My Laundry Room Anecdote
Picture Hollywood’s classic nerdy kid: glasses, a sadder social existence than their peers, and pants that are too short. Today, however, cropped pants—including flare jeans, mom jeans, or even just cuffed or rolled pants—have gained popularity. Scrolling through Instagram and Tik Tok, I always see outfit videos of styling such pants, which was why I was so surprised by a certain reaction I once received to the cropped pants that I was wearing.
As all my other jeans were in the washing machine on a laundry day, I was wearing a pair of cropped corduroy pants. Being nearly six feet tall, I tend to feel self-conscious about wearing pants that end up being too short. However, I didn’t think much of the pants I was wearing that day. As I left my dorm room to get my laundry, an acquaintance stopped me and pointed out that my pants were way too short on me. I was shocked that she had even said that to me— I like to wear clothes for my own enjoyment and not for the supposed opinions that people may pass on my outfit.
Is wearing pants that are too short considered breaking some kind of unspoken fashion standard? I had thought that wearing cropped pants had regained popularity. Does this new trend (of shorter pants) discriminate against people of different heights (and more generally, body types), and for that reason should it even be considered a trend? After reflecting on unattainable body standards set by social media, most brands now carry plus-size and petite clothing. Recently, many other brands, such as Madewell, Banana Republic, Gap, and L.L. Bean, have created pants that are considered “tall” or “extra tall,” to emphasize body inclusivity in fashion. Most of the pants in my wardrobe are straight out of the “taller” denim section at such stores.
Maybe I even over-thought that entire laundry room situation, but it really did spark an interest in what makes clothing accepted or questioned in a somewhat standardized society. While there is always an emphasis on fashion freedom, there’s also a sense of belonging that people want to feel—being called out for wearing what I thought was a cute pair of pants shifts that sense and left me feeling unsure of what I considered to be my own personal style. One common piece of advice I was always given was to “not care what others think,” or to “wear what [I] feel comfortable in.” My point is not to say that I no longer worry about what others may think of what I am wearing—I always have those moments when I compensate for the accentuated shortness of my pants with boots or high tops. What I mean to say is that not caring about that feeling of belonging is hard, as is being confident and not caring what others think.
From my time so far at Middlebury, it’s clear that there is a unique Vermont wardrobe—most students can be seen wearing some combination of Blundstones, Patagonia fleeces, North Face jackets, Carhartt apparel, Skida headwear, and Birkenstocks throughout the year. Beyond Middlebury, new trends are constantly cycling through society—what’s old becomes new again and what was considered popular today will be thrown away tomorrow. Clothing doesn’t have to be popular or from a certain brand to be worn, and beauty ideals should be comfortable and self-imposed, not influenced by others.
