DARTMOUTH UNDYING
Student fashion (and pant cuffs) hit new heights in 1930, when The Dartmouth pleaded "freedom of the knees." Students flooded local merchants with orders for shorts of any style. When supplies ran out, many resorted to trouser clipping. The media found the men s legs irresistable, Fox Movietone shot a newsreel while the Associated Press sent a photo of beefy gams across the nation. But that wasn't the first time the College set a trend.
1795
Respectable Commencement attire includes coat, waistcoat, "small clothes," silk gloves, hair ribbon and cocked hat all in black, accented with silver shoe buckles and with white powder on the face and hair.
1871
The rural gentry look is in. Students wear top hats, pin-striped waistcoats and trousers, and western riding boots, accessorized by long pub pipes and spittoons.
1895
Ready-made garments haven't quite caught on. A Brooks Brothers advertisement in the Aegis attempts to alleviate concerns about embarassing duplications: "Patterns at all noticeable always limited to small quantities."
1920s
Students sport rain slickers decorated with painted-on flappers and slogans like "Oh, you kid!"
1949
Dirty Minnesota storm coats worn with even dirtier white buckskins and no hat are the campus norm. The Dartmouth reports that the clothing color scheme is "predominantly brown."
1950
Two hotels in Boston host a spring shoe show in which the highlighted attraction is the "Dartmouth Special," a forest green summer shoe.
1963
Freshmen lose the annual tug of war, a battle that determines whether they have to keep wearing their caps. Disgruntled over foul play by upper classmen, a group of '67s burn their demeaning hats in a heap on Webster Avenue and then riot in Thayer.
1967
The September issue of Playboy features a photo of Dartmouth men in a "Back to Campus" fashion article. Five men, pictured in a Sanborn alcove, model a double-breasted suit jacket, ankle-length houndstooth pants, and half boots.
1985
Fashion and students' forms converge. Beth Paap '87 and a Lafayette student become entrepreneurs and start up3 made-to-order lycra tights business.
