What Are You Wearing? A Tale of Campus Fashion Sense

Summer Shorts! by noelia terron-laya, wednesday, july 6th, 2011

Summer announces itself on campus with the delightful appearance of playful and imaginative outfits. Here are some of the things I’ve observed and my corresponding musings.

1)    The too-short shorts

Not everyone can rock the too-short shorts. The shapeless and skinny can –of course, and that’s about it. Most people did not get that memo, apparently, which explains why over half of the students here walk around in too-short shorts. This leads to a number of issues such as sausage-thigh syndrome and, my personal nemesis, the underbutt. It is my understanding that some people hope to achieve the illusion of longer legs by exposing them so much. That’s fine, I don’t know if it works, but I certainly cannot blame people for trying; long legs are sexy. However, I would like to point out that it is embarrassingly inappropriate to expose the lower half of your bottom in school. It’s simply not the place for your more private parts to see the light of day. I can appreciate the need for hyper-hormonal youths to advertise their gaiety, but the classrooms of a reputable university are not grounds for broadcasting a desire to engage in indelicate philandering. It is thus always wiser to buy shorts that fit.

2)    Those ugly biking shoes that look like rubber feet

This particular fashion statement does not exactly belong to summer, but I have noticed it more in the past three or four weeks. I wonder if these shoes genuinely improve comfort and/or performance. My instincts tell me that they accomplish neither. Furthermore, they make any outfit instantly outlandish. My conclusion is that nobody needs special shoes to bike around campus anyway –it’s not Le Tour de France.

3)    Exposed midriffs

See Too-Short Shorts.

4)    T-Shirts with vegetarian slogans

I am a proud, voracious carnivore. I thus always take it personally when people run around wearing shirts that say things like “No Meat Athlete.” I bet most athletes eat meat. Not that you can’t actually be a vegetarian athlete; but if you are, you should keep it to yourself. We non-vegetarians don’t run around wearing “Beef Shank Cross Cuts Athlete.” Furthermore, as long as it is done responsibly, eating meat does not have to be associated with neonate piglets piled in a cage somewhere on an exceedingly unsanitary farm. You can buy your beef cuts at the local farmer’s market instead of at Safeway. And no, Trader Joe’s does not count as a farmer’s market. Find out where and when your true, local markets are and buy your groceries there.

Ideally we should be able to wear whatever we want on campus. After all, we are paying a lot of money to attend college in the first place. Also, college is a time for us to enjoy not having to wear suits, ties and regularly boring formal work clothes. The rest of many of our professional lives are almost guaranteed to involve a dress-code. But first impressions matter, and college is also a place for us to “practice” being part of the “real world.” Most jobs probably do not allow employees to strut around in Daisy Dukes. That’s just a fact. Also, a modicum of decency never hurt anyone.