About three weeks ago on one fateful Monday, which I have deemed monsoon Monday, the skies opened up and SMU was bombarded by a torrential downpour so extreme that even the Boulevard was closed for a portion of the day. That morning, after realizing just how hard it was raining, I threw on some sweatpants, a plain white undershirt and a white hooded sweatshirt and trudged out the door to class. After a long walk, I made it to my class, but upon opening the door and taking my seat, I found the eyes of what felt like the entire room on me. Given the looks I was getting for my unconventional dress, you would have thought that I had walked into the room naked. The fact of the matter is, class of 2011: We are way too concerned about how we look.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it is very important to look your best when you are out in public, and by no way am I advocating that we let personal hygiene go down the drain. What I have come to notice though, is we seem to have some obsession with overdressing. Incidentally enough, it’s not even the guys so much as the girls.
It has become commonplace for me to see girls walking to class on a daily basis, dressed like they are on the runway or going to some red carpet event. Matching shoes, dress, bag, necklace and sunglasses does look good, but it is a bit overkill, ladies. Now, women reading this are probably saying to themselves, “What is the problem with wanting to look good?” or, “He is a stupid boy, what does he know?” The answer to the first is quite simple. The desire of freshmen girls to look their absolute best has begun to take priority over other things in their lives. Take for example one girl who said she got up early two hours before her first morning class just so she could get ready. When getting ready for class reaches the point where you are compromising sleeping time to ensure your own perfection, I think you might have a problem.
When it comes to the second question, girls do take longer to get ready when compared to guys; this I won’t argue. However, the overkill comes when you take exponentially longer, which is really unnecessary. Take for example an upperclassman friend of mine. One night two weeks ago, she and I were at dinner, after which she was going out to a party. We stopped by her apartment so that she could get ready. The entire process of getting dressed and doing her hair and makeup took about 15 minutes. And you know what? She looked drop-dead gorgeous. While I’m quite confident this was an acquired ability that took much practice, that means that most girls, on average, should take anywhere from 30 to 40 min utes max to get ready. This is quite reasonable when you think about it.
Now the benefits of breaking this obsessive pattern are great. First, from a purely economic standpoint, you save money when you are not putting on excessive amounts of makeup each day, or on laundry making sure you always have a dress or skirt to wear. The second benefit comes from gaining more time. When you don’t have to wake up two hours early you not only get more sleep, but you feel better for the whole day. In all honesty, if you are tired and don’t feel well, no dress or amount of makeup in the world will compensate for that.
Don’t think you have completely dodged the bullet, guys, because in some ways you are just as bad as the girls. A good majority of guys also feel the need to get dressed up, whether it be nice jeans, designer shirts or more. In my time at SMU, I have seen a polo shirt in just about every possible shade of the visible spectrum of colors. To a lesser degree, many guys wear either the runway look or the country club look. Once again, it’s good to look your best, but when you do it all the time it becomes tedious.
I think the main problem with the whole dressing up thing comes in the fact that if you do dress down one day, everyone looks at you like you are a leper. Here is the solution: Maybe if more people dressed down more often it wouldn’t be such a social taboo. In short, I vote to instill the causal Friday at SMU. Just kidding. What you should do is wear what you want and if that happens to be dressing up like you are Paris Hilton going to the opening of some chic club, then fine. But if you aren’t, feel free to wear what is comfortable; jeans and a T-shirt are a good place to start, and don’t worry about feeling out of place.
Until next time, class of 2011, right now I have to go plan my outfit for tomorrow. I am thinking my red Abercrombie and Fitch sweatpants and my Hollister hooded sweatshirt should do just fine.
About the writer:
James Lucente is a first-year double major in international relations and broadcast journalism. He can be reached at [email protected].
