Best Dressed: Allure Akaeze
When Allure O. Akaeze ’24 meets someone for the first time, they like to wear pink.
For our interview — which doubles as our first meeting — they wear a pink fishnet top, pink butterfly pasties, a pink fur coat, a pink garter belt holding up pink thigh-highs, pink legwarmers over pink glitter platform heels, a bedazzled hat with a pink varsity patch, beaded pink jewelry, and a blue (!) micro skirt with a trim that looks like it’s made of teddy bear fleece.
Allure’s pink is not the muted pink of Glossier ads, nor is it the blushing beige-pink of coquette moodboards and the Brandy Melville logo. It’s closer to the supersaturated “Barbie” pink, but even that shade is too bland to match Allure’s hue.
“I like a hot pink that’s really in your face,” they say. “And I like wearing it in a way that’s a little bit erotic and loud and aggressive in a way that I feel like sometimes pink is not.”
On a campus full of Canada Goose puffers and crimson “H” sweaters, Allure’s bold take on pink has attracted attention. “My friend was like, ‘Allure, sometimes people know you exist, but they don't know your name. So they just call you The Pink One,’” they say.
Allure transforms pink — a typically soft, demure, “girly” shade — into a color with teeth. They are a nonbinary femme lesbian, and they remix the rules of femininity in order to represent their identity.
“My relationship to femininity feels different,” they explain. “My goals with dressing are a reflection of that, because some of the goals that I have when I dress up might not necessarily be the goals of everybody around me.”
“When I put on makeup, I don’t have the intention of looking like a flawless version of myself,” they continue.
They say this while wearing sparkly silver eyeshadow and long artificial eyelashes. Their eyebrows are drawn thin and dark, and their face is entirely covered in pink powder. “I like putting on makeup and you knowing I have makeup on.”
Allure credits their style to the groups they belong to. “I’m surrounded by people who are subversive in their own ways,” they say. “Them being and dressing like themselves — especially when it comes to the trans people that I’m around — is revolutionary, beautiful, and cool.”
Allure’s primary fashion influence is their older sibling. “They were the first person that I was able to see, in real time, experiment with themselves and their fashion and their gender expression, and with color and texture and patterns, in a way that was really important to me,” they say.
Other notable influences include the rapper Zepkins, whose pinned Instagram post features themself lip-syncing in rhinestone cheetah print patches, as well as the model Sunny Bunny, who poses with their entire body painted pink, white, or green.
Allure also draws inspiration from two contrasting subcultures: the sugary street style of the Harajuku district in Tokyo and the drama of the goth scene. “I’m friends with a lot of goth folks who have taught me about not just different ways of dressing, but also how to be confident in going out in the world looking drastically different than everyone else,” they explain.
Their love for fashion is intertwined with their interest in performance. They admire the aesthetics of sex workers, burlesque dancers, and the video vixens (think grainy hip-hop music videos, velour tracksuits, glossy lips) of the ’90s and 2000s. They are a dancer, musician, and producer, and they have performed at events across Boston, including a Hello Kitty rave and at the Trans Resistance March.
“I’ll buy things for a performance, and then rework them in my clothing because I want to wear them in other contexts,” Allure says.
“But also, I think that the version of me that is all dressed up — whether I’m on the stage or going to CVS — is still myself,” they continue. “I feel comfortable and confident looking this way, and I don’t want it to be only left to the stage. I want to carry that in every aspect of my life.”
— Magazine writer Yasmeen A. Khan can be reached at yasmeen.khan@thecrimson.com. Follow her at @yazzywriting.