Maggie Rowland ’14 Captures Dartmouth Street Style for Teen Vogue
How do the most stylish Dartmouth students compare to other Ivy League fashionistas? Maggie Rowland ’14, photo editor of The Dartmouth, recently photographed Dartmouth women for an online Teen Vogue feature titled “The Most Stylish Ivy League Students Show off Their Campus Looks.” The story features photos of four stylish women from each Ivy League institution and allows readers to observe street styles across the different schools.
Teen Vogue contacted Dartmouth student photographers about doing a street style photo shoot and selected Rowland to shoot for the feature after she submitted a resume and portfolio. Teen Vogue requested at least 15 photos of female Dartmouth students in full-body standing shots with relaxed, happy poses. Rowland photographed 30 women total, and scoured campus to find 30 different locations for shooting. Rowland said she tailored the backgrounds for each woman based on what she was wearing.
“If a girl had a modern, edgy style, I would put her somewhere like the [Black Family Visual Arts Center], and for the girls who were dressed as quintessential Dartmouth, I would put them somewhere like Dartmouth Hall,” Rowland said.
To recruit subjects, Rowland personally emailed fashionable women she knew on campus and asked them for additional names of potential subjects. She made efforts to assemble a diverse group of women, with different majors and interests. Interest in the shoot was very high, according to Rowland.
“In the end I got a lot more requests than I could actually accommodate,” Rowland said.
Preparing for the shoot took a great deal of time. The weekend before she began shooting, Rowland organized her subjects, coordinated location scouting and planned a schedule for shooting. Rowland hired a makeup artist from New York City to travel to Hanover to apply makeup to subjects in order to minimize time spent doing touch-ups and editing post-shooting. The shoot itself took place over two days, with Rowland and the makeup team working from 6:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. both days.
Rowland said she appreciates that there is not a fixed divide between different styles of dressing at Dartmouth.
“We have our own sense of style here, but it seems like many people are up-to-date on what the trends are, or at least are comfortable enough in their own sense of style,” Rowland said.
Rowland came to Dartmouth with experience in nature photography, and joined The Dartmouth hoping to experiment with other types of photography. Through her work with the photography section of The Dartmouth, Rowland developed an interest in photojournalism and, specifically, photographing people.
In 2010, Rowland founded her own photography website and business. Though she has experience with many types of photography, she hopes to focus on fashion editorial photography in the future. Last summer, Rowland interned for New York City-based fashion photographer Kevin Michael Reed. Rowland was able to utilize Reed’s studio for her own shoots, which helped her build the portfolio she eventually sent to Teen Vogue. The internship was Rowland’s first experience with fashion photography.
“The fashion world is really fun because it allows for you to have more creative control,” Rowland said.
Magazine editorials are not usually paid, but the exposure in Teen Vogue will likely prove valuable for Rowland, who hopes to pursue a career in fashion editorial photography. After graduating, Rowland will return to work with Reed as a studio manager and executive editor for his new fashion photography industry website.