The Problem with College Fashion: Or why skinny jeans can go to hell.

In high school, I spent most of my time in office appropriate clothing, since I went to work at the public library immediately after school every day. College was a huge shock, and I went a little overboard in rebelling against the button up/dress pants/sensible shoes wardrobe I had to wear so much of high school.

Hello, t-shirts. Hello, jeans. Hello, Converses (because flip flops are a fail moment for any member of a marching band).

Of course, the freshman fifteen didn't help my fashion- neither did the other fifteen on top of that. I mainly stuck to t-shirts, baggy jeans, and bandanas my freshman year.

And then I bought the skinny jeans.

Skinny jeans are one of those tiny failures in fashion, for me at least. When I saw skinny jeans, I wanted to look like a skinny little emo boy:



Instead, I look like J. Lo's ass and thighs came to inhabit a grungy college boy's body. I don't know where this ass came from; no one else in my family is so gifted. The thighs?A result of stress-related eating binges.

So no skinny jeans for me. It's something I don't think about, a lot of the time when it comes to passing. Breasts and hair are always my main concern with dressing as a guy- flattening the breasts, hiding the hair. Fortunately, I spend most of the school year in baggy jeans and jackets which help conceal the whole hourglass effect.

In summer, my hips have nowhere to hide. And that's the problem with unisex fashions such as skinny jeans. I would like to look androgynous, but to do that I feel as if I have to dress extra-masculine to cover up obvious female characteristics. I wear sweater vests, loose shirts, and I can pull off looking dressed up and male- but t-shirts and jeans, which are my most comfortable choice, just make me look like a lazy college student.

It's a matter of body dysphoria, I guess, because in my mind I feel like I should still be skinny as I was for that brief, unhealthy time. I see men in AP and Rolling Stone and I want to be thin. To be the waifish-looking musician in an oversized flannel shirt. I admit, normal women have a lot to live up to when compared to their size 0 fashion counterparts. But don't men as well?

Maybe, maybe you could argue that men don't care as much about their appearance, don't study it and how it compares with the media around them (though I doubt it). I guarantee transmen do though, because they're learning through comparison, what parts of their bodies and poses are passable, and what parts- like breasts, like hips, like babyfaces- are not. Passing as a man becomes a test, a study, and we don't have the proper shape/parts to begin with.

So now, the skinny jeans rest in the back of my closet, eagerly awaiting the day that I lose enough weight to have legs that aren't the fine curved gams I've got now.