BLOG: Culture clash, college-style
That's Not My Style
By Hanna Hafner, Blogger
October 13, 2008 | 2 a.m.
Fashion is not my forte, but allow me to share some frustration and observations. In high school, the robes of the royal had the Hollister, Abercrombie, or Aéropostale label. I think the popularity of labels is childish, so I figured it’d be different in college.
Not so. Well, not completely. The stereotypes of high school are still here, discretely swimming underneath the currents of college life, but a few things have changed.
When you think about brands such as Hollister and the double-As, you come to realize that the basic point of these lines is to make everyone the same. They’re trying to make a profit – so who can blame them? But when it comes to vintage clothing and stores, everyone has the basic understanding that wearing that clothing is supposed to make him or her unique. The thing we have to remember is that even vintage stores are trying to make a profit.
For example, my roommate loves Urban Outfitters. But as she says, and I agree, we’ve seen a fair share of girls who look like they’ve bought whole outfits from the catalogue, instead of buying a few things and adding to their own style. The thing is, when these indie chicks get into buying popular brands from catalogues and listening to the same stuff their friends listen to, these trends spread out. And I can’t decide if that’s extra-indie or just mainstream.
In addition to the indie chicks, on campus we see liberal activists, bros, sweaty athletes, guys who get out their guitars every night and play Jack Johnson covers, stylish foreign students and many others. All the high school groups are back, representing themselves on our campus, except maybe the Republicans. College certainly has its own set of stereotypes, but the difference is in how much they matter. I think it’s interesting how “those” people in high school (the group that includes the girls who had hair and makeup that all the other girls tried to copy) are just part of the crowd here at OU.
So far I’ve drawn two conclusions after my first four weeks at college. First, what’s unique about OU is that diversity is the mainstream. High school gets tiring because you always have a big majority of people who are all the same, or want to be. There are three high schools where I’m from, and kids from my school often generalized the other two by saying that South had all the skater kids and lost causes, and Central was mostly snobby preps. I think college students really appreciate coming to a place where there are so many people from different areas, who all come from a place with a different “majority” when it comes to fashion and popularity.
The second thing I’ve decided is that unlike in high school, most people at OU seem to understand that everyone has the same face value as everyone else. I think, with freshmen, that stems from us all being in the same boat: not knowing anyone, living away from our families and figuring out how the laundromats work. But I like it much better this way.
College: 1, high school: 0.
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Urban Dictionary's definitions of stereotype, indie and conformist.