Christian Values The panther, the student and the wardrobe

Author: Christian Morel

It is March, everyone, and we have finally woken up from our J-term hibernation and will soon engage in the Middlebury work rut. We will regain our seven-day routine of a Sunday-to-Thursday workload with a Friday-to-Saturday fiesta on the side. As we all know, this routine can be boring, and boredom is a feeling we Midd-kids can do without. It is time to add some flavor to our weekly routine, and there is nothing more mouth-watering than fashion.

In order to add some flavor, we must first collect the perfect ingredients. The best place to look for spice is in the wardrobe. The wardrobe provides a roadmap of purchases we have made according to our fashion sense. Each article of clothing can tell a story of our past shopping experiences. We will revisit the times when we gasped at the sight of the last outstanding blouse or shirt in stock or when we bought those shoes that a friend, who thinks he is the editor-in-chief of Vogue, said would be a waste of a credit card swipe. I like to consider our wardrobes as personal dictionaries that contain our fashion vocabulary. With this vocabulary, we can articulate our creativity and present it to society. Every article of clothing holds a purpose. However, only through experimentation can we find the purpose of each item.

As we search through our wardrobe, we will first find the clothing we consistently wear in a bi-weekly period. After we become familiar with our bi-weekly apparel, it will then be time to find the forgotten clothing. The forgotten clothing refers to those items that have not been worn for months or years but for some reason have not been donated to the Salvation Army. It would be wise to take stock of each article of clothing. How can one engage in battle without first checking one's arsenal?

At this point, many of you may ask how I intend to spice up your life with a trip to the closet. It is actually quite simple. By familiarizing ourselves with our wardrobe, we now have the choice of making a stylistic change. This change can add a much-needed distraction from the insanity this campus has to offer and can scare away that bad ol' boredom. As we implement a new stylistic choice into our fashion vocabulary, we can add some much-needed excitement to our week.

Now that the lecture is over, I will assign your next homework assignment. I would like you to scan your closets and collect the forgotten clothing. This can be a shirt that you have not worn in months or those shoes that your friend dislikes. Then discover a way to reintroduce it into your bi-weekly apparel. When an article of clothing has yet to find its place in the jigsaw puzzle that is your wardrobe, it must be allowed to present itself to the world. Perhaps this Friday night you will construct an amazing outfit that will cause you to almost outshine everyone else, yet there is one thing missing. Instead of giving up and starting over, refer to the pile of forgotten clothing. You never know what you will find. Have fun in the closet, Midd-kids. Dress you later.