You know when you see something once, and suddenly you notice it everywhere? I first gained my awareness of bag culture across campus after I was singled out for my backpack usage by all of my female classmates. My classmates thought that backpacks, while practical, “weren’t feminine enough” for a girl to use. They even conflated their tote bag usage with their female college student identities. Suddenly thereafter, I noticed the plethora of bags: the classic backpack, the hiking bag that could probably withstand a bullet, the curious rolling backpack, knapsacks that take stylistic inspiration from the times of the Constitutional Convention and of course, the minimalistic, quintessential tote bag. But within this awakening, I realized that the supposedly mandatory tote bags that these girls were wearing weren’t just any tote bags; rather, they were silent status markers — Louis Vuitton, Goyard and YSL plague our classrooms, even beyond the bags that students tote.
Since moving to Claremont, I’ve had a total aesthetic culture shock, especially after visiting other Southern California schools and realizing that the pressure surrounding appearances is more intense here. Everyone here is truly gorgeous, and I feel a constant pressure to go out and look put together at all times, because it seems like most 5C students look good no matter where they’re going, what they’re doing or what the weather is. I stepped into environments way bigger and supposedly more intimidating like UCLA, UC Berkeley and UCSD, yet I felt less pressure to perform — people weren’t making a big deal about the brands you sported or the effort you put behind your look. While it’s impossible to make the generalization that every single student at UCLA doesn’t care about their appearance, I felt like it was okay that I looked far from a fall downtown indie-baddie girl.
Here, I feel like I can’t wear the same thing every single day no matter how badly I want to, because I know I will go outside and get mogged by 7,000 undergraduates. And not only is there a pressure to look good, but “looking good” is dangerously associated with wealth at the 5Cs, where students from a broad spectrum of family incomes coexist. Whereas at the UCs I visited, people weren’t glued to their Louis Vuitton, and the amount of girls wearing backpacks suggested to me that the debate on the femininity encapsulated in the backpack versus tote bag discourse wasn’t even relevant.
The 5Cs seem to view looking good as a prerequisite for feeling good, and I believe that students should form a more personal relationship with their fashion, and prioritize comfort over the designer, Los Angeles beauty standard that pervades our campuses.
It’s difficult to get through a week of classes, but it’s even more difficult to be expected to show up to class everyday in the most uncomfortably cute outfit, especially in a classroom that’s 40 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s a unique experience to be a full-time college student with tons of responsibilities and also feel pressure to stay on top of my health and maintain an outward appearance of success and wellness. I know that tote bags, designer basics and perfect makeup doesn’t reflect real wellness, but I still feel the pull to join in on this no matter how exhausted I am. I fear that I’ll be seen as someone who isn’t executing the perfect feminine performance, complete with an Owala for each day of the week and the full Summer Friday’s lip balm collection.
I’ve had people from classes make comments that bring my sub-par appearance to my attention, most of the time in the disguise of “You look really different today. Did you not sleep much?” The LA-based, perfectly hydrated, tan, skinny, rich girl mold is impossible to escape. Even though we don’t live in the heart of LA, its influence has certainly reached inland and settled into the 5C fashion culture.
I know the girls who are able to turn a $10 thrift outfit into a Pinterest masterpiece also exist here at the colleges, and they’re proof that designer isn’t necessarily the only thing that looks good. However, even that style comes with its own pressures that are less about the price tag, and more about an expectation to invest time and energy into looking effortlessly perfect. No matter where I look, designer or thrift, I’m still being asked to fit into some sort of carefully curated feminine aesthetic in order to fit in on this campus.
It’s insane to me that even something as insignificant as a school bag — which was made to hold as much of my stuff as possible — is being turned into a status marker for wealth, good taste and femininity. In a place where education is my highest priority, I shouldn’t feel like looking good is a prerequisite for my success, especially when this pressure combines looking good with looking rich, and there shouldn’t be any “ground rules” to looking more feminine.
Wealth isn’t the key to beauty or style, and that can be hard to recognize when we’re constantly surrounded by people who casually have thousand-dollar white T-shirts. But succeeding in a college environment starts with practicality and comfortability. In the end, choosing what’s best for you — backpack or tote bag— is the first step towards an authentic sense of confidence which, in the long run, will reflect on your life and wellness as a student. There’s nothing wrong with looking like a baddie and putting effort into your appearance. But, always put your comfortability first and prioritize what feels right for you above everything else. I promise, you will definitely still look like a baddie in Crocs and sweatpants.
Ansley Kang SC ’29 has 12 keychains on her backpack. Is that feminine enough, or should she opt for 14?