I promised a friend I wouldn't write one of those back to school, advice to the first-years columns. You know, what to wear, what not to wear (orange spandex) and what is pretty much equivalent to wearing a name tag to class (putting your keys/ID on a lanyard around your neck). I'm not going to do that because I don't really know what I'm talking about, and I'd hate to mislead impressionable little first-years.
Instead, I'm going to talk about something that has quite recently come to my attention. As people frequently like to point out, students at our fine university abide by their own dress code of sorts, something I'll call "U.Va. Preppy." There are a fair amount of colleges where I've been told preppy borders on the "way of life" approach -- Vanderbilt, Princeton, Washington & Lee and Virginia Tech (kidding) to name a few.
If you have friends who go to any of these less economical universities, you might notice that they wore a fairly preppy style way back in high school. But through my largely informal and, at times, not completely sober questioning of students here, I have found that this is not really the case. Many University students say they actually weren't preppy at all in high school, or if they were, it wasn't to the extent they are now. Still, somehow they got sucked into it once they started going to school here.
Look around at the first years in your typical gut class. Or go to the dining hall (no meal plan? OK, just me then). In that case, you can just sit across from Gilmer and watch the kids coming out of Old Dorms, looking borderline confused. Sure, there are some students who already look ready to take on the University, most likely in polos and madras, on their way to U-Guides tryouts. But, by and large, they just look like college freshmen, in pretty standard clothes, who have somehow been transported here from their No.Va. high schools.
By Thanksgiving, however, I bet half of these so-called "non-prepsters" (fine, I made it up) will be blending in a helluva lot more. In fact, they may even be mocked by their high school friends for their preppy clothes.
So, the question is, how does this metamorphosis happen? Is it a conscious decision to try to fit in on the part of the first-year, or a subconscious assimilation that happens from being immersed in this atmosphere for so long? Maybe it's just the ghost of T.J. injecting his own brand of seersucker into the newbies. My view is that it's a combo of the three, with a little bit of preppy fairy dust thrown in.
Regardless, I urge you to watch the transformation over the next couple of months -- it's better than The Discovery Channel.
Since this actually is supposed to be a "fashion" column, I'd like to mention one object of clothing that has recently gained popularity: dresses. They're pretty sweet, especially when it's this hot outside. People have even been wearing them out to frats, bars and whatnot, which I personally think is pretty classy.
A friend of mine, however, who I'll call "Louise," has a particular dislike for clingy jersey dresses, which I can't really argue against. Although she has no problem with jersey fabric, per se, Louise says they are "objectionable if you can see the girl's belly button ring through the dress." So I would advise that if your unmentionables and/or piercings show through your dress, it's probably a no-no. And if you hate me for commenting, send your Facebook hate mail to Louise.
My final piece of advice: If you're a first-year girl in a miniskirt, don't walk over the Zs around Grounds, especially if you're going out to frats. If you do, you will probably get pregnant, and you might also develop an addiction to Natty Light.
Alex's column runs bi-weekly on Fridays. She can be reached at jospin@cavalierdaily.com.
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