Things You Should Stop Wearing Now You're a Graduate

Wearing disco pants when you're an unemployed adult is not okay.

by Bertie Brandes

May 17, 2013, 2:31pm

Photo by Rory Mills.

It’s May, you wrote your dissertation with (a lot) of help from JSTOR (how many references are too many references?), you made it through the endlessly Instagrammable 20-hour library sessions and you’ve convinced yourself that, because you crammed nine semesters of work into three weeks, you deserve the educational trophy of a useless degree. Congratulations, you’re a graduate. It all goes uphill from here – you’ll be fighting off the job offers and invites to members clubs before the week is up, believe me. However, there are some sacrifices you’ll have to make now that the council won’t cut you a break on your taxes. Don't worry, they're just aesthetic sacrifices – you don't have to give up having a fun, fulfilling life for another few years – because now you're an adult and you don’t live in a “student hub”, dressing like Macklemore after a Salvation Army raid isn’t going to garner you any respect. To help you out, I’ve compiled a list of things you really need to stop wearing now that you’re a graduate. I’m not kidding around. I’m deadly fucking serious. Stop.

FJALLRAVEN BACKPACKS

These used to be the bag of choice for young, good-looking graphic designers with stupidly attractive Swedish girl/boyfriends and a habit of showering at least three times a day. Then a fine art student in Peckham realised they came in black and only cost £40 and suddenly the Fjallraven backpack became the uniform carry-all for portfolios, grinders and weed print socks city-wide. They are the Jansport of higher education, with less tippex and more loose rolling tabacco. Throw it away unless you are Drew Barrymore trying to get kissed; no-one will hire you.

DISCO PANTS

I know they make your ass look phenomenal, but this madness needs to stop. Whoever came up with the concept of metallic, high-waisted, skin-tight jeggings woven from pure static electricity clearly wasn't thinking about the 23-year-old job seekers of the world. These only work if your body is so bendy and teenage that you still look good gurning at an SU Bar, kneeling in vomit, trying to eat a lipstick. On a sober adult they are, unfortunately, the sartorial equivalent of FOMO. BERETS

Slap Her… She’s French was a great movie, and Madeleine was a style icon for us all. But wearing a beret once you are no longer a higher education prick makes you look like an off-duty “sandwich artist”, a Spanish supply teacher or someone who goes to festivals purely for the “acrobatic art theatrics” and “bibliotherapy”. LEATHER SATCHEL BAGS

Okay, I know we’ve already ruled out one form of bag and you need somewhere to keep your CVs, but leatherwear is a whole different ball game. Everybody knows that the only time wearing an across-the-body charity shop leather bag is necessary is when you’re planning on getting so pilled up that the prospect of keeping a bag on one shoulder alone is as daunting as the thought of traipsing round Camden Lock with your dad and his weird stepchildren on a comedown.

Now that you are no longer able to leave the house stinking of snakebite without getting your ass fired, you are equally not able to laud your drug use so brazenly in the face of your peers and employers as to wear a leather handbag. Sorry, you’ll have to find somewhere else to store your loose gum and mini hairbrush.

SUSPENDER TIGHTS

These are tights, with suspenders, printed on. You’re not 17 and you don’t need to be frightened of engaging with your sexuality; if you want to go out wearing suspenders, man the fuck up and do it. There’s nothing worse than half-arsing something, and considering you just half-arsed the last three years of your life, it’s time to do yourself a favour and commit, FFS. CHILDREN’S CLOTHES

Hopefully you’ve realised by now that there’s a subtle difference between dressing as an individual and picking up the first thing you see in a charity shop that has Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on it. Unfortunately, university is a weird place where people are lonely enough to try currying your favour by complimenting your zebra print anorak intended for a seven-year-old, your cropped pyjama trousers and your Hi-Tec trainers. So it sometimes takes a little while to get out of that horrible, infantile mindset.

Take a step out of that dream world where getting 71 in an essay matters to anyone and you can get a bucket of beers for £10. This is reality, you are an adult, you can’t afford to live in the city and your parents are not proud of you. Feel the yoke of failure bearing down upon your shoulders and throw away that Minnie Mouse beanie. SHEEPSKIN COAT

When you bought it, it screamed, “Bad-boy romantic from the wrong side of the tracks with a penchant for literature and a weakness for girls in breton stripes." It probably helped you win over your first true love during freshers week (the one you thought you’d marry but broke up with three months after finishing uni) and kept you warm on the nights you slept rough in Berlin with a group of artists who make sculptures out of shopping trolleys and firewood. Now it will destine you for a future in “freelance” music PR, a one-time management gig and an underage girlfriend for the rest of time. AZTEC PRINT / TIE-DYE