When we were told to write a blog post about the instances when we are manipulated I thought, "I'm never going to find anything. No one manipulates me." Wow was I wrong.
The day I got into Hamilton, my dad said to me, "now you have to go buy some J Crew clothes so you can fit in." I thought he was joking and being silly, but he was right. Never before had I owned a J Crew jean button down. Every time I wear my beloved washed-out jean button down from J Crew I see at least 3 other girls wearing the exact same one.
Never before had I felt like people cared about what shoes I wore, until I found myself buying my third pair of sperrys. I never knew what sperrys were before I started my life at Hamilton.
In so many little ways, Hamilton has made me "preppier" or "better dressed" and I don't necessarily mind it. I like my clothes, and I think they look good, but what was wrong with my worn down vans I always wore? What was wrong with my Forever 21 button down? Nothing.
No one ever told me my clothes weren't nice enough. Everyone complemented my H&M shirts and my Forever 21 dresses. No one once looked at my torn vans and made a comment or even looked twice.
So where did I find the need to change my ways? To spend more money than I ever have on clothing and my image? I guess there is some sort of underlying manipulation that I do not acknowledge telling me to try harder to fit in, to wear my nicer clothes, to make sure I look like everyone else.
I don't think fitting in is a bad thing, I think it is usually a good thing. What amazes me is that I had never thought twice about the fact that since attending Hamilton I dress differently, I care more about brands, and other useless things, until I was told (or manipulated) to take a step back and look at my life. I don't mind that Hamilton has changed it, I love who it has made me, but I love that is also Hamilton (or Janelle) that has helped me see these aspects of my life.
I feel pretty similar to you. I just kind of expected the general style of students here to be the same as my high school. I realized I was pretty wrong; I am not saying it is a bad thing though. True, I did not know what Vineyard Vines was before I came to Hamilton, but I learned. Seeing many people wearing certain clothes made me want to buy them and fit in too, but at the same time it made me want to stand out more. I knew I could never bring myself to spend that much money on clothes, just for the label. So although I probably look like a typical Hamilton student, I like to think I am not exactly jumping on the bandwagon. I also try to remind myself that there are many people here who are not preppy at all, enforcing the fact that you cannot quite generalize the typical Hamilton student.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who went to prep school the time when I went away and had this similar experience was when I was just reaching my teens and entering high school. I think we can all agree in a cliche way that high school is really where you start to find out who you are and create yourself within this definition. With a dress code written down in our manuals and an unwritten dress code that was just as strictly followed, these brand named items found their way into my life at a very impressionable age. Now when going shopping in malls or online I don't think twice about which stores or sites to visit. If I find something I like sometimes I catch myself saying "no I wouldn't wear that its too hipster" or just generally not preppy. I don't think I chose this style of dress, granted now I really do like this style, but was sort of forced into it being 14 years old at a place away from home that told me what to wear. I wouldn't go back and change anything that has gotten me to this point or who I have become today, but it does leave me wondering what my clothing style and taste would be if I didn't have this gentle social nudge.
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