Surprise! It’s time for finals.

While we’re overwhelmed with end-of-the-semester… Surprise! It’s time for finals.

While we’re overwhelmed with end-of-the-semester obligations, taking the time to look nice is often overlooked. Good fashion is understandably the last thing on students’ minds while downing coffee and cramming a semester’s worth of material into a caffeinated head.

Walking around the library can be an interesting spectacle. When viewing everyone else’s desperation, one can see that their fashion sense is clearly not a priority. Some students even use finals week as an excuse to look much worse than usual. No one cares that you don’t match – everyone else is just as concentrated on finals as you are. In light of the circumstances, I understand the need for casualness: Being comfortable is the best way to study.

In order to stay comfy, I would recommend sweats at the library. Both sweatpants and hoodies will come in handy when you need to be free and keep warm in this harsh, unseasonable weather. I would also suggest the use of gym clothes, which are certainly relaxed and durable. Tennis shoes or sandals are great, as anything fancier would be just an annoyance.

During finals week, don’t worry about ironing. After something gets washed, it’s alright to skip this process. Ironing is time consuming, and no one cares what you look like anyway. T-shirts are OK if they’ve been sitting on your floor for a while, and you shouldn’t be wearing your dress shirts anyway.

What if something isn’t really clean? If you are behind on doing laundry and don’t have much to wear, I wouldn’t advise against digging out of the laundry bin. If all your T-shirts and sweats have not been recently washed, another week or two away from the washer and dryer won’t make too much more difference.

But, for obvious reasons, I wouldn’t suggest wearing something if it smells bad. The library is teaming with eligible sweethearts, and it’s important not to offend. It doesn’t have to smell particularly good, but it shouldn’t smell bad either. But if it looks dirty, that’s OK.

In regard to accessories, a neat hat or some small piece of jewelry can easily jazz up an outfit and have you looking better around the library. After neglecting the rest of your look, something like this is the least you can do.

Until test day it’s perfectly excusable to wear nothing special, and to focus on comfort and practicality. But one helpful hint might be to dress extra nicely on the actual day of the test, which will be sure to boost confidence. With this extra hint of esteem, you might even do better on the test. Enhancing your sexiness this way could help you relax, which is certainly important when taking a nerve-wracking final.

At the beginning of the semester, I advocated a revolt against shoddy and shaggy sweats; now, I am giving permission to wear whatever you want. It’s finals week, and no one is judging.

Ready to embrace the sweats? E-mail Derek with fabulous sweatpants-based fashion plans at [email protected].