Even Shoes Are Back
FIVE years ago, when the photograph above appeared in an ALUMNI MAGAZINE story about student "fashions," Dartmouth undergraduates tended to dress like housepainters or river guides just off the Allagash. (Five years before that, the prevalence of army fatigues made the campus look like a guerrilla camp.)
"You are what you wear." "Dress for Success." "The Language of Clothes." "Fashion ... for Men." Suddenly, or so it seems, students have taken a new interest in their appearance and what it says about them. At Dartmouth, where the "tweedbags" even the ones in the Psi U house-went underground a decade or more ago, clothing and dress in general have become noticeably neater, more tailored, more tasteful, and, naturally, more expensive. On the first day of classes in September, the Hanover plain looked like a Hollywood director's prototype of an Ivy League campus: blue sky, beautiful foliage, ivy-covered buildings, young women in stylish dresses, and young men in pressed pants and sport jackets, four-in-hands neatly tied or dangling out of pockets with studied casualness. There were even suits.
The students of the early eighties, as represented opposite by Carol Anderson and John Hall III, both juniors, fearlessly flaunt their tweeds. They look consciously dressed, not simply "put together." The play-hard functional look has been replaced by the aspiring professional look. Jewelry, particularly gold watches and neck chains, is more visible on both men and women. Even shoes have made a comeback. Back packs are fading at last, and the blue jeans are rarely patched and more likely to sport a designer label. Sweat suits? At the gym and on the jogging paths, no longer in the classroom. For some men, corduroy have become de rigueur. For many women, the Lord & Taylor hippie look has passed to bona fide designer dresses. As props, the ten-speed of the seventies and the BMW of the eighties are more than symbolic.
Why the change in fashion? To a great degree, it has to do with the mood of the times: more conservative, less carefree, and certainly less anti-Establishment. It is interesting to note, though, that today's students grew up for the most part without school dress codes, measured skirt lengths, or bans on jeans.
As for the faculty, don't ask.
