How to dress like a local for a Nashville night out

PSA: wearing cowboy boots clearly indicates you are NOT from here

In Nashville, there’s a distinct difference between locals and Vanderbilt students. We tend to stay inside what we call the “Vandy bubble,” but I decided to venture outside of it for a night to see if I could pass for a local.

The search for the perfect outfit

I ventured over to Green Hills mall where I asked some sales associates how the typical Nashville girl dresses for a night downtown.

Shoutout to my friends at Express for helping me pick the perfect plaid shirt

I received a variety of different descriptions that mostly included fringe, plaid, leather, “modern cowgirl”, fur vests, Free People, and lots of accessories. And when I asked what Nashville girls don’t wear?

“DEFINITELY NOT COWBOY BOOTS!”

Hair and makeup

For my hair, I was inspired by the most famous person from Nashville: Taylor Swift.

In her honor, I decide to go old school and make my hair super curly like hers used to be when she was semi-bearable.

My friend, Rachel, decided to make her hair super straight because according to the people I surveyed at the mall, “If your hair isn’t big and curly, it HAS to be straight.”

For makeup, I was also told that I had to go above and beyond. This included, but was not limited to:

a great smokey eye,

a bit of highlighting and contouring,

fake lashes,

and VOILA! We were completely transformed.

Selfies

Take a lot of them, no matter where you’re from.

Disclaimer: sometimes they turn out like this

Outfits

I skillfully combined three elements of a Nashville girl’s look: plaid, leather and fringe.

Rachel went more for the fur, Free People look with a ton of accessories and she nailed it!

After a three hour transformation

We called an Uber and headed downtown to Acme, where the line was pretty long. While we waited, we noticed that we indeed fit in with locals. There were plaid shirts and fur vests everywhere.

After about 45 minutes of being bored (sorry, locals, but you were kinda boring. And old), we went to Demonbreun of course.

There, we met even more locals and I asked them what the typical Nashville girl wears and if we fit in.

“I don’t have style, so I don’t know.”

Plaid twins!

“Nashville girls wear exactly what you’re wearing. It’s so dope here because Nashville is this eclectic mix of diverse fashion, music, art, and food. We really have it all.”

This guy’s name was Kevin, and he may or may not be famous

All in all, Rachel and I had a pretty fun night disguised as locals. But after about 3 hours, we were ready to morph back into Vandy girl mode and get some sleep so we could study the next day.

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