I have a lot of jeans. Some thrifted, some gifted and some recklessly purchased. And I love each and every single one of them. Not in a “I don’t let anyone wear them” way or a “freak out when I drop food on them” way, I just enjoy wearing them. I like pairing them with my sister’s crop top I stole or a sweater my aunt bought me. And this isn’t because I am a materialistic teenager with a crippling shopping addiction. It’s because owning clothes that I genuinely like and will style in various ways for years to come is a form of expression I truly prioritize. I suspect this love for clothes has something to do with the fact that I spent most of my grade school days hidden in a uniform that consisted of a navy blue skirt of abysmal proportions and a scratchy white button-down with navy polka dots to tie the top to the skirt. If that wasn’t stifling enough, I had to wear my hair in two braids and wear black non-marked shoes with white calf-length socks.
A school uniform, as once defended by my eighth-grade math teacher, was an equalizer. No one should come to school decked out in the latest designer pieces and make those who could not afford the same clothes feel inferior or left out. It was interesting to hear this come from a teacher at an exclusive private school that offered no scholarships or financial aid. But I thought that it was the principle that mattered; I accepted that my ugly uniform served a purpose and that my hatred towards it was just my privilege getting in the way. But as I got older, I realized it was being enforced as a means of policing us rather than creating equity. Girls with skirts above their knees were publicly shamed in front of their peers. They were forced to put their hair in two braids using rubber bands if one of their hair ties snapped. I remember my friend was told to wear neutral colored bras that couldn’t be seen through the thin material of the school shirt. We were in the sixth grade. Every rule felt like an oppressive burden that both weirdly sexualized and dehumanized me. But I was scared of teachers hating me and detentions after school, so I wore neutral bras and bought my skirts one size too big and carried extra hair ties in my bag. My love for clothes and fashion was saved for outings with friends and organized neatly into Pinterest boards, filed away for a time when I could wear what I wanted every single day.
It wasn’t until the first day of international orientation at Vassar that I realized there was no uniform folded in my dresser that I had to wear. I could pick from the clothes I had meticulously curated when I was waiting for days like this. I went into autopilot. I had made so many outfits in my head over the years that making one for a relatively low-stakes occasion was a breeze. Within 10 minutes, I had laid out my outfit and a backup. At that moment, I was so confident in my own fashion sense that I could style Rihanna for the Met Gala. For the first time in my teenage life, I was trusted with the ability to dress myself to intermingle with peers and administrators at an educational institution that I had gotten into on my own merit. I was and still am the same smart and capable woman in high school regardless of what I was wearing: my shorts were well above my knees, my hair was down.
Being at Vassar has only reassured me of that. This campus is filled with smart, kind, talented and incredibly well-dressed people. It makes me feel more certain that I am in a place where individuality is respected, and individuals themselves don’t shy away from wearing their hearts on their sleeves. And contrary to the worry of my eighth-grade math teacher, I haven’t seen many people prance around in Miu Miu ballet flats or vintage Vivienne Westwood Jewellery. I have seen hand-painted red hearts on bleached hair on Valentine’s Day; traditional garments from all around the world paired with Doc Martens (after all, we still are liberal arts kids); grandfathers’ sweaters stolen over Thanksgiving break protecting us from the Hudson Valley cold. Everyone is wearing what they want. This campus is a living, breathing, self-rolled-cigarette-smoking reminder that everything I was told about the correlation between my body, clothes and my worth in high school was false. And so every morning, I put on my silly little outfit and go to my classes and invest in both my future and my own identity—just like everyone else here. In that sense, I have never felt more equal to my peers.