UM: Fashion Passion

I went out for lunch today, and my eyes lit up at the sight of little tables with gleaming bracelets on them. There were necklaces and brooches and earrings and tons of other stuff. It reminded me of the time when I was in UM. Man, the things I wore at the time… These were some of my essential items during my uni years.

Accoutrements
Bag
I bought an Eastpak backpack that was black with brown leather trim. I used it since my asasi days all through my final year. Oooh, how I loved that backpack. It went with me to Sydney and LA and Orlando, Florida. Anyway, that backpack stored my books and pencil case and organiser.

Organiser
We had none of these PDAs. It was a filofax kind of organiser, where we actually had to use a pen to write in. I remember mine was a colourful one – hey I was 19 ok. Anyway, I bought that and whaddaya know some girls copied me.

Clothes
Jeans
The staple of every uni student, mine came in dark blue, light blue, and black. I wore jeans with t-shirts, blouses, button-down ladies shirts, and men’s shirts.

Shirts
I had lots of button-down long-sleeved shirts. I had many in white but with different designs – eyelet, embroidered, fitted, men’s cut, etc. They are so versatile and can be dressed up or dressed down anytime.

Denim jacket

My faithful jacket, which also travelled with me everywhere. I know you must be thinking this girl’s crazy for wearing a denim jacket in Malaysia’s weather. But it was about style, man…. I wore that jacket and it was a statement for me. I wore it with my jeans and even with my long dress. I looked really cool and funky, even if I do say so myself (angkat bakul a bit). Of course after people got tired of giving me funny looks, they also jumped onto the bandwagon. Hah! I remember I actually bought a men’s jacket, because the ladies’ was cropped and didn’t look cool to me.

Sweater
I had a dark blue round neck sweater and I always paired it with my jeans and a button-down long sleeved white shirt. If I did not wear it, I would tie it around my waist. Whenever I wore this ensemble, one of my friends would always holler and call out “hey, preppy!”

Shoes
I had my ever-reliable brown suede Reeboks, my dark brown sandals, my black Mary-Janes, my white leather slip-ons, and my favourite pair of espadrilles with straps that go around my ankles and calves. Oh and I had these pair of dark-blue mules. Most comfortable pair ever. I wore them like forever. Really worth the RM70+ I paid for them.

Accessories
Rings
Silver rings were my everyday must-have. I wore rings on all fingers except my thumb and little fingers. Yup, on both my right and left hands.

Necklaces
I had a few of those necklaces that were made famous by Jen Aniston from Friends. It was those y-shaped thingies made from tiny colourful beads on a string. I also had those bead-bar necklaces with letters in small cubes. I was very adventurous then in terms of trying out new fads. Once my friends saw these, they asked me where I got them. So I gladly shared.

Earrings
I wore the whole range what-have-yous. I wore shoulder sweepers, studs, pearls, plastic, metal, hoops big and small and cheap stuff and expensive stuff. But my stuff were mostly silver. I don’t like gold, it looks old.

Watches
I had a silver guess bracelet type of watch, and a blue and gold and silver swatch with all those buttons and dials, and I had a black leather guess watch with the moon and the sun that went round and round as time goes by. My favourite watch – unfortunately it was stolen.

Thinking back, I think I had a really fun time wearing all kinds of stuff. Thanks to all those American teen magazines that I read, I knew what to buy and what to wear just before it goes big in KL. Once everyone was into something, I’d immediately look for other stuff. Hey, it was no fun being part of the crowd. Standing out was where the fun was!