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| Sunday, 28 November 2004 |
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Student life in an alien world : Shabby chic by Jeevani Mantotta In the months before I set off for Uni I spent a great deal of time worrying about what clothes to buy so that I didn't look TOO out of place. In my first week I managed to wear all my nice stuff at least once as I tried (unsuccessfully) to look cool.
By the middle of the first term most of us had given up. Jeans and warm jumpers became the order of the day. Make up was reserved for special occasions. I reckon most men don't really notice these things anyway - I once asked a male friend if my mascara was running. He peered at me thoughtfully for a moment, then said 'which bit's the mascara?' Doing my own washing was a particular challenge. By the time I figured out that I should separate my coloured clothes from my whites (Clothing apartheid!) I'd already dyed most of my clothes a funny grey colour. I couldn't afford to replace them, so I wore them anyway. When I shrank most of my jumpers in the dryer, I started buying clothes in second-hand shops. Decent quality, half the cost. As time went on my clothes got weirder and weirder. When a sock got eaten by the washing machine (which happens every wash), rather than banish the poor partner-less one, I wore odd socks. Since I'd started buying lurid coloured socks to avoid getting mine mixed up with those of my housemates, that led to some interesting combinations. Sometime around finals my shirts decided to fall apart one by one. As I was short of time and money by this point, I patched and pinned everything back together as best I could. Luckily most people around me looked just as shoddy. Shabby chic, we called it. If anyone wore smart clothes during the final year it was almost certainly because A) they'd run out of clean clothes or B) they had an interview or C) their parents were visiting. The only time everyone made an effort was for formal dinners and Balls when the girls would put on their finery (I usually wore a sari) and the boys wear suits or dinner jackets. There's a certain comfort in worn old clothes. (They need minimal care, for one thing). When I finally bought new things, I felt like I was betraying old friends. Of course there were some students who always looked immaculate, even at 3 am. I envy their dedication. Every so often I think perhaps I should spend an extra few minutes in front of the mirror. But somehow I never had the time. |
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| Politics | Produced by Lake House |
The trouble with a small community like a college, is that people see
you ALL the time - they see you bleary eyed at breakfast, muddy and sweaty
from sports, snotty and grey with the flu at your best and at your worst.
Once people have seen you shivering in your dressing gown at 3 am after a
fire alarm, there's no way they're going to buy that 'exotic eastern
princess' image you've been trying to cultivate.
