Almost every youngster tends to follow, one way or the other, the fashion of the moment. The world of fashion remains always in a flux and youngsters generally and students particularly do not want to be left behind. And the university students in the federal capital are of course no exception.
Keeping an eye on the latest fashion trends, the campuses today have become a ramp, where every boy and girl is seen in chic dresses adorned with other matching accessories.
Many students from the lower-middle class, however, find it hard to keep pace with this ever-rising tide of fashion. And uniform for such students is a blessing in disguise, as it can cover their modest origins.
Most of the students at the city campuses, nowadays, are into the whole cell phone/ straight-hair poodle styles. It was pretty hard to imagine, just a decade ago, that the new generation would be so fashion conscious.
Now almost each student and his or her group have their unique styles on the varsity campus. Right from of colours and brands of their dresses and cell phones to the types of their hair spikes they prefer. And the girls go to great lengths to match their dressing with their bags; the pouches inside their bags, earrings, cell phones, contact lens, and the shoulder bag they carry for their notebooks and this list of preferences goes on.
Extremities aside, the campus fashion nowadays swings both ways—for men and women craving for that urban look—while holding on to their own traditional roots.
The campus boys are also going chic these days, with spiky hairs, shabby denims and snickers are most popular among them.
But on a typical day with classes scheduled back-to-back, the boys are seen wearing t-shirts and pullovers with a contrasting shirt on top. The body piercing nowadays has become the hallmark of one’s metro urban outlook.
Even though the tattoos are considered a taboo in most of the middle class households, still quite a number of students are seen tattooed arms. Should the universities have a dress code? “Not at all!”— was the prompt reply of a student from the International Islamic University Islamabad, when asked.
“The educational institutions are created to inspire students to express themselves as individuals,” he said.
This scribe asked various academicians and students of various co-ed universities about the pros and cons of having a uniform dress code on the campus. Majority of them said “no”. They said there should not be any dress code for the university students.
“At any university, every student is mature and grown up. The dressing does not make a person to learn more. It gives student, his or her individuality and if that is taken away, what could be more disastrous for his or her personality,” a student said.
“On a university campus, there should also be a dress code like that of schools or colleges because many boys can be seen passing vulgar remarks whenever they see girls clad in body-hugging t-shirts and wearing chooridar pajama or tight jeans with sleeveless shirts”, said a conservative student.
A Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) student complained that she had a confrontation with her male seniors who wanted her to wear a ‘particular’ outfit on the orientation day and she despised that dressing.
Another female student, while promptly shunning her fellow’s view said that it was the call of the day that students should wear what they wanted.
“Our core objective is to study and not what we wear while we are on the campus,” she added.
“It is true that young people are quick to follow anything happening around them. The university students are very quick to adopt anything they consider fashionable. By fashion, I mean to refer to areas such as sense of apparel, taste in music, language, hairstyles, beverages and even moral values”, said Salman Wazir, a student of M A English at the NUML.
An IIUI female student, clad in abaya, opined that fashion was something “contagious and it could spread among youth like a wildfire”. “Not every fashion from the West should be aped or rejected blindly,” she added.
Another girl of the same university, wearing jeans with abaya, said, “This is what I prefer. I like to support abaya while at the same time I’m more comfortable in snickers and jeans. So I just blended the both and look the way I want to look. Nice, isn’t it?
A faculty member of the QAU said, “It the process of learning and teaching that should always continue, no matter what attire the students prefer.”
Dr Nadia, a psychologist who also designs female dresses, said that for people in the fashion business, the easy way to invade a market was to your target the youth.
