Since Sept. 7, Shane Lynch ’07 and Maude Bass-Krueger ’07 have been documenting University fashion on their website, Well Dressed Wes. The site features photographs of the best-dressed students at campus parties, written fashion reports on style icons, and opinion on the hit reality TV show Project Runway.
Although Lynch and Bass-Krueger only recently thought to create a fashion website, both have been interested in style since a young age. Bass-Krueger grew up in Paris, where her writer/journalist father began taking her to fashion shows when she was only 10 years old. Lynch, who is from Los Angeles, learned to love fashion as a young girl. She would dress up in her actress mother’s dresses and scarves.
Lynch and Bass-Krueger, who have been best friends since their sophomore year, found their inspiration for Well Dressed Wes when Lynch visited Bass-Krueger in Paris over spring break last year.
“I was greatly inspired by going to parties with Maude,” Lynch said. “Nearly every Parisian club we visited would photograph the chic guests.”
Bass-Krueger was influenced by spending time with Paris’s fashion jet set.
“I wanted to find people at Wesleyan who truly thought about their outfits before they put them together,” she said.
For Bass-Krueger, fashion is a thoughtful process.
“I want someone who is intellectual about what they put on, why they put it on, what affect it will have, how it makes them feel,” she said.
Sally Rosen ’08, who is pictured on Well Dressed Wes twice, agrees with Bass-Krueger’s intellectual analysis of fashion.
“If you have a careful eye, there’s a lot of good style out there,” Rosen said. “I’ll be honest, I always think about what I wear.”
Kathleen Salmon ’07, shown on Well Dressed Wes in a vintage blue dress and denim jacket, also loves the website’s concept.
“I think it’s really great that two people are going out, having fun, and looking at the fashion around them,” she said.
The most recent Well Dressed Wes update highlights outfits from the Eclectic Sex Party. It features short-shorts, lingerie, and a few men in hooded sweatshirts. The post features one of Lynch’s favorite Well Dressed Wes outfits: a tight, zippered denim ensemble worn with a black belt and brown boots.
“There is no real criteria,” Lynch said. “Fashion should never have any rules.”
Personally, she is influenced by 18th century style. “I would kill to bring back the tricorner hat,” Lynch adds.
Both Lynch and Bass-Krueger both aim to follow their fashion interests in the future. Bass-Krueger currently writes fashion articles for WAD magazine in France, serves as women’s apparel editor for Infomat, a fashion industry search engine, and serves as curator of the Wesleyan Costume Shop. She also interned at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this past summer.
“My goal in life? To be the curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” said Bass-Krueger, who is currently writing her history thesis: “Black Shirts and Black Dresses: An Aesthetic Analysis of Fascism in 1930s France.”
Lynch interned at Teen Vogue magazine over the summer. Her current focus, however, is on history.
“I am especially drawn to historical aspects of fashion,” she said.
Though Lynch will probably not pursue a career in fashion, she hopes that it will play a role in her future life.
“Young people have always been the motivators of design,” Lynch said. “Wesleyan is nothing if not overloaded with individuality. Maude and I are just focusing on one aspect of it, and hopefully everyone’s enjoying it so far.”
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