The Death of the White T-Shirt: A Look into Northwestern Fashion Culture
A few days ago, when deciding what to wear in the morning, it occurred to me that I had not bought at least half of the t-shirts in my drawer.
As a male teenager, I think I speak for many of my peers when I say tees just appear in my closet. Long after camps, events and group activities have ended, I am left with what I call “noisy” tees. Noisy tees are those with lettering on them promoting brands or groups . Examples range from a Vineyard Vines long sleeve to a shirt advertising your local bowling alley to the exceedingly common purple pride shirts. I use the verb advertising because that is all they are – advertisements.
In my opinion, noisy tees are downright ugly. To understand why, simply replace the shirt’s lettering, or “noise,” with gibberish, and you will quickly see that these shirts represent no design or pattern whatsoever.
I am not the fashion police, and I certainly think people should wear whatever they want; however, I cannot make sense of why it is considered trashy to drive a car with ads on it, yet no one bats an eye at the great big walking advertisement that society has become as a collective.
From what I have seen, Northwestern’s North Campus is especially guilty of this. If you are anything thing like me, arriving to North Campus was a (semi-expected) culture shock. After a month at Northwestern, I can definitely say North Campus’s male fashion is the “noisiest” I have ever seen. Saturday mornings at Sargent Dining Hall give insight to how a purple pride x Patagonia collaboration could take shape.
Here are some theories as to why North Campus may feel like a marketing fair:
1. North campus is where most freshman live, and freshman are showered with college gear.
College tours, Wildcat Welcome and relatives’ hand-me-downs create a great big cacophony of fashion “noise”, with nearly all this gear consisting of aggressively unoriginal bold lettering on the shirt of the university’s name. I see how maybe purple pride could, in a convoluted way, be considered fashionable, but I struggle to understand why I see dozens of Harvard and Yale shirts daily.
2. White tees, colored tees, and patterned tees have been thrown to the wayside for Patagonia and Vineyard Vines.
The average male’s default shirt where I’m from has always been some version of a t-shirt – or for the more artsy, a thrifted polo shirt. This is where North Campus really sets itself apart. Branded tees are North Campus’s version of a white tee. When I asked three separate Vineyard Vines donning Bobb residents why they wore that as opposed to a white t-shirt, I received the same answer three times: it was what all the other boys wore at their prep schools.
Whether or not my theories are true, the fact of the matter remains: North Campus is “noisy”. If you want to change the culture, I suggest some white tees. Often conflated with “normcore,” white tees are generally thought of as anti-fashion. In this case, however, no pattern is just more stylish than an ugly pattern.
Sometimes silence sends just as strong of a message.
