Founded by Senior Camila Cervantes, the Avian club aims to make fashion and pop culture more accessible to all Los Altos High School students. Throughout the year, Avian has been crafting a magazine showcasing fashion photography and writing that speaks on social issues. These magazines will be distributed by the end of the month.
Originally, Avian was meant to be about fashion, but as they progressed its focus shifted to using clothing as a medium to help share messages about social issues.
“The more I got into it, the more I realized that fashion is influenced by people’s experiences,” Camila said.
At the start of the year, club members came up with different themes for sections of the magazine.
“The ideas are all based on questions we posed about our world, and then we developed aesthetics and themes around them,” junior Sophia Suffleto said.
Eventually, they chose to concentrate on three: culture shock, brain rot and narcissus (the Greek god of narcissism). Culture shock highlights wealth disparities between communities in our area, brain rot represents technology’s impact and narcissus shows the human ego.
“We’re trying to capture a lot of feeling,” Sophia said.
Through these ideas, members utilized different art forms to create magazine layouts. They curated outfits, modeled, took pictures or wrote pieces relating to the theme. They collaborated to combine these aspects and create their final product.
“The club attracts people that make it very easy to work together. Everyone is creative and artistic in their own right,” Sophia said.
Avian gives students a means to have their voices heard on issues they care about, as well as a way for students to showcase creativity.
It also allows students to try new things, and feel more confident in themselves and their abilities. Many people tried photography or modeling for the first time while shooting for the magazine.
“I love seeing how excited the models get,” said Camilla. “Whenever we show them the photos on the camera, and then they jump up and scream. It’s so rewarding because this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to make people feel beautiful.”
Through their magazine, club leaders hope that students at LAHS will begin to challenge cultural norms and feel encouraged to create their own art.
“I hope it inspires people to pursue their own art forms,” junior Piper Chatwin said. “When I look at popular culture or fashion magazines, I’m very inspired by the imagery, visuals, photography and fashion. Those are themes that the people of our generation care about.”
Sophia and Piper, both candidates for club leadership, aim to publish two magazines next school year, one each semester.
“Creative people can come up with all the ideas they want, but if you don’t have a result, other people aren’t going to appreciate your work,” Sophia said. “Honestly, that’s just what we want: people’s creativity to be appreciated.”
