Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.
It took Justin Moran only about three years to move from working in retail to blogging about menswear in his native Minneapolis to becoming the lead fashion editor of NYC-based Bullett magazine. But style fluency doesn’t just show up overnight; the 20-year-old Columbia College fashion business and magazine journalism student has been obsessed with the subject since he was four, when he wrote that “costume designer” would be his dream job.
The glitz and glamour of the business is not what he longs for. “The second fashion becomes about showing off your wealth, I’m not interested,” he says. “I personally live by the motto ‘Look less, be more.’ I’m not into a $3,000 Hermès bag as much as I’m into some club kid who put together an outfit on a $5 budget.”
Moran’s look itself is a mix of vintage and more polished pieces, such as his parents’ 80s sunglasses, golden oxfords, and a biker-style leather jacket he claims to never take off. “If you look like you came from a window display or magazine editorial, you should add something that’s slightly old, worn in,” he says. “Looking new and expensive is so boring.” His “capsule wardrobe”—a term that refers to a collection of interchangeable essentials—is composed of monochromatic and minimal pieces that easily go together, allowing him to get out the door as fast as he can. “I’m actually so insane working on 10,000 projects that my own style often suffers. I’d rather be more unassuming with a killer resumé.” See Moran unassumingly killing it on his Instagram at @justintmoran.
See more street style in the Chicago Looks blog.