I think that for a lot of students, going to Uni is the first time in their lives when they have had a 100% say in how they dress, what they do with their hair etc. For me, my mom always gave me a certain level of freedom and she pretty much never sat me down and say "no, you can't do that with you hair", but she hadn't been too impressed when I had my nose pierced at 16! But my nose piercing is a great example of the lack of freedom kids have. I'm pretty certain that most School's are the same, but at mine, we were not allowed body piercings other than our ears pierced once. We weren't allowed more than one stud in each ear, and we definitely weren't allowed to have them in our noses. That being said, I got my nose pierced about half way through Year 11, and I assume because I was so quiet and didn't get into trouble (well, other than my phase throughout Year 10 when I twagged most of my PE lessons!!), but teachers never seemed to notice it, which I'm obviously not complaining about!!
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that before Uni, the majority of us have dressed as dictated by parents, school and even our peers, so Uni is quite liberating.
So, as part of my series about Uni, I thought I'd share with you a few things that I personally did when it came to style, whilst at Uni, irritatingly I haven't been able to upload any images of myself for this post, all of the ones used that are of me are ones that I've taken from either mine or my friends Facebook pages, but when I do I'll have to update the post and let you guys know :)
My Hair
My hair is probably the factor that most of my friends will associate with me, because I dyed my hairs all kinds of different colours.Weirdly, I went to Uni with blonde hi-lights, which looking back is very NOT me. During my time though, I went various shades of purple, red, orange (by accident) and eventually to dark brown. It's funny because when it came to May Ball and Graduation time, I came to the decision that I should go back to a more "natural" shade for my hair, purely because I didn't want to look back at myself in ten years time and think "what the hell was I thinking?", and you know what I think I made the right choice!
I'm glad that I experimented with my hair colour, and I loved doing it, but for the more official stuff such as my Graduation photo that sits in my Nana's living room, I'm glad that I have "normal" hair, because at least she can't moan about it ;)
Clothes
It always makes me chuckle, but even though I don't think I had any fashion sense when I was at Uni, there is definitely a style that I associate very heavily with myself, and I certainly don't dress that way now.Predominantly, I'm a casual clothes kinda gal so at Uni it was mainly t-shirts and jeans, but I went through a huge phase of wearing t-shirts from Dorothy Perkins (with my student discount hurrah!) that had cute images of roller skates, and 1973 on them, in cute pastel-based colours. I loved those t-shirts and kinda wish I'd held onto them, but then I'd complain they don't fit or they're taking up space!!
Okay, so perhaps the picture isn't the best, or the most flattering *ahem* picture to put up, but it appears to be the only one I have of the type of t-shirts that I used to wear...!
Uni was also the only time that I have ever dared to wear a green pair of cords! Oh yes, and I loved them!
Badges
In Derby City Centre, before they tore everything (well, not literally everything) down and built the new shopping centre, there was a really awesome independent record shop on the main street. They sold pretty much everything that you wouldn't find in HMV and Andy's Records, and I am not going to lie, 90% of those bands I had never heard of, and will probably never encounter again!!What I loved about this shop, in a very superficial way, I know, was that they sold these awesome mini badges. Nowadays, these badges are quite easy to buy from HMV etc, but I'd never come across any before and I used to buy the ones saying funny quotes and decorate my bag with them!
I actually still have a couple of them lying around somewhere, including my Linkin Park one which I cherish, because I had to re-buy it after losing it before I'd even got it home :(
Jewellery
Anyone who knows me will know that I LOVE cute and quirky jewellery, and I strongly feel that that love stems back to my time at Uni.At my Uni, and again, I imagine this is the same as at most Uni's, once a month, we used to have a market in the Atrium that sold all sorts of sort. I picked up an awesome Pucca Bag from one market, that I used for years, until I realised I was getting a bit too old for it ;) But, I also used to buy these glass rings too.
I'd never come across glass rings either, but they were usually fab for wearing on your thumb (they were far too wide-fitting for any other finger) and came in bright colours. I remembered having two (although I'm certain I owned more). The first was a dark blue one that I loved, but unfortunately, being glass, it broke. Another one I had was a rainbow of yellows, reds and oranges. The images of rings isn't quite what mine looked like, but you get the idea!!
I also used to wear necklaces and bracelets made up of coloured beads.
So, remember. Be yourself when it comes to style, and allow yourself to be creative, because once you graduate and enter the world of work, being creative is going to be bashed out of most people, which is kinda sad, but having bright pink hair doesn't fit into most work places unfortunately!
What was your style at Uni? Has it changed? Do you regret anything? Or do you wish you could still wear it?
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