Fashion is a means of expressing yourself. The rules of fashion are genderless and limitless, and it’s important to wear what makes you feel like yourself. For Jonah Ring, FCRH ’26, that was a lesson he learned somewhat recently.
Today, Ring is wearing a white chunky knit sweater with baggy jeans, accessorized with a watch from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), a beanie and Nike blazers.
“There’s a scene in ‘When Harry Met Sally’ where he’s wearing a fisherman’s sweater and jeans on and I thought that was peak male fashion, so I tried to emulate that today,” he said.
Keeping the outfit simple and focused on statement pieces is the goal with most of Ring’s fashion choices. “I think too many accessories can be distracting, so I usually keep it to one piece. I think that understated is best. I’ve always associated a lot of chains and stuff with a kind of a braggadocious attitude so that’s not what I want to go for. In actuality, all I need is one statement piece,” he said. Today’s accessory of choice, the watch from the MoMA, a gift from his brother, is a small but important indicator of who he is.
From a first glance at Ring’s outfit choices, it’s easy to pick up pieces of who he is. As an art history major, he likes to wear jewelry that makes a statement — pieces with art on them — so those looking can see what his interests are, even from a short glance. He describes himself as artistic and subversive, which can be picked up on through his fashion choices.
For Ring, fashion and intentional dressing are newer interests. In the past, when it came to shopping or picking out an outfit, convenience and ease often came first to style and expression. “This year I got really into it because I was sitting in an art class and my friends and I were talking about how we’re not great at the visual arts, but I still wanted to engage in the same artistic practices that these artists had. We wanted to make a commentary on the current zeitgeist and have a means of individual expression,” he said. “So, I may not be able to paint or draw, but I can use my body as a canvas to do those things… I figured out a different way to express that and it became fashion for me.”
Expression through fashion is deeply personal and individualistic, yet we all have people we look up to and are inspired by. For Ring, his family is the main source of inspiration.
“A lot of it came from my twin brother. He has a sort of ‘granola’ style, and he just has sort of an effortlessness to him, and I decided that’s kind of what I wanted to emulate, but also make it my own,” he said.
Along with his brother, his mom, who is a passionate environmentalist, and his dad, a teacher, have also inspired his fashion views. Ring thinks it’s important to shop ethically, a trait he picked up from his mom, so his clothes often come from ethically sourced companies. And the academic inspirations in his outfits are a direct result of his father’s influence.
It’s often said that you are the people you surround yourself with, and that can mean more than just who you are. For Ring, he is able to express himself freely and find clothes that work for him based on his closeness with his family.
