When most people hear about geek fashion, the first thing they might think of is fashion for boys, or t-shirts in the men’s section. However, for FIU students like Julie Failde, geek fashion can be creative, unique, and a fun way to express what you love. I got to interview this geek fashion guru, a FIU senior majoring in English, and I also had the pleasure of taking photos of her favorite outfits.
C: So my first question is, what made you want to do geek fashion?
J: Geeky stuff is a passion of mine, so I kind of just started wearing graphic t-shirts, with a pair of jeans or leggings, but eventually I decided that wasn’t really my style. So, I thought, well, I’ve got to incorporate my geek stuff into my everyday wear too, so I would find different places that had that kind of apparel, and that’s kind of how it started.
C: What are some obstacles that you’ve had to deal with, with this kind of fashion?
J: Finding stuff. Finding stuff is really hard. There’s a lot of websites now that cater to that, for example heruniverse.com, which is run by a woman who actually voice acts a character in the Star Wars tv show “Clone Wars” and she made this entire fashion line that’s all geek apparel. Because of that, Hot Topic also caters to her, and the store I work at a place called Box Lunch also sells her merch, and will make their own similar merchandise. So there’s really cool little places that has all that stuff.
C: That’s really cool that you can actually find some stuff, because I can only imagine how hard it was back in the day when we first saw these graphic t-shirts come out.
J: Oh yeah, boy’s section.
C: Yeah! It was all in the boy’s section!
J: And now it’s cool, because now there is stuff for girls who don’t just want to wear graphic tees all the time.
C: So what is your current favorite outfit?
J: Oh, that’s a hard one. So I have a lot of Star Wars stuff that I like but recently I did a little fashion shoot for the new Star Wars movie that came out, and every day was a different theme, so one day I wore a brown skirt with a gray t-shirt, and the pocket of the shirt had two little Porgs, and I think that’s my favorite outfit right now.
C: Aw, so speaking of Porgs, what is the series or genre do you feel you wear the most of?
J: Um, star wars, yea. It used to by Harry Potter, but then Star wars came in and took over. I can find a lot of stuff with Star Wars, like heruniverse again, and the store I work at, and now even Target has a whole thing now because of The Last Jedi, where they have so much geek apparel, cool stuff too, not just the t-shirts and what not.
C: So, what are your goals this year when it comes to your style?
J: So I have actually created a blog for my fashion. I want to say I made it back in August of 2017, and I don’t usually post a lot because of school, but I will write some short posts about my fashion stuff, and then sometimes I’ll make it more themed to something else, like a post talking about my favorite Star Wars movie, but I’ll add a photo of myself with different geeky outfits. I guess my goal is to build that and also my Instagram account that goes with it, so I can eventually become a geek fashion icon.
C: Now, a really popular fashion, that a lot of girls do, is disney-bound. So, how to you feel about that fashion?
J: I love Disney bounding, and there are also other things you can “disney-bound”, that’s not even Disney. For example I have a Bilbo Baggins-bound outfit. But yeah, I think it’s really neat, I think it’s really helpful to be if you want to be super incognito in your geek-wear. It’s also great for theme parks. I’ve done Snow White, Ariel, and even Peter Pan.
C: What are some tips that you would give to someone who would like to start in this kind of fashion?
J: Go on Instagram. I think you should check out different hashtags. I know so many people who inspired me through Instagram. You can also look up a lot of geek-girl related stuff online, like this group I go to called Geek Girl Brunch, which is a group I hang out with once a month and we meet different geeky girls. You should also check out heruniverse, hot topic, box lunch and target for some good geek fashion.
C: What kind of hashtags would you look for on instagram?
J: I usually find themed hashtags, so for example I would put #starwarsfashion. You can even do #geekgirl or #geekfashion, you should be able to find plenty of stuff there.
C: So my last question, what kind of organizations or groups are you affiliated with?
J: So there’s Geek Girl Brunch, where we meet up once a month and have brunch, which is pretty cool. There is a group called @geekbloggeralliance which is an instagram group where they have a theme every month for a different geek styled fashion, and once you join, they post your photo of your outfit, so it’s really great for networking and meeting other geeky girls. I run my blog, which is called InfinityJules on wordpress. I also run a podcast for Star Wars called Roundtable Podracers, and you can find that on YouTube and iTunes.
Outfit one Brown Sweater: apari-shop.com Leggings: Old Navy Shoes: Adidas
Outfit Two Shirt: BoxLunch Pants: Express Shoes: ThinkGeek
Outfit Three Shirt: Old Navy Skirt: Heruniverse.com Shoes: ThinkGeek Bag: BoxLunch