I would have never worn clogs in high school. I would have never worn turtlenecks or long dresses either because those were all things old women wore and I was young and vivacious. Which is to say, I wore skinny jeans, ballet flats and floral Forever 21 shirts, cultivating a fashion persona that I would call “predictable” and “mildly quirky.” Thrifted jackets and the occasional hair ribbon pegged me as a “hipster” among my preppy classmates, but I only really started experimenting with my wardrobe senior year. Which is to say, I showed up to school in my Led Zeppelin t-shirt exactly once, was adamant about wearing red heels with my $30 department store Prom dress and temporarily dyed the tips of my hair blue.
I look at my college closet now and see a lot of pieces I wouldn’t have been bold enough to wear a few years ago, mostly because of how unabashedly matronly they are. My winter coat is bright red, extra large and usually paired with a green fleece hat. I have two long button down skirts and two dresses with shoulder pads that look like what an elementary school teacher might wear in her retirement. I knit myself a 10 foot long scarf last winter that hangs around my neck like an oatmeal colored blanket. And yes, I have clogs now. They are a bit wobbly, but they make me feel like a cool, down to earth fifty year old woman who definitely followed the Grateful Dead around the country for awhile but eventually settled down and got a 9 to 5 job.
That woman is my style icon of the moment.
Being at college (and Brown, more specifically) has made me more comfortable with expressing my style this way. I feel like I don’t have to be polished. In fact, I feel like I shouldn’t be polished. My colors are mismatched, my socks have ostriches printed on them, my backpack has a pin with Bill Murray’s face on it and my bangs don’t sit in place. High school Sarah would blush to see me like this. But I think she’d also be impressed.
Recently, I’ve been wondering—where is my style heading now? As a sophomore, I have two and a half more years for Brown to liberate my fashion. There are endless possibilities! Will I eventually cross the line from “Mom” clothing into “Dad” territory? Will I be rocking oversized golf polos and clipping my phone to my belt? Will I set a campus wide trend for “barbecue chic?”
Maybe I’ll finally go through the emo phase I missed out on in middle school. I could have intense side bangs, intense eye makeup and intense feelings about the world. I think I would have a lot of fun painting my nails black, picking out the perfect pair of Vans and putting in fake piercings because I’d be too afraid to commit to the real deal. I could even take it a step further and live up to the promise I used to make to my mother every summer in a futile attempt at rebellion that this would be the year I’d go punk. She’d always give me tacit approval, but I never followed through. I feel like I owe it to her to acid wash my jeans.
Or maybe I’ll walk around barefoot. Maybe I’ll dress like Hilary Duff in The Lizzie McGuire Movie. Maybe I’ll wear a shark tooth necklace everyday. Maybe I’ll dye part of my hair blue again. Maybe I’ll dye all of my hair blue. Maybe I’ll just join the Blue Man Group. Realistically, I can do any of these things. I can throw away all my shoes and be an outfit repeater and cover my entire body in paint. I’d probably turn some heads, but I feel like people would be thinking “she’s doing her own thing” and also “having your phone clipped to your pants seems really convenient and should not be stigmatized by society.”
As with most things, I will just have to be open and wait. But no matter what fashion path I walk down, I hope it leads me to a place where I can open my closet and say— “Sophomore Sarah wouldn’t have had the guts to wear this.”
Image via Sarah Clapp.