Alia

Alia is Booked

So for about the first two months of my English class I wondered who the ridiculously well-dressed quiet girl in the back of the lecture hall was.  Even with her introverted personality, it is difficult to miss Alia Popoff at school.  After seeing the second-year student around campus a few times, we Booked her for the first time in the courtyard.  My absolute favorite thing about being a part of the Booked team is being able to use the blog as an excuse to meet people and ask them about their style (I guess some wouldn’t need an excuse to chat up people but as an arguably introverted person myself, I do).  When Booked covered The Show, an art event at the Habitat last month, we Booked Alia again and I knew we had to do a style profile about her.

The cool thing about Alia Popoff is the fact that she is from Grand Forks, BC.  In my opinion, one could easily teleport her to a downtown New York neighborhood like Soho or the Marais district in Paris and she would fit in with ease.  Alia has a natural casualness to her style.  To be honest, I find it quite difficult to dress casually while trying to still look somewhat fashion-forward. Interestingly, Alia buys the majority of her clothing from Orchard Park Center or in Spokane, as it is the closest major city to her hometown.  Not to sound like a typical city-boy belittling small-town malls or retailers, but when Alia told me this I was pretty shocked that a person as a fashionable as she is buys her clothing in surprisingly ordinary places.  It is not where Alia buys her clothes or how unique the individual pieces are in their own right that makes her overall style standout. Rather, it is her ability to pair certain accessories and garments with each other in a way that creates an overall cohesive look. Alia said, “sometimes two things that completely don’t match just look amazing together”. Her favorite piece of clothing is a heavy, over-sized tan textured sweater her aunt knit for her which she wore when we Booked her last outside UNC.  Alia shops at a range of stores like Urban Planet, Aldo Accessories, Dynamite, and Walmart.  If I had to guess how much one of Alia’s outfits on an ordinary day cost, I would peg it between $400 and $500.  After our interview together I was surprised that she really doesn’t spend very much on clothes.  I give her a ton of credit for being able to put together unreal outfits on a student budget.  I think someone has to have a lot of confidence in their way of dressing to make a pair of $40 shoes from Walmart look like $400 shoes from Holts. Alia does this so well.

When Booked interviewed her, Alia tried to explain the difficulty in trying to teach someone how to pair certain things together to create an overall “cool” look.  Maybe it is the fact that Alia is a Fine Arts major or a talented photographer which gives her this unique analytical lens when choosing an outfit, or maybe it is her naturally self reflective personality.  Alia’s ultimate dream is to become a high fashion photographer and to one day work for fashion magazines.  After seeing some of her artwork showcased at the Habitat I noticed some similarity in her work and the way she dresses.  There is an overarching theme of simplicity at the surface, but deeper meaning when you really look at one of her photographs (in terms of the symbolic meaning and implicit themes) or outfits (in terms of her mood when getting dressed).  When it comes to dressing, Alia says colour schemes allow her to put an outfit together.  She really dresses based on the way she feels; if you see her walking around campus in a head-to-toe black outfit she likely is not feeling as energetic or happy as if she were wearing a bright floral dress. In terms of celebrities or style icons, she doesn’t really look up to anyone but she loves getting inspiration from magazines or neat things she sees on lookbook.nu or tumblr.

After getting to know Alia a little bit better over the past month I have to say she is a sweet person and based on her photography skills, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her working for a magazine like Elle or even Vogue one day.  She is able to capture a sense of emotional authenticity in her work so perfectly and I haven’t ever seen a 19-year-old photographer do that as well as she does.  It is her unique eye for putting together outfits, her dynamic personality, her interests in all aspects of art whether it is photography, painting, folk music to dubstep, and especially her love for fashion that Booked loves about Alia Popoff.

-Liam