their personality that I had been ignoring, but I don’t think it’s that either. My relationship with my dad is far different than that of my best friend or my girlfriend, so there should be no reason that they are each equal perpetrators of fear. If anything, I think these dreams reflect my care for each person. Care creates stakes. Intimacy creates vulnerability. In my dreams, love doesn’t disappear when I’m in a frightening situation, it’s just where the fear concentrates.
Tracking my dreams this past month didn’t make them less fear-inducing, but it did help me become reflective when I was awake. I’m more aware now of how often my stress gathers around the people I love the most. I think what I’m afraid of, underneath the storms and parties and locked doors, is abandonment. I don’t wake up every morning contemplating the possibilities of ways in which this could happen, but I see now that those possibilities manifest throughout the night. Writing these dreams down forced me to remember and sit with that fear. It helped me realize that anxiety doesn’t mean something is wrong with my relationships, it just means they matter to me. Fear doesn’t replace love. It lives alongside it, shaped by the same attachments that make the risk worth taking.
Sweet
FT. MVM
SHOOT DIRECTOR
ELENA SHAHEEN PHOTOGRAPHER
BRYN BONNEMA FASHION
ELENA SHAHEEN DESIGNER
ASHLEY TURNER
MODEL
language, honoring culture, and collaborating closely with photographers, agents, makeup artists, hair stylists, and the stars themselves, stylists create a uniquely special image. Each look is carefully considered to feel authentic, appropriate, and impactful, helping express identity, amplify talent, and illuminate a star.
A stylist and a rising star put ‘em together and what have you got? A match made in heaven. In
attention, making lasting cultural statements. Then there’s Doechii, who has undergone a highly intentional sound and style evolution. Working with stylist Sam Woolf, her fashion journey mirrors her musical one. As a self-ascribed student of hip hop, Doechii uses style to tell the story of an artist who is confident in the path she wants to take. From playful Miu Miu sets to the structured precision of pinstriped Thom Browne
suiting and show-stopping moments in Schiaparelli and Chloé couture, her wardrobe achieves a striking harmony of style that sharpens her talent.
From schoolhouse to dream house, stylist Andrew Mukamal quite literally brought a doll to life for Margot Robbie’s Barbie press tour in 2023. Partnering with established fashion houses like Bottega Veneta, Chanel, Emilio Pucci, Manolo Blahnik, Schiaparelli, Tiffany & Co., Valentino, Versace, and Vivienne Westwood, Mukamal sourced custom and archival looks that paid homage to iconic Barbie eras, bringing what was once motionless to life like a pumpkin turned carriage, animated by imagination and the artistry of styling.
Film and fashion, after all, go hand in hand like clockwork. Costume and personal style inevitably blend, extending our beloved characters beyond the silver screen. Ariana Grande’s transformation into the magical Glinda for the Wicked press tour exemplifies this. Her style seamlessly elevated her from pop star to Hollywood icon, honoring the feminine and fantastical essence of her character, brought to life by the relay styling of Mimi Cutrell and Law Roach.
Speaking of the famed “Image Architect,” Law Roach has mastered the art of fashion enchantment, perhaps most memorably appearing as Zendaya’s literal fairy godparent for her Cinderella moment at the 2019 Met Gala. Their creative partnership has produced some of the most iconic red carpet looks of all time, including the Thierry Mugler Fall/Winter 1995 couture cyborg suit that fit as perfectly as a glass slipper. Law Roach’s dedication to archival style storytelling has cemented his legacy across many muses, including Bella Hadid, who wore a sleeping beauty 1959 Yves Saint Laurent for Dior dress to the 2022 Prince’s Trust Gala.
This strategy is a tale as old as time. Fashion has long been used to shape the image of stars who go on to influence generations, as particularly seen by the timeless collaboration between starlet Audrey Hepburn and designer Hubert de Givenchy. Givenchy dressed Hepburn both on and off screen, captivating Hollywood and ce-
menting their status as legends. The transformative power of styling moves beyond entertainment, reaching the world stage. In politics, Oleg Cassini, famously known as Jackie Kennedy’s “Secretary of Style,” was appointed her exclusive couturier in 1961. Designing over 300 looks, Cassini crafted the First Lady’s globally influential and enduring image, redefining the meaning of American elegance. After all, some of the world’s earliest stylists dressed kings, queens, and other leaders, proving that the art of style has always held the power to shape perception and legacy.
Stylists cast spells on the world, but unlike a fairy tale, their magic does not end when the clock strikes midnight. They enchant the masses by shaping the images of global tastemakers, influencers, and cultural leaders, sparking movements, inspiring trends, and building communities. Fashion will always evolve, and influence can be fleeting, yet stylists possess the rare ability to reflect the essence of a person back to the world through fashion and, like a magical force, transform garments into a language the world can understand. Through their artistry, stylists give stars an authentic voice powered by meaning and cultural resonance. They grant wishes, turn dreams into reality, and conjure complete looks that define unique personalities. In shaping style, culture, and narrative, they remind us that fashion is not just what we wear, it is how we leave our mark. When the magic works just right, a stylist can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, giving a star their own storybook ending and making happily ever after feel possible after all.
WRITER
ELENA SHAHEEN
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
CAROLINE KEGG
Stained Incapacity: a mini collection
Morning before class
I want to wear the blue jeans.
They seem more sophisticated than the grey ones, with their clipped ends, stained with mud. But they’re too tight.
And what if I seem uncomfortable
What if I get distracted by the band scratching its way into my skin
I sacrifice the blue and step into the grey hoping my mind will cover up what sophistication I can’t show
The bathroom casts a cheap light
Sterile white across my face, crawling
beneath my eyebags
I smooth a soft cream onto my skin and lean against the pale yellow tiles and my face dries, looking right back at me
My hair is pulled up from its nape, exposing the back of my neck
A sign that I don’t care too much, but just enough to let my voice lead, not my body or my face
I grab my bag and go carrying the notes that I am certain will electrocute my brain, throw my body in what feels like war, and avoid getting hit
Sitting behind The Desk
My shirt keeps gripping my body
My foot is tapping too much
Tip tap
Against the ground I stare at Their voices echo the room, the attention on the smart things
They say, passionately.
My notebook is open with my handwriting
Suffocating the page with ideas That go unsaid That go to waste A desire forced to retire
BREATHE
I hold my breath until they all pile out
Until I descend the stairs
Third floor
Second floor First floor
The door is only a few feet away
Only a few feet until I can Breathe.
The sharp cold slaps my face
As the door behind me slams back
I pick up the pace, thinking Where did I go?
How could this happen again?
I feel the winter cold infiltrate my lungs
A cold that lingers, that stings That reminds me of the pain of inadequacy. The effort that goes unnoticed because I can’t find a voice to carry out my thoughts
The red notebook pokes out of my bag begging to be read needing to be said
How can I write so many thoughts But have nothing to say
It makes the hours of the night before so
The dedicated time to process to understand
With the moon hanging low, fighting to be put to rest, So that the sun can finally rise
My shoes click against the sidewalk a noise louder than anything I have ever said.
WRITER ANA SHARSHAR GRAPHIC DESIGNER CHLOE BRATTON
