Having money and a great sense of style is easy enough to approve, it's when you are studying full time and have a budget to adhere to that it becomes interesting. UCT student Mohamed Mollagee runs a blog and documents the style that he comes across. I invited him to do a guest-blog to give you guys an idea of what it is like to be a student with the hunger for dressing better. He even provides a few tips of his own.
No one likes shopping on a budget. Haven't we all dreamt of a magical world where cards could buy you unlimited amounts of anything, regardless of the price. Little did we know that the bank statements of those very attractive cards would be sent to our home addresses and that we would soon be receiving ferocious calls from our fathers who throw around the word “budgeting” as if it were the new “it” item. So between deciding whether to spend our money on a new jacket or a textbook, life as a fashionable student is tiresome and requires great amounts of planning, be it sometimes skipping a lecture just to get ready in the morning. All of this is to our benefit because if you look good, you feel good and if you feel good, your learning capacity is enhanced (or so I’ve been told). The risk of your father never being able to fully understand this and support your spending habits is high. However there are some tips most campus catwalkers will give you on how to be fashionable on a budget, without looking like you are on one.
The key to any fashion-loving student would be the element of versatility. As much as we love having and wearing the latest trends, the necessity of having staple items is high on our priority list. Items like a staple pair of denims, quality basic t-shirts and first-rate sneakers provide a sturdy canvas for seasonal trends. First and foremost it’s about quality and not quantity. Any studying fashionisto worth his thread would note that Chinatown jeans will last as long as your interest in a double period lecture. Investing in basics will not only cost less in the long run but will also allow for more time to be spent on creatively sprucing up your wardrobe. If you know what you have, you know what you can buy and what will work with existing garments.
Students have the ability to wear almost anything and be as creative as they like. Fearlessness in fashion sense is what makes street style such a popular conquest. No-one wants to be left behind in last seasons trends. At the same time the chances of that Vogue doing its rounds in your flat ever getting to you are slim, that’s why online exploits are becoming so popular. Whether reading online magazines or scouting blogs, hip students value their free time by choosing to either scout in known territory or venture off in search of inspiration. Through social media platforms it becomes so much easier and cheaper to exploit offerings made by the fashion industry, allowing students to be in constant contact with the latest happenings locally and globally. One clear benefit of this is the information about up-and-coming sales or new brands breaking into the market.
It’s no secret that sales are havens for cash-strapped students who seek seasonal clothes at reduced prices. However what sets an average student apart from a fashion-smart student is the attention paid to times, dates and other details. Being in touch with companies and friends online makes information more readily available and the ability to discern what to buy and where to buy it becomes easier. Most of us are blessed with odd timetables and a free period somewhere during the day is inevitable. So while everyone else is slaving away in their office jobs, we have the benefit of arriving early for sales and getting the first choice of marked-down goods. One important thing to remember is to budget, as many inexperienced shoppers tend to buy everything they see. One advantage to being a student is that even when a sale does come around, we have to think carefully about our purchase. Most students don’t have credit cards and even those who do are weary of snatching it out to buy a garment they aren’t fully satisfied with. Call it clever, call it cheap, at the end of the day regardless of the reduced price, there are other forms of criteria such as fit, versatility and quality that shopping on a student budget requires.
Being influenced by local or international trends can be tough on any students’ budget unless they know of cost effective ways to channel these tendencies. A great love affair exists between many students and thrift stores for a number of reasons. Some shop at thrift stores because their budget doesn’t allow them to shop at more up market vintage shops. Some are looking for one-of-a-kind pieces that can be cut, dyed or tailored into an interpretation of a runway trend. A common factor remains the idea that we are getting individualistic pieces that no-one on campus will have, which is what draws us back to these shops for more. What many don’t realize is that thrift shopping is a skillful art. Rummaging through other peoples left-overs and mentally plotting out ways to incorporate garments into your existing wardrobe is the epitome of any hipsters’ thrift store routine. Being fashionable in an ocean of retail outfits means having to step outside of what is considered normal and trendy. Campus dress code (or the lack thereof) allows us to be completely free and gives us the ability to break fashion boundaries. Since street style has been highly influential to designers globally, so too is the way in which young people, and specifically future professionals, choose to dress. Your grandfathers poor-boy hat and your dads old leather schoolbag makes you much more of an individual than some mass produced gunk.
It may still surprise some as to why students, with far more important things to worry about, would painstakingly think about what to wear on a daily basis. It may also come as a surprise to the style-haters that donning a pair of flip flops and jeans is no longer considered “cool”. Fashion can be a tough pill to swallow and with financial constraints an even bigger challenge. But the balance between budgeting and resourcefulness is what makes campus fashion so relevant and stimulating. At the end of the day you’re not only taking home something to wear, but the skill of clever shopping too. Even if it may be the only thing you remember after graduating.
Special thanks to Mo and Dylan for this one.
