Return to academia wardrobe

[AskZoltar]

Hello all! Long time lurker on the S&B board and regular name changer. I'm returning to university as a mature student and am likely to be one of the oldest on the course. Previously I've reverted to my usuals of tshirt, skinny jeans and jacket but I'm a bit bored of that. Want to look edgy but as it's a professional qualification, want to reflect that in my wardrobe too.

Any suggestions? I'm a size 16 with a nice c-section pot belly which I'm working on ditching but which will, alas, still be in residence the first week of term. 😂

I don't have much of a budget but if it's amazing I'm happy to stretch for something that'll serve me long term.

Any suggestions welcome!

Everyone else will be in jeans and tshirts, hopefully slightly smarter jeans and tshirts rather than grungy student ones if it's a professional course.

Don't sweat, you're over thinking it. Go neutral/bland the first week then make your own mind up. If you try to look edgy without it being natural, it's going to be obvious and you're going to look try hard.

@StamppotAndGravy Thank you, I am almost certainly overthinking it! Good advice on the neutrals.

On my MA I was the oldest by a good quarter of a century …

You really don’t want to look ‘edgy’. (Unless that’s already you; in which case you wouldn’t think it was edgy.) You want to look like a grown up studying a professional qualification. In other words, a slightly better defined version of yourself.

Hold fire … If it’s full time you probably will need many more clothes than you anticipate. But - if you’re lucky you’ll find the course so strenuous and stressful that you’ll drop a couple of dress sizes in the first six weeks - and can then run into T K Maxx and spend what remains of your loan on clothes you could never have fitted into before. (Not that I did that. At All.)

Haha, my loan went on stress muffins so none left over to buy up a size when needed

Things that occur to me:

1. Get a really decent rucksack / backpack that you’ll enjoy using. (Particularly important if you’ll have long days or are not allocated a locker.) Definitely worth spending money on (or receiving as a gift) so you don’t develop backache next spring, just as you need to be throwing yourself into your dissertation / portfolio / whatever.

2. Comfortable footwear. And the right thing for whatever the weather does. There’s nothing edgy about cold, wet feet, or having to spend a week shivering in bed when you should be working on a project.

3. It’s worth investing in two or three particularly fine items that might become part of your signature look. Very easy coming into autumn too, as there are so many lovely accessories to choose from. Then the rest of your clothes can be perfectly ordinary but you’ll still look individual and memorable. Obviously it depends on your own tastes but I’m thinking of things from places like:

Jo Gordon
La Fetiche

Or a fabulous pice of knitwear from somewhere like:

The Outnet (discount)
Vestiaire (pre-owned)

I think this thread might be interesting to you @AskZoltar

here

Or I might have completely misunderstood!

Your link is broken, @IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads?

BTW, @AskZoltar - I hope you’ve found your way to the Mature Study and Retraining board?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/mature_students

It may provide useful insights on your subject, or more generally.

Thank you all for the tips and links so far, much good advice! I realise the word edgy was probably a misdirection - I guess I want to look like my A-Level English teacher late 1990s. She had spiky red hair and talked about all the sex in John Donne's poetry. 😂

Agree re footwear, I love a lace-up boot and was eyeing up some DMs but am also mindful that the quality has dropped a lot over the years. Also love a brogue but I seem to have the wrong sort of feet for them, as they always rub my heels raw.

Backpacks - been looking at Nordace via Vinted, thanks to another S&B thread.

@InTheBleakMidsummer Not there yet, but will make my way there shortly! This isn't my first rodeo postgrad learning wise, but this is definitely the most daunted I've felt, so I'd definitely appreciate some community support. Thank you!

@IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads Thank you for this, I can see my Vinted being red-hot over the next few weeks! 😂