The Look Book

Monique Garofalo, Senior

"There's a dress code, but I never follow it. No one else dresses like me at school."

By Amy Larocca
Published Sep 4, 2005

(Photo: Jake Chessum)

Where do you go to school?
Poly Prep in Brooklyn. I live in Bay Ridge.

Is there a uniform there?
There’s a dress code, but I never follow it. We have to wear collared shirts. I don’t own any collared shirts. And my skirts and pants are always, like, sequins or leopard prints. No one else dresses like me at school.

How does everyone else dress?
On the preppier side. Poly Prep is known for its athletics, and there’s a lot of kids from Staten Island, so they shop at the mall.

Do you hang with the preppie kids?
Most of my friends with the same interests go to other schools. When you go to a concert, you’re going to meet people like you, whereas at school, everyone’s stranded.

Tell me about this outfit.
I got my eyeglasses at a store on East Ninth Street called Fabulous Fanny’s. The cowboy boots were my mom’s. I just started wearing them about a year ago. The tights are from Anna Sui. The skirt I bought I don’t know where, but I cut out pieces of fabric and had them sewn on at the dry cleaner. The T-shirt I got on eBay. I resewed it to make it fit properly.

Are you very into Jimi Hendrix?
In the seventh grade I randomly bought a CD, and that was the start of it. He was really psychedelic.

Do you have any style icons?
Right now I like Marc Bolan from T. Rex. I switch every week, though. I also like Frida Kahlo a lot—I dressed up as her for Halloween.

What are you reading?
I love Tristessa, by Jack Kerouac, and Nausea, by Jean-Paul Sartre—but I can’t pronounce it. And I like James Baldwin.

Movies?
One of my favorites has to be Rocky, which is unexplainable because I don’t like sports and I don’t like muscular people. But it makes me really happy.

What’s on your lunchbox?
It’s the Beatles—Yellow Submarine. My mom bought it for me for Christmas. People always say it should be kept in the closet because it’s a relic of the past, but it wasn’t that expensive. I use it as a purse.

Do you ever wish you lived in a different decade?
I would have loved to live in the sixties or late seventies. It’s kind of pathetic, and I feel bad about that, but what are you going to do?