How fashion saved me

Fashion isn't often credited for being inclusive or helping people to get through however it helped me significantly. It saved me almost.People often see it as a way of defining people and not them to be shallow, the fashion set are looked on as cool and as royalty to people like me but to some outsiders, they seem ridiculous and far too absorbed in a material world. I however found it to be a saving grace. In secondary school, there are many things that you can be judged on and it seems that there is nothing more important than the opinions of your peers. Fashion was a world I could escape to because my actual world wasn't too great, the glamour and the notion of knowing that somewhere designers were planning what would be worn by many next season and replicated a thousand times over on the high street. When I sat alone in maths class and people were whispering about me, I could block it out by figuring out what I was going to buy for the upcoming season and doing sums of my own.e.g. pinafore dress + checked shirt +long pearl necklace + patterned tights = the perfect nod to the punk trend. This helped me get through numerous maths lessons which were traumatic for me because people would whisper about me, the teacher couldn't control the class and I wasn't particularly interested in the significance of ridiculous number that starts 3.1415 (from my memory, it could be wrong). I used to buy a lot of magazines (Look, Elle, Vogue, Glamour, Grazia) and they would help me to focus on something else, a world that I one day had a hope of being in. People accuse fashion of being taken too seriously but I enjoyed that there was tragedy, controversy, art, creativity and so much more in the fashion world. It can laugh at itself, Anna Wintour is extremely respected in the fashion world but ridiculed by some of the outside. I felt that it was ok that I was bullied because one day I could be included in something bigger and it wouldn't matter what people at school were saying.

People also always seemed to see me differently on non- school uniform days when I was in clothes that were normal and fashionable and actually complimented me on these days which I found amazing. The day that I started being seen differently by my peers was on the day of a Geography field day trip where we were allowed to wear our own clothes. I'd made a normal amount of effort and hadn't put on anything extra special, just some black, skinny jeans, pumps, a tightish t-shirt and a leather jacket but everyone seemed to see me differently that day. The boys said I was fit and the girls loved what I was wearing, I was still the same person but dressed differently. It made me stand out and be included all at the same time and I'm forever grateful for that.

Fashion gave me a sense of being and I recently started writing fashion articles for the university magazine which has given me even more confidence.

You should try and find something that allows you an escape and make you feel like you can do something worthwhile whether you're feeling low or being bullied, it's important to find.

Rivalry (University)

I have been a university student for just over a year now and while I love my university and my enjoy my time here immensely, one of the things that bugs me is the rivalry between us and the other university in the city.

I write this in the wake of having heard a few too many stories in the aftermath of Freshers' Week of people from the other university starting on students from ours. It is probably fair to say that our students have been doing the same to some of their's too however the point is, that it is not acceptable under any condition to shout abuse at one another in the street just because you belong to a different educational institution. 

A point that I would like to consider is that we are all here to get a degree, we will probably be fighting for the same job at a point in our life, why are we starting it early? We are all intelligent and have got to university because of the hard work we have done in the past, for it to be insinuated that some of us care less about our courses or are poorer than those who attend one that is higher in the league table is just abominable. This is not the 1800s, class should no longer be an issue or a disadvantage to the opportunities we have in life and cruelly taunting people that it may really touches a nerve. 

I'd also love to point out to the boys of the city that using the chat up line, 'oh we can't be friends because you go to the other uni so we can only shag instead' is not a compliment, nor going to get you in to bed. Nor is 'oh you look too clever to go there', you are insulting me, my intelligence and my university which I (shockingly) do not take kindly to. I know the majority of people use this half halfheartedly and would never insist on taking it seriously however lately, it has become apparent that some do. The shock when we met some guys in a queue from the another university the other night and they asked if we had made any friends from their uni since being here and I told them my boyfriend had gone there was met with shock and congratulations (to my boyfriend, not me, which I can only assume is a boy thing trying to pull someone from the other uni?!)

I understand that university rivalries are usually started to keep a healthy competition between sports teams and this is fine however it seems that it has spread dramatically to all parts of university life from meeting people on nights out to societies to local organisations holding events pitting one university against another. The chanting and rivalry during the Varsity season is fine as it is a way to celebrate the sports and passion for your university but for the rest of the year, we should be able to go without making insults at one another.

I know that many people do it just for the laughs and that is fine but it seems to be becoming more of an issue and it seems to have gotten a bit more seriously lately. 90% of people see it as a laugh and think nothing of it but anybody taking it seriously needs a good talking to.

However, just because somebody happens to be wearing a t shirt or hoodie with the other university's name on it is not an excuse to shout abuse at them, or insult them. That is a form of bullying and unacceptable by all means. It is wise to remember that sometimes people pick a university because they like the city and put both universities down, one as a firm and one as insurance, which means that had things gone a little differently, you could have ended up being friends.

Ideally, I'd like to see a bigger collaboration between he two universities and although they do happily advertise events the other puts on and collaborate on events together, I would like to see this be rolled out in to societies and all parts of the universities and their students' unions as we are all students trying to live in one city together alongside each other.