Last Word: My Style, Restructured

I have never felt comfortable being comfortable. Or rather, dressing comfortably has never been for me.

My teenage self found salvation in curating my appearance. I always loved dressing up in costumes and playing pretend. As an anxious child with a flamboyant performative streak, these costumes allowed me to abandon my insecurities and become someone else, even for a few hours. In high school, I found that a swipe of mascara, a pair of heels and a statement jacket could do the exact same thing. Every day, I walked into school with a full face of makeup and an extra four inches added to my height, feeling more confident, beautiful, feminine and interesting than I could ever feel in yoga pants. For what felt like the first time in my life, my classmates looked at me like I mattered. My makeup and clothing were my armor, and whenever I wore them I felt invincible. The best part? I never had to take this armor off.

All of this changed when I came to college. Suddenly, I was forced to confront the realities of early mornings, late nights and the dreaded walk from Willard to Tech in a foot of snow. At first, I attempted to hang on to my high school style standbys. After confidently showing up to my first college party in dark burgundy lipstick, I quickly realized that the very same things that had once empowered me now made me feel like I was trying too hard. In a sea of college students wearing hoodies and leggings, I felt silly in heels and dresses.

My unedited self started to seep through for the first time in years, and it terrified me. Until it didn’t.

Slowly, I started to feel liberated by experimenting with this new, more comfortable style. I found that it’s way easier to dance in sneakers, and that my 9 a.m. lecture was a lot more bearable when I didn’t wake up hours in advance to carefully pick out an outfit and do my makeup. Instead, I rolled out of bed, put on comfortable clothing and trekked to class barefaced without a second thought — and still got an A.

Most importantly, I learned that my friends didn’t care when I showed up to their dorm rooms in leggings; that people would find me funny and interesting not because I was wearing platform heels and neon pink lipstick, but because I was, in fact, funny and interesting. I learned that people would still want to hang out with me when I was stressed and pimply and shoving Smartfood popcorn into my face.

I lived all of the freshman year clichés, making friends and memories and laughing and crying and getting good grades and bad grades and going to class and skipping class and staying up way too late and dancing and feeling both very old and very young at the same time. I felt comfortable in my own skin in a way that I never had before. I did all of the above in sweatshirts and leggings, and I was OK with that.

Recently, I’ve been returning to my old habits of wearing bright lipstick and statement everything. Although adopting the college student uniform of hoodies and leggings helped me let go of many insecurities, it became an armor of its own. Eventually, I found that I was sacrificing my own personal style to dress like the people around me, wearing sneakers and no makeup even on days when I wished I was in red lipstick and heels. I realized that, yes, sometimes I may look like I’m trying too hard when I go to class wearing glitter on my face, but I also feel confident and happy — not because of what I’m wearing, but because I’m wearing something I want to wear.

Despite the progress that I’ve made over the past few years, I don’t think I’ll ever feel fully dressed in leggings and a sweatshirt. But I finally feel comfortable being comfortable. Instead of leggings, I’ll wear a statement
pair of wide legged pants when I’m not in the mood for skinny jeans. I’ll wear crewneck sweatshirts when I’m worried about being cold, rather than living by the motto “beauty is pain.” I’ll wear Birkenstocks to dinner for fun.

And sometimes, once in a blue moon, on the most special of occasions, I’ll put on leggings and sneakers and a hoodie and go about my day with no makeup on. Just because I can.