The Trend is Nigh: Teaching Fashion Aptitude

It’s tough going back to school, especially after a summer in which the most defining event of my day was when I ate frozen potato skins while watching “TRL.”

Now I am subjected to a barrage of emaciated women in Harvard sweatshirts soliciting me with pamphlets at pre-professional meetings. It’s a useless and sad exercise, and I generally end up giving the pamphlets a new lease on life as origami cranes.

Yet, I often feel a sense of pity for these women, who look forlorn, highly stressed, and yet also obsessed with pamphlets.

However, after a summer away from Harvard, I suddenly realized (with the shocked amazement of one not usually given to great revelations) as I looked around my various pre-professional meetings and impossibly humid extracurricular fairs, that many of my Harvard female compatriots are not exactly dressed to the nines.

Suffice it to say, I understand how hard it is to be a well-dressed Harvard female. If a fat man was constantly telling me that I was bad at math and science, then I too would have no choice but to sport a Hillary Clinton-style head band to class in a last ditch effort to be taken seriously.

Harvard men dominate most conversations, sections, lectures and, apparently, all non-Humanities courses. They prattle obnoxiously about themselves for hours. They get rewarded for this with cheap and easy sex with most of the women in Boston, even if they themselves are wearing knee socks. And ultimately, get to make horrible jokes about how Harvard girls are hideous.

Sure, we are not, for the most part, blonde and buxom. We don’t have the tangible attractiveness of, say, a University of Oklahoma sorority girl. These are inalienable facts. But I, personally, do not think we are hideous.

As a whole we have some very attractive qualities. For example, many of us are type A personalities and therefore less likely to let ourselves go physically. Also, we have a collective elfin beauty, the type of beauty normally found in irregular features and ears that are pointy.

I realize that many of us have reconciled ourselves to the fact that we are not gorgeous. That, in fact, we are better at studying. However, one can be attractive without being conventionally pretty, and one can accomplish this through the venue of fashion. With this in mind, I present to you the top five trends of the fall, which a Harvard woman can use as a guide in the slow and painful process of revamping her wardrobe.

In contrast to last year’s preoccupation with ’50s Technicolor pertness, this year’s fall fashion shows have been dominated by a particularly goth aesthetic. Not a combat-boot, free-verse poetry type of goth, but the distinctly Victorian elegance of a preserved moth or an Ann Radcliffe novel.

The emphasis is on clean lines, strict construction, and an Edwardian obsession with detail, whether it be filigree or nonsensical ties. However, in order to avoid looking like Helena Bonham Carter, deflect this fall’s overweening romanticism with a tailored or modern piece, allowing you to seamlessly transition from class to an awkward date at Grafton Street.

THE TOP TRENDS

With these tricks of the trade in mind, Harvard women can seamlessly transition from a labor-intensive life of study shrouded in ill-fitting pants to a labor-intensive life of study shrouded in nicely tailored pants. Together, we can stop ourselves from making horrible mistakes like white pumps, and start to conquer that ineffable feminist quandary of having it all, i.e. being half decent-looking and still attending Harvard.

1) ELABORATE BLACK

Black is a woman’s best friend. It is slimming. It disguises figure flaws, and it is easy to pretend that you look like Angela Jolie on a mission to Cambodia. However, this year’s black transcends the simple shift dresses and T-shirts of yore. Designers have been using it to complement complicated and intricate designs. Quirky details and structural originalities have been dominating the new black, rendering it a mix of Victorian ingenuity and modern couture. In order to avoid looking like you have been mourning Prince Albert for forty years, however, choose a shape that flatters your existing figure, as opposed to the one you want to have.

2) BOOTS

Boots have been in fashion in various forms ever since the Pilgrims realized that Massachusetts was a cold and inhospitable place. However, this year, boots have become gentrified and increasingly detail-oriented. New features such as delicate heels and unexpected fabrics have given this year’s boots a Trollope-like flair for the ridiculous and the elegant. Essentially, this should be the ultimate excuse to throw out the round-toed, clunky-heeled monstrosities that have dominated the Harvard landscape for the past ten years.

3) HIGH-WAISTED PANTS

I realize that this section may garner a sigh of relief from the women among us who wear jeans that stretch past their belly buttons in the style of Farrah Fawcett circa “The Burning Bed.” However, the new high-waisted pants hearken back to the androgyny of 1930s glamour, as opposed to the glamour of the Tori Spelling’s hit “Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?” These pants are voluminous when cut correctly, and so this statement is not for the faint of heart. Wear these pants with a simple or form fitting shirt and try to laugh in a throaty manner while throwing your head back so quickly that you almost shatter your spinal column.

4) MILITARY-STYLE COATS

I too often feel like Omar Sharif from “Dr. Zhivago” while wearing a military coat (i.e. imposing and about to be sent to a gulag); however, in the current incarnation, the effect is completely different. The military coats of today are cut snugly and sexily and the detailing has become more couture than regimental. These coats can flatter most figures and are relatively practical for New England. This is good news for those of us who participated in the cocktail jacket trend of last fall and then permanently lost circulation to their extremities and for those of us marching against New Jersey just for fun.

5) VELVET

Velvet is exemplary of the understated sumptuousness of this fall’s fashion trends. It has been used in everything from blazers to cocktail dresses, immediately increasing the elegance and romanticism of a particular piece. Though velvet hasn’t been used this liberally since the free loving ’60s, this particular form is elegant, versatile, and fun to rub against.

­—Staff writer Rebecca M. Harrington can be reached harring@fas.harvard.edu.