UVA Fashion Through the Ages
Students can wear what they like to class today, but that wasn’t always the case.
For much of the University’s history, the majority-male student body wore suits and ties to class. That was the standard into the ’60s and early ’70s. The more formal style of dress was so common that a civil rights protest at the Rotunda in 1969 came to be known as the “Coat and Tie Rebellion.”
In the ’70s, dress codes relaxed and students began ditching the jackets and ties for jeans, especially as more women arrived on Grounds once UVA became fully coeducational. Some vestiges of the dress code remained, like the tradition of dressing fancy for football games, a holdover from when the male student body only saw women once a week.
That changed in 2003, when now-former head football coach Al Groh took over. Groh encouraged fans in the stands to dress more casually, saying he wanted a “sea of orange” in the crowd.
Hoo Are You Wearing Today?
While students today tend toward more everyday styles, they still dress to impress.
“Especially at the beginning of the year, I tend to dress up a little more,” said Ryan Lynch, a rising fourth-year student and co-president of CRAVE, a student organization that puts on a yearly fashion show to raise money for the Boys and Girls Club of Charlottesville.
For Lynch, that often means donning a skirt and a UVA T-shirt. As the daughter of two UVA alumni, she has plenty of UVA gear in her closet.
Abigail Gruener, a rising fourth-year, said she has a “uniform” for days she’s in class.
“I’m one to just wear jeans and a white shirt every single day,” said Gruener, who is co-president of the clothing exchange organization SWAP. Her closet is full of different variations of both items in different silhouettes and materials.
Plenty of students dress in more casual, comfortable clothes: athletic wear and sneakers, for example.
“There are days where you might not be able to dress up, when you have a ton of exams or too many classes in one day,” Lynch said. “Bring matching sets so you still feel put together.”
Chris Domingos, SWAP’s fashion chair, said what students wear varies vastly depending on what part of Grounds you’re on.
“On Central Grounds, everyone’s just trying to be comfy,” Domingos said. “On Arts Grounds, you have a higher chance of seeing some bright-colored clothes, something unique and eccentric.”
If you’re trying to stay ahead of trends, the three students predicted that animal print will be everywhere this fall, as well as different indoor soccer shoes now that Adidas Sambas are ubiquitous.
What clothes you should bring to Grounds depends on your needs and personal style, but Domingos and Lynch advised bringing some business casual clothes.
“If you have an interview or if you’re meeting with a professor, it’s nice to have some trousers and a blouse. There’s a lot of new, really great business clothes that are a lot more youthful,” Lynch said.
“For dudes, I’d say bring a suit and tie, because there’s a decent chance you go to a formal or a semi-formal,” Domingos said.
Students may also want to pack workout clothes, a swimsuit, a good pair of jeans and shoes that are comfortable to walk in all day. You can’t go wrong with UVA gear, either.
Most importantly, have fun with what you wear, Domingos said.
“It doesn’t really matter what you wear like that. Just try to find yourself.”
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