Years After College, They’re Still on the Same Wavelength

“We have probably matched like this many, many times in our lives,” Aiden Smith said of her outfit overlap with Angelina Ellis, whom she has known since they both ran track at Butler University in Indianapolis. I met the two friends in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles on a Friday in June, just as the sun was starting to set. There was something about the synergy between Ellis’s slightly cropped knit sweater and cutoff jorts and Smith’s starry cardigan and similarly sheared denim skirt — it was just too good to be a coincidence.

The two were roommates for all four years of college and try to see each other as often as possible, despite living in different states. “We both work jobs that we can’t really leave very often,” said Smith, 27, who works in licensing and marketing for a California apparel brand. “But we try to do the best we can and make the most of our time together.”

Ellis, 27, never hung up her spikes. “I’m a professional runner for Under Armour,” she said, adding that she lives and trains in Flagstaff, Ariz.

The quality of the ensembles has varied through the years. “Obviously we’ve gone through phases,” Smith said. “There were some rough nights where we were wearing Forever 21. But we always had distinct fashion senses, and there’s been many times we borrowed each other’s things.”

As for their next encounter, nothing was on the books. But Smith noted that she hadn’t visited Ellis in Flagstaff yet. “We both have dogs, so we want to get them together,” she said. “They’re both young, and I think they’d have a lot of fun.”