Introducing the 2024-2025 FAST Journalism Team
The Journalism team at FAST powers all written content for the club, which are published online and in-print in FAST’s annual magazine. Producing dozens of articles each year, our writers cover topics spanning from trend analysis, brand spotlights, event coverage, and more … Here are the eleven writers behind it all.
Lauren Kim is a second year Sociology and Public Affairs double major serving as the Journalism director for FAST at UCLA. Lauren views fashion as a powerful medium for expression and empowerment, and her work bridges her studies with her interest in exploring fashion as a cultural force. You could find Lauren penning her latest article over a matcha latte, clacking away on her heavily-stickered computer … but you’re a lot more likely to see her solving a crossword at her seat.
Kieran Hsiao is a fourth year Psychology major who really wishes he were a Philosophy major too. Kieran often haunts bookstores or wanders the beach in search of inspiration. When he's not being melodramatic, he spends much of his free time reading books and listening to vinyl – a lover of all things retro. You may not be surprised to hear, then, that his passion for writing first sprouted from a desire to put his typewriter to good use. To Kieran, fashion is art – a medium of self expression with our bodies as the canvas.
Natalie Hunt is a third year Political Science major and Linguistics minor at UCLA. Hailing from Texas and having lived abroad, she has cultivated an immense love of art, music, and fashion from many different places and cultures. Little Natalie loved writing about fantastical donut-monsters and talking squirrels, and since then, has written even more fiction, screenplays, and journalistic pieces. She aims to one day be a prolific author, an eccentric hermit living in an isolated cottage writing novel after novel. For now, you can find her on campus rushing from class to class with a hot tea in hand, untangling the impossible knots out of her wired headphones.
Valeria Hernandez is a first year English major at UCLA. She views fashion as a fun, powerful form of expression. Picking out her outfit is one of her favorite parts of her day, alongside going to bed. Besides fashion, Valeria loves reading and writing, for the same reasons she loves fashion. She can often be found at a bookstore debating the newest book to add to her collection (despite having way too many unread books on her shelves already), at a cafe sipping a latte, or with her two cats who she loves and adores above all else.
Naomi Engle is a first year Linguistics and Computer Science major at UCLA. Her love of writing began at age seven, on her living room couch, when she looked at her very first manuscript (dictated to her ever-loving father, of course) and thought, “this is me”. Her love of fashion began at age sixteen, in a PacSun fitting room, when she looked at herself in the mirror and thought, “this is who I want to become”. She enjoys watching horror movies but not alone, scrolling on Pinterest, and she dedicates all her work to her overweight cat.
Sanya Khan is a Psychology and Dance double major at UCLA, living out her passion for storytelling and fashion as a journalist and model with FAST. Though her idyll rests in hearty meals with warm cappuccinos, she also finds felicity in balmy afternoons spent reveling with the prince that gallops through the pages of her novel. She has a propensity for inane adventures and period romance movies. Ever the zealot, she can be found in the atelier, dancing copiously or doing anything artsy. If you spot her nestled under a tree, looking unperturbed while pondering Kant's philosophies, don’t hesitate to say hello—an interlude with a fellow wanderer would delight her.
Mya Ward is a third year Anthropology major with a minor in English Literature. From a young age, Mya realized that she was never at a loss for words nor lacking an opinion. As it happens, a significant amount of her opinions are concentrated on fashion. Mya can generally be found writing in the coziest corner of any cafe with ambient lighting and hibiscus-steeped tea. However, Mya can also be spotted running to and from concerts in Hollywood, lounging on the beach, or wandering into every bookstore and antique shop she sees.
Presley Liu is a first year Philosophy major fascinated with the intersection of fashion, ethics, and policy and is enthusiastic about entertainment. Although her design interest began when she draped blankets to compose “gowns” at age three, she later uncovered a love of journalism after watching The Devil Wears Prada. An avid seamstress and writer, she enjoys searching for rising sustainable fashion brands and cheering on her fellow Bruins at the Rose Bowl while donning some upcycled, UCLA-inspired outfits.
Hiram Rabell-Ramos is a first year transfer majoring in English literature. His admiration for fashion stems from his childhood memories of watching his grandmother sew clothes for him and his sister]. This admiration evolved into actively following fashion magazines, until eventually Hiram began collecting international Vogues like Infinity Stones. When Hiram is not writing, or reading, he is probably involved in some type of community organizing, since one of the main forces that drive Hiram’s writing is raising the voices of marginalized communities that have not always been represented in mainstream fashion.
Pacey Tian is a second year Sociology student. Her love for fashion began from pirating McQueen runway shows on the family computer in China at age 6, and ever since then, she has seen fashion not as something frivolous, but as a form of political or social currency that actively interrogates cultural power structures. Her work strives to challenge the status quo, give voice to the unheard, and disseminate ideas in a peaceful but provocative way. You can find Pacey scribbling on a notebook, reblogging on tumblr, or discussing the merits of a creative director at their fashion house.
Eli Nachimson is an English major with minors in creative writing and digital humanities. They love watching hour-long YouTube video essays on the history of fashion, and finding hidden gems at thrift stores. When not writing for FAST, they can be found at Food Not Bombs, at FEM Magazine, or freelancing with various news publications.