After seeing Yeezy look-alike slides all over campus, I decided to ask students about what they were wearing and why.

A few described articles and accessories that have been thrifted, passed along, or gifted and then restored. “This was my mother’s before, now I use it,” a student noted about the long black maxicoat he wears made from wool.

Two friends seated together in the library share styles. A necklace shined from the backdrop of a black sweater paired with a multicolored flannel jacket. “It’s actually a gold necklace that my dad got for my mom on their wedding day.”

The other friend stated interest in fast fashion, clothing designs produced fast at a low-cost readily available for consumers.

“You can’t really find a lot of cute jeans that don’t have holes, I like the holes… I’m wearing my converse. What are they called? Platform! There we go.” Smiling, “if I see a hijabi woman I know I can more than likely connect with them, go up to them and have a conversation where you know you’re going to have something in common. A couple weeks ago I was wearing these H&M kind of flare pants, and a girl stopped me, and she was like ‘I like your pants, where did you get them from?’ and it made me feel sick as hell, because I was like oh my god, someone likes my fit.”

An employee working for the college since the early 2000s informed, “it has changed. It used to go from the hair, where you would see the mohawks, and then it went to colorful hair, and now a lot of people are tattooing. For awhile I was seeing many piercings: facial, neck, whatever. Some of them are a little interesting.”

She went on, “as far as clothes– I mean in the 2000s people were wearing lingerie for shirts: camisoles. Now I am seeing more baggier clothes. More clothes are becoming unisex. When my husband was younger, he wouldn’t be caught dead in pink, red okay, but not pink.”

She said she laughed at that.

And standing together a flight of stairs away invigorated by the topic of campus fashion, two students contrasted. They asserted “in Cameroon people prepare for university,” “it’s fashion police in school.” “Here we are just wearing clothes.”

A young student fully present described herself when asked. “Right now, I’m wearing something I named ‘the feeling of comfortability,’ I believe what you wear brings a sense of energy and it also brings feelings of confidence… I sometimes put on weird stuff, to me it’s not weird. I always look for differences.”

“I believe wherever you go, whatever you put on, gives you much of an inside of who you are… What you put on is you, and how you put it on is you:” one of her last reflections.