The Politics of Dress Sense?

I think something is wrong with me. There's a type of (usually) white person that drives me insane. I don't altogether know why. This 'type' is perhaps best summarised as the sort of people who tend to be Drama students my age. I say 'white person,' but that is purely by-the-by. The fact of their being white may simply arise from the fact that my university is a Muslim hub - and hence virtually everyone studying an Arts subject seems to be white.

When I say my university is a Muslim hub, I mean it. Let the words be taken at face value, with no extra layers of prejudice or analysis. It is filled with girls wearing hijabs - a garment so expressive of a certain attitude (particularly towards faith) that even having a sports commentator strapped to one's skull could not compete. There are also a few guys with the little prayer-caps (sorry, I don't know what they're called) and the large beards. Need I characterise the mindset that accompanies such an overt expression of faith? - I think not. Suffice it to say that girls draped chin-to-ankle in carefully concealing fabric are REALLY unlikely to be doing Drama - a subject that requires costume changes, flexibility of appearance and even nudity.

No, (not unlike many South Asians...) most of these girls and boys will be studying things like Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences. Chances are that if they're in Languages, they plan on teaching afterwards. In a lot of cases, it's not really their fault - they'd have to fight big-time in order to diverge. Much as I did. So when I see the sort of university sweatshirt and Ugg-boot-wearing blonde-haired guffawing girls (or their tight-jean and striped-cardigan-sporting male equivalent), a powerful and irrational dislike fills my heart.

I think it is their uniformity that annoys me. That universal uniform of the undeservedly comfortable. Ugg boots don't come cheap, and neither does make-up, good-quality or no (I don't even want to think about how much MAC, beloved of two of my mates and probably more people, costs on a regular basis). It is a uniform of aspiration, based on aping people like fucking Alexa Chung and Sloane Ranger-type girls. It is a uniform that says: 'I don't have to worry about getting a real job, because I am white and middle-class, and ultimately I rule this country.' A sense of entitlement radiates from the whole bloody thing.

I hate tribalism, and seeing it signalled in a common 'uniform' makes me uneasy. I feel similarly oppressed around 'typical Asians' - girls with their love of black, tiny-skinny bodies and coloured contact lenses, guys with their oh-so-enterprising minor designer/sportswear brand-blending and gelled-porcupine heads. The way you dress is a statement, I suppose. Some people balk at 'chavvy' sportswear, gold hoop earrings and Burberry sportswear - well, I balk at the cut-off denim minis with black footless tights! I balk at the 'ethnic' scarves and the proliferation of black, brown, denim and if you're lucky, monochrome!

For me, it represents the ugly delusion of the youth of today. Here are all these girls and boys who (to me), are emblematic of an increasingly apathetic and anti-intellectual society. Why do you keep blindly taking what the celebrities, celebrity-worshipping sites, shops and magazines dole out to you? Why in the fuck do you want to look like the ever-vacuous Peaches Geldof? Why don't you descend on the shops and ask them why they keep making clothes for the likes of Agyness Deyn and Alice Dellal? There are plenty of boys and girls - white and non-white - who don't fit the fashionable norm, and instead of trying to bridge reality a little, Fashion simply pounces upon girls like Jourdan Dunn, who, although beautiful, still represent Europeanised ideas of beauty and the ideal shape.

Why on Earth am I getting so worked up over what people wear? - because it matters! In a heavily-mediatised, visually-obsessed age such as is ours, it MATTERS more than ever! Perhaps because the speed of change is so great these days, that young people dress safer and more formal because they start having to 'grow up' sooner. Or maybe they can't be bothered to rebel. Maybe I sound like a fashion-fascist, but I think it's a shame. Why? Your youth is supposed to be a time of experimentation and craziness! Maybe it is simply a sign of the times; maybe people are so sick of gnawing upon their future prospects amid The Impending End of The World (aka the never-ending financial crisis) that risk is (and has been) dying out in the search for stability...

Or maybe the amount of introspection, analysis and obsessive-symbol-seeking of my degree is driving me insane, and I need to get a life?

I will probably post some related thing at some point soon, trying to explain a bit more why I feel this way. In the meantime, I will let VICE sum it up for me (replacing 'New York' with 'London', of course).