Sept 29, 2006 - UCSB Fashion is a Mixed Bag

This year the dedicated staff of edhat.com was prepared. For the last two years (2004 & 2005), we have gone to UCSB at the beginning of the school year to study the fashion trend lines and the skirt hemlines. But the last two years, we haven’t found much. Both years we concluded that the trend is no trend, and the only fashionable thing is not to be fashionable.

So yesterday when the dedicated staff was on the scene at the UCSB b-seen, we were not surprised that there was no runway fashion or new-age movement. There were people wearing shorts, and cut-off skirts. There were strappy tees and big sunglasses. There were boys on iPods and girls on cell phones. There were people riding their bikes while calling home.

The brightest colors we saw were on bicycles. We saw one male student on a blue bike with matching blue pants. We saw another male student on a green bike with a green shirt. We saw one skirt that was too high, a handful of logos, and an armful of jeans.

To the delight of our fashion sensibility, we didn’t see any saggy jeans. And, we only saw one exposed belly. Also missing from view were beanies, excessive piercing, and unusually colored hair.

The person with the most outrageous fashion on campus was John Palminteri, who wore his traditional jacket and tie. He was on campus doing his annual story as well.

But three cheers for the dedicated staff! The biggest fashion trend we saw was the very item that we went there to see. If you look at all the fall styles this year, big bags are in. And at UCSB yesterday, big bags were big – both in size and popularity. In fact, as we found using the tools of our trade (tally counters), there were more bags than backpacks.

The big bags came in all shapes but only one size (big). There were messenger bags and hobo bags and good old-fashioned tote bags like our moms (we?) used to carry. There were leopard prints, and Juicy brands and UCSB logos. And they were mostly loaded down like large pieces of luggage.

Even the bicyclists without baskets were carrying big bags on their shoulders as they pedaled to and from class. It looked cumbersome as the weight of the bags pulled the strap down, trying to yank it off the shoulders. It can’t be safe. And, it makes talking on the cell phone while biking that much more difficult.

Overall, only 47% of women students who carried some kind of book carrying aid carried a backpack. Yesterday, dedicated subscriber Music Man wrote in to tell us that the DP Chargers are blue and GOLD, not blue and yellow as we reported. He also guessed 47% exactly in the contest. We just finished restocking our t-shirt supply, but we haven’t done so with hats. We hope that Music Man, a known collector of hats, will accept a t-shirt instead.

We took some pictures while we were at UCSB.

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