Student Saviour
This week’s student saviour is a return to the 90’s. I’m not quite sure why it’s called ‘returning’ seeing as we seem to have been dealing with mom jeans and cropped t-shirts for a good two years now but, either way I’m glad it’s sticking around. As someone who fully identifies as part of the Friends generation, I am so thankful that I can now mimic all of Rachel’s various dungaree outfits and still be called fashionable. Side note: Kylie Jenner did not popularise ‘wedgie jeans’. They are called girlfriend jeans and Rachel Green got there first.
The staple outfit of this trend is the humble mom jeans and cropped jumper, as I mentioned earlier. This is the most perfect everyday outfit I could envisage for an Exeter student. The clothes are baggy enough and breathable enough to allow the walk up Cardiac to be bearable, but just tight enough to show off the bum you’ve got from the very same walk. Also, instead of splashing out £20 for ‘vintage’ t-shirts, just grab some baggy Primark ones and cut of the bottoms for the cropped, distressed look. The purposefully distressed and shabby look of this outfit also means you can rock it with messy hair and no makeup and act like it’s a statement.
The look has also been updated for summer. Slip dresses are flooding stores just in time for summer. These dresses look elegant and beautiful with next to no effort, and you can get away with wearing flats with them, always a plus in Exeter. A flowery, jersey slip dress can be perfect for those sunny spring picnics (a girl can dream) and, if you add a sparkly clutch and fancy flats, great for date night or even a summer ball. Basically, there is no reason to not be wearing this trend so channel your childhood and go for it.
Student Sabotage: X Necklines
The time has come for the fashion industry to admit that there are only so many things that you can do with necklines. This isn’t to say there aren’t options; there’s halter, V-neck, square, round, cold shoulder, one should, bardot, boat… the list goes on. So why did the powers that be come together and decide this was something that girls should want to put on their bodies?
This just looks like you’re a five-year-old and your mum has tucked a napkin into your collar
For a start, visually it is just not attractive. I have nothing against shoulders, I love a cold shoulder top, and I have nothing against halter-necks, but for some reason when you combine them it just looks awful. The neck strap looks awkward, the rest of the garment looks like it’s falling off, it’s just a bad look all round. On top of this, someone decided that in order to improve this look all that was needed was a huge ruffle across the front. A ruffle. This just looks like you’re a five-year-old and your mum has tucked a napkin into your collar in order to save your otherwise perfectly nice dress.
Practically, this is also a nightmare. Unlike cold-shoulder tops which have the graciousness to have thick straps providing a perfect hiding places for your bra straps, X-necklines show not only the straps but probably most of the bra as well. This means the solution is either to wear a bra and ruin the whole aesthetic of baring your shoulders to the world or to just go without one, and with the amount of running up and down hills that goes on in this city this is just not feasible. My solution: don’t wear these necklines at all. This trend is clearly the result of the designer equivalent of writer’s block, and hopefully inspiration will strike and we can all decide to leave this trend behind.