Ericka Henriquez

11-year-old me was a fashionista in her own right. I rocked my fluorescent pink Sketchers and knee-high socks. My hair was always bundled up in a fountain-like, gravity-defying ponytail atop my head. Daring to play with silhouettes, I often left the house in my basketball shorts or — I cringe at this confession — thigh-high jeans OVER leggings. 

I look back at pictures of myself — the barely five foot, braces-and-glasses-wearing girl — and wonder, “Oh my god, what was she thinking.”

It’s true I regret many decisions, including failed friendships and fanfic ventures; however, I do not regret my preferred method of self-expression: novelty tees.

Since I was young, I have been profoundly skilled at carefully crafting my outward appearance to exude personality. Every inch of my laptop is plastered with stickers that scream, “I am an individual!” I love wearing long, dangling earrings and collecting small-biz buttons to stick on my backpack. I would say this pattern of being so outlandishly me began with a custard-yellow shirt of dabbing unicorn that read, “Awesome since 2006.” 

At 11, I didn’t care what others thought of my clothes. I was too deeply immersed in the latest “Jessie” episode or playground punch ball tournament to use brain cells in the artistic arrangement of fabric. Yet, my nonchalant attitude toward my outerwear allowed me to explore identity to the fullest extent.

We’re not even a quarter way into the academic year and too many outfits are giving “jaded.” I get that we’re all college students and we have to be cool, even when “cool” means wearing off-white Essentials hoodies. But cool is far from conformity. 

I’ve seen too many preppy plain polos and all-white Uniqlo crops. I am almost certain that athletes have twenty thousand different high school play-off or regional championship shirts on rotation. Oh, and don’t even get me started on Yale merch. 

At first, I was caught up in the Yerch frenzy (Yale merch … it’s a thing, right?). While packing for the big move, I panicked over the fact that I only owned two pieces of Yale merch. Desperate to reverse it, I spent a solid half hour at Campus Customs picking out the perfect hat. I ultimately left, satisfied, with a beige hat with a blue “Y” but I had legitimately spent thirty minutes of life — thirty minutes that I wouldn’t be getting back — deciding between various permutations of essentially the same blue-beige combination. 

Then, with one of my two Yale sweaters and my cool new Yale dad cap, I strolled out of the store feeling like I had undergone some sacred induction. Like the fabled wolf who wore the sheepskin to blend in with the flock, I donned the Yerch and became one of the Y-eep. Not even 20 feet down Elm St, I came across someone “twinning” with me. Ah, embarrassing.

Don’t you miss the days when you could pull up to school in your niche PBS Kids tee, the one with trains or dinosaurs or weird anthropomorphic animals? Some kid would point at a word or character and say, “She’s my favorite, too.”

Now, the best compliments we can scrounge up are “Cute top!” or “Love the shirt.” Think to yourself, when is the last time someone on campus genuinely stopped you to tell you that they loved that show too. 

The fabrics we drape over our torsos are meant to bridge connections. Like skies to aero-advertisers, our backs are canvases for our thoughts.  

Let’s bring back quirky tees, references to your favorite B-list movie, birdwatching jokes, chemical engineering puns. You should catch stares. You should stop crowds with your clothes.

I may have left my unicorn tee back at home, but I will definitely be donning another recent classic — the “Beetles” crossing Abbey Road. 

Because while I am a Yale student, I am an individual first, flawlessly “Awesome since 2006.”