The eventual finding that emerged from our research is that the similarities between the 80s and the present far outweighed the differences. One place campus fashion is publicly tracked is the school newspaper: The Alabamian. We used articles from The Alabamian to supplement our observations about what a Montevallo student in 2018 looks like. With this, we were able to compare past to present. Of course, our argument is not that everything looks the same now as it did in the 1980s (though enough does to be noticed). It is easy to say that we saw two plaid shirts and said everything was the same. But that is not what we are saying. Plaid was a standby then as it is now, the fact that that same pattern has stayed shows something much larger. It goes deeper than the exact fabric people are wearing, to the reason they wear that fabric. Outfits are only the tip of the iceberg. The decision process that goes into how one dresses is far more significant. But one way to look at that decision process is to look at outfits. The way people dress says a lot about them. And it looks like Montevallo students have been saying the same things for a long time.
Just like in the 1980s, student love large comfy sweaters. Something seemingly simple fashion-wise, like a sweater, can still reveal a lot about a person. Sweaters are warm- good for cold weather and cold classrooms. They can have personality through texture, size, and color. One of the reoccurring themes we came across was, in fact, comfort. It is not shocking that college students want to be comfortable. There seem to be two ways to accomplish this: either anti-fashion as we will see shortly, or finding easy to wear items that still express personality.
As our interviewee Susan Lee mentioned, one of the trends in the 80s, to the annoyance of some, was wearing pajamas to class. This same vein of thought continues today, with “Lazy Fashion.” Even this apparent anti-fashion is actually fashion. While fashion is commonly associated with following trends, leaders, and standards, fashion is what people choose to wear. Choosing to be dressed down makes a fashion statement. This statement may have more to do with time- 8 AM classes are hard to get to sometimes. Or it could be a rejection of norms by choosing comfort over professionalism. The example of comfortable fashion shown here is a throwback to the Class of 1985 and their anti-fashion. Going back to the decision-making process, lazy, anti, or comfortable fashion shows a students sense of control and autonomy over their wardrobe.
After looking through ten years of photos, instead of finding a lot of things that were different, we found a lot of things that were the same. People expressed their personality and their priorities in their clothing then as they do now. Jeans, plaid, and sweatpants are still all the rage on campus. People also step outside of gendered expectations for fashion. Montevallo student wear what they want to wear, and care little about norms and standards for dress.
All things considered, it really is striking how fashion at Montevallo has remained colorful, casual, and comfortable. Either time has gone backward or stopped here in the center of Alabama. A student in jeans and a plaid shirt from 1988 is hardly distinguishable from a 2018 student in jeans and a plaid shirt. There must be a reason for that.
Many things about Montevallo itself have stayed the same. For one, it is a small college town. Even though it has been over thirty years, people are still coming here to do the same thing, study and earn a liberal arts degree. Montevallo also has its own special culture that has stayed consistent over the years and cannot really be quantified or explained. College Night is a big part of this. After all, not every school has competitive musical theater. Or it might be the ghosts that haunt Main Hall, or the bricks everywhere. Whatever it is, it makes Montevallo special. But at the end of the day, it is a college campus, and much of the daily activities are the same: going to class, hanging out with friends, Student Government and Greek Life events, and late nights studying.
In conclusion, our research that started out on the idea of the wild 80s became more of a study of our school’s very human fashion. We discovered real people, doing everyday things in the clothes they wanted to wear. The archival resources we found, pictures and people, revealed a series of trends that spanned decades at our school. Montevallo is a place where college students feel comfortable just being comfortable, but also wearing what they want.
(1.) “The Alabamian.” Issuu. Accessed April 05, 2018. https://issuu.com/theumalabamian.
(2.) “What Will You Become?” The University of Montevallo. Accessed April 05, 2018. https://www.montevallo.edu/.
Image Citations
(1.) Dickinson, Lily and Orcutt, Sam. “Fashion on the Bricks: Fall Refashioned.” The Alabamian. Vol. 91, No. 6. November 9, 2016. https://issuu.com/theumalabamian/docs/vol_91_issue_6.
(2.) Dickinson, Lily, and Sanderson, Maggie. “Fashion on the Bricks: Lazy Fashion.” The Alabamian. October 6, 2017. Vol. 92, No. 3.
(3.) Dickinson, Lily and Orcutt, Sam. “Fashion on the Bricks: The Plaid Fad.” The Alabamian. Vol. 91, No. 3. September 28, 2016. https://issuu.com/theumalabamian/docs/vol_91_issue_3.