The eager members of the class of 2013 invade campus, tantalized by prospects of fresh identities. The first-day outfit is laboriously selected, the obscure lingo haphazardly lands in conversations to maximize coolness and accessories abound. Welcome to Yale. Define yourself hard and fast. Embrace the many faces of a desperate aesthetic.
The Idle Jock
Between your 5:30 am practices and your underwhelming performances in language classes, there’s obviously no time to put on some respectable clothing. The baggy Yale sweats, “I just like the range of motion” spandex, and sweat-stained T-shirts look sooo authentic. Guys, it’s no big deal, gigantic shoulders compensate for the fashion fouls. Girls, nice to meet your forehead, since that ponytail never comes down. But consider yourself a civilian once you toss on a slinky sheath and straighten your hair to an anxious sheen for parties. Go bulldogs?
I Exited The Womb Looking This Shitty
Courtesy of your neighborhood Salvation Army (and your parents’ AmEx Gold), filthy rags have become the new Urban Outfitters. You go little lady, strutting around Old Campus mummified in hemp, donning clothing once deemed “groovy” but now threadbare and dirty enough to support plant life. You’re so green.
Regulation Hipster
You thought you’d drop bombs on the Ivy League with those skinny jeans and lumberjack plaid — because most intelligent, intellectual kids have zero style and wear Oshkosh B’Gosh pants, right? Game on, says Joe Hipster who buys Oshkosh mom jeans from the nearest vintage slum and buttons them high over the ubiquitous, ironically logo-less American Apparel V-neck. Swathed in scarves and satchels and other enormous pieces of material resembling hammocks, your waifish body is barely visible in there. Keep smoking those cloves, since cancer is the new vegan-induced anemia.
Post-Hipster
Regulation Hipster remixed. You almost sarcastically pair those second-skin Levi 511s with a preppy button-down and boat shoes. Perhaps the bright shades of day-glo offer nuance to your high-waisted skirts and the typical Ray Bans. Maybe you go for the Shitty Out The Womb look, augmented with overpriced acid-wash anything and a token Bill Cosby cardigan. Either way, you’re taking hipster to new heights. Without trying hard. AT ALL.
Baby Sluts
So you’ve flown the coop and you think it’s time to spread those wings. Or that cleavage. No parents around to judge the outfit before your hot night out getting molested at Toad’s; why not show what you’ve got, nay, everything you’ve got. On second thought, that’s a shirt not a dress, the Madam of New Haven Green wants her fuck-me boots back, and your face still screams 12-year-old.
New England Prep
Cultivated at the top boarding schools in America, their style hasn’t changed and never will. Conservatism at its best! Gentlemen don plaid and khaki bottoms, sweater vests, polos emblazoned with the logo of a Manhattan legal practice/Florida golf course and anything but jeans (so gauche). Women get their classy on in Lily Pulitzer, more plaid, more khaki, headbands from the Children’s Place and plenty of overpriced J. Crew baubles. Please note that some of the New England Prep set had identity crises during Camp Yale and mistook themselves for Baby Sluts. Seersucker skirts tend to lose their country-club chic when left on the bathroom floor at Zeta Psi.
Yale Newbs
You know them, you potentially room with them, and you probably disregard them. Khaki cargo shorts, New Balance sneaks, *2013 shirt (no, we can’t explain the asterisk), Blue Book surgically attached to the forehead. International Science Fair accolades won’t work as a standalone bolster for your repute here at Yale. High school’s over. Time to grow a style.