Cool Cat: Sophia Schweinler

Interview by Yajaira Perez | Photos by Sophia Schweinler

What is a piece of advice you would give to your younger self? A Cool Cat at Central Washington University shares with us her answer and perspective: 

“Trust your gut. I think that everybody has an instinct and intuition, and you can easily shut that out. I think I would remind my younger self that’s there for a reason. You think this way for a reason, and you have intuition and certain thoughts, drives, and feelings for a reason,” Schweinler says. “The other thing I had thought of is that you’re only in competition with yourself. You have nothing to lose. You’re just in competition with yourself. I think that’s what I would remind myself, my younger self.”

Sophia Schweinler is currently a fourth-year student majoring in Apparel, Textiles and Merchandising. She is originally from Tacoma, Washington and transferred from Tacoma Community College to Central Washington University during the 2020-2021 academic year. 

Schweinler has always had a creative side within herself. With her love for makeup, hair, clothes, and fashion, she has adopted the hobby in thrifting and upscaling clothes. 

Upscaling Thrifted Clothes – A Hobby and a Family Tie 

Growing up with the issue of clothes not fitting her correctly, Schweinler would simply upscale, customize, and make thrifted clothes more modern and trendier. With her thrifted finds, Schweinler makes each piece uniquely fit herself and adds a modern twist to older clothes – making the old clothes new again.

At the racks, she has two different mindsets when looking for pieces: thrifting with a plan and thrifting without a plan. “For well-constructed garments I try to just add details or elements. It already has a style, so I try to fix it from there but with the fabric I already have a style in my head that I’m able to be like ‘okay that fabric would work’ and I move on from there” Schweinler said. “I usually see it and I know what I would want to do right away.”

Sewing and seamstress work runs in the family. “My mom had taught me how to sew,” Schweinler said. Her mother adopted this skill from her mother, Schweinler’s grandmother. “She was able to make curtains for people and do seamstress work in that way so that kind of fell into place for me.”

Connecting Her Hobby to a Future Career

Schweinler finished high school with an associate degree but took a year off from school before transferring to Central Washington University. Feeling pressure to declare a major, Schweinler shares, “I put a lot of pressure on myself to figure out if it was like political science, and what job could I do. I didn’t really think that it would be worth it, going to college for something like a hobby, you know, like apparel but my aunt was the first one to say ‘Oh, you could think about it.’”

“One of my aunties knew I took a year off out of high school and she gave me some advice. She told me, ‘Why don’t you go into design because design could be like apparel, it could be digital, but it’s more of a creative outlet.’ So, she was the one who dropped the seed in my head that it’s okay to do something that’s creative because you’re going to enjoy it and you’re going to like it,” Schweinler said.

“I knew that when I transferred, I would go straight into my major, and with that, I just reflected more on how I can incorporate something I really love doing like social change or a social issue. I really like political science and I found intersectionality in the fashion industry and a lack of sustainability within the industry and ethical practices. I realize that you can still fight for human, environmental, and animal rights within fashion. So, I found that I could do both.”

Her Future in Fashion While Helping Others 

After taking some time to reflect on her passion and desire to exceed in higher education, Schweinler envisions herself working in the fashion industry. “I would see myself working in sustainable textiles with bigger companies that are either re-spinning already discarded fabric into new fabric or working with sustainable textiles,“ Schweinler said. In the future, she has the goal of being a designer with her own line in the fashion business. 

Schweinler does offer her knowledge and skill in alterations, restorations, custom items and repairs for those who are interested. “With alterations, like anything that just doesn’t fit, it’s worth reaching out to me. We can do a fitting if needed. If it is something that I can fix, even just slight modifications, yeah, like either cropped or hems or an actual repair.”

You can contact Schweinler at sophia.schweinler@cwu.edu or direct message her Instagram account @sophia_schweinler for any of your fashion needs.

Here is a link to her personal website to check out more: https://sophiaschweinler.wixsite.com/mysite-1