DePaul losing the style war to Northwestern, University of Chicago

Attending a college in a booming metropolis like Chicago requires hard work, determination, an independent spirit and, of course, class. DePaul, a university with diligent and determined freethinking students, is all of those things. But it lacks in one other area: fashion. A national contest named three Chicago colleges, excluding DePaul, as having the style to back their dapper class up.

Fashion insights company Stylitics in partnership with hercampus.com, an online college fashion magazine, teamed up to create a “Most Stylish Campus in America” competition. Columbia College, Northwestern and the University of Chicago are currently sitting in the top 50 most stylish colleges in the country with DePaul left in the dust.Columbia College’s Rylee Luitsky is very conscious of why her university is sitting at the top of the list.

“What can I say, we’re a DIY campus. Fashion remains a priority here, and there definitely is a high standard of how one is supposed to dress, but as an individual flair,” said Luitsky. “It’s just like, DePaul, Shmepaul. Columbia is where the style’s at.”

Although DePaul is not a fine arts college, its diverse student body brings a wide array of fashion styles to the university. There is a mix of people who either dress to impress in their chic attire on the way to class, or the ones who decide to roll out of bed five minutes before lecture and call it a sweatpants kind of day.

DePaul sophomore and fashionista Katrina Dion talked about her take on DePaul’s style struggles.

because there is such a large array of styles at the school, whereas schools like at Columbia and Northwestern have something that rules the campus: arts for Columbia and strong Greek life for Northwestern,” she says. “There are people that wear suits to class and people that wear sweats, you never know what a student at DePaul is going to wear, we’re unique!”

Perhaps when students have options like Northwestern and Columbia that drive a campus, it bleeds into the way people dress. College campuses obtain particular “style vibes” because of the continuity in the type of student. Therefore the trend of clothing can function a certain type of campus.

University of Chicago on the other hand is recognized as a brainiac college, where nerd fashion is quite popular in the opinion of voters. According to The Princeton Review, U of C is the university where “fun goes to die,” and many students have printed this on t-shirts sporting them around campus. Perhaps satiric graphic tees are all the rage 2012.

“Getting dressed in the morning is one of the few times I get to make my own decisions — besides that school rules my life,” said student Donald Nix. “Just because U of C is recognized as a nerd school doesn’t mean we can’t dress well, clearly.”

Jessica Novak, marketing manager for Stylitics says, “Chicago is definitely one of our hubs that has several schools in the leader board.” The top five campuses in the country will be judged by a panel of style experts, and the winner will be declared May 15. The most stylish campus will also be featured in a renown “look book.”

Rankings in the competition will likely change before the close of the contest, and while they’ve remained pretty steady so far, certain schools have sprung closer to the top of the list since the contest began in April...”cough cough” DePaul!