Accidentally stumbling into a career fair last week, I have to admit I paid more attention to the interesting art of the collegiate wardrobe than to my own participation.
In a sea of modest shoulder pads, pristine tailoring and navy-on-navy, the event could have doubled as a Kelley School of Business fashion show.
It was a to-the-T manifestation of the business professional, Hodge Hall uniform.
To my career adviser’s chagrin, my ankle boots and pastel color scheme marked me as a liberal arts outsider. Still, I stayed in the corner to watch the runway of the “Please Hire Me” trends.
After reviewing my own wardrobe, I began questioning why my closet looked more like a kindergartner’s and less like an employee’s.
College is meant to prepare its students for the responsibilities and demands of the career world, but how well does it prepare us sartorially?
As it turns out, not well at all.
The culture of IU definitely mandates a certain wardrobe to prepare one for any occasion, from that questionable Welcome Week foam party to a marathon of Little 500 festivities.
I’ve spent the past year curating a typical-college-student closet, but upon review, the IU style is a little questionable.
First of all, you’ll need lots of jerseys. Yes, they’re expensive, and yes, you may not know the sports team printed on them, but go with it.
Make sure to have a random hula skirt and a few leis laying around for that spontaneous luau, even in 30-degree winter.
Accessorize with enough bucket hats to insinuate you’re a Floridian fisherman in search of your next catch.
Have a few fanny packs on hand for easy storage during those 36 IU Dance Marathon hours.
Depending on who you are as an IU student, your style will vary accordingly.
The 8 a.m. attendees are the ones in last night’s pajamas and a messy bun. The greeks sport their letters and crests.
Athletes are ready to go in joggers and tennis shoes. Academics have their comfortable layers for hours of studying.
Even though fashion is a concept rooted in the subjectivity of style, college seems to have an implicitly mandated look understood by most. After evaluating and cataloguing the various pieces of my personal IU wardrobe, the outcome was slightly humiliating.
While I owned two feather boas, enough camo to clothe a small militia and enough frat tanks to clothe Fiji, I didn’t own a single suit.
When is one supposed to not only merge into the responsibilities of adulthood, but actually start dressing like an adult, too? It seems strange that the entire purpose of college aims toward maturity, but our wardrobe lacks the same vision.
Perhaps college is our last chance to play the kindergarten card and feel acceptably dressed in overalls and pigtails. In the years to come, the navy-on-navy trend will be our specialty, so we might as well embrace these years of ankle boots and pastels.
As time goes on, we’ll learn to adjust and to adopt the mandated fashion of the career-ready co-ed.
Better yet, maybe we’ll always prefer our college style and end up attending the next career fair in pairs of candy-striped overalls after all.
bsaggese@indiana.edu
