In defence of wavy garms

I'll be the first to say that in the short seven months I've been at this university, the clothes I wear have changed. It started with one fairly standard flowery shirt and a pair of mid-sized hoop earrings. But before I knew it, I was stuck. Nights out revolve around really really ugly shirts and my week hinges on the grey packages that arrive in plodge full of vintages goodies of varying qualities. I'm a wiling victim of the Cambridge clothing bubble.

Back at home, I have parents who really don't understand where this new look comes from. Mum's over the moon, I'm ravaging the other half of her old clothes that I didn't take when I went through my 16 year old indie phase. Friends who go to other unis are split into two camps. Either they too are involved in this bizarre clothing culture or they're not really sure when I decided a baseball cap looked good on me. I feel especially sorry for my friends who actually have proper London jobs and dress in a classy manner. To them I must look like a complete nutter.

sometime, you've just gotta ask the troops back home for guidance

Am I planning on changing anytime soon? Not particularly. It's funny, I tell myself; dressing like this makes me individual and cool. But you've only got to look around to see it doesn't. In Cambridge, wild shirts, ill-fitting trousers, and oversized vintage sports sweatshirts are basically like a uniform…but not going to lie, I don't see anything wrong with that.

Every generation has its weird and quite frankly questionable fashion tropes. I'm looking right at you excessive shoulder pads. It just so happens that our generation has decided to take a whole collection of those and put them all together at once. And yet people manage to pull them off whilst looking effortlessly cool. (Disclaimer: I'm most definitely not one of those lol). I mean, you're only young once and when you're 50 it gives you and any prospective children something pretty hilarious to have a giggle at.

Also, to appeal to the environmentalist in all of us, you can justify this bizarre clothing habit by remembering how much better it is for the planet. Did someone say the 3 R's? Pretty sure this is a brilliant case of reusing en masse. The fact that a lot of students here live out of a mixture of charity shop, vintage shop, and parent's old wardrobe almost makes up for how the university is environmentally atrocious in other ways right?!? hahahah.

A Wavy shirt, OTT fur jacket, shiny green tracksuit bottoms and a pink baseball cap? Opinion editor Edan showing us how it's done

On top of this, if you're actually savvy about your wavy garms, you can save yourself some good money. Vintage shopping can be expensive but check those charity shops in your regional hometown? They probably haven't caught on yet that something that's objectively not that great is now seen as cool. If anything, they look super grateful that anyone is willing to take it off their hands. There's also the joy that some of the high street shops have taken account of the trend so if you can't be bothered to trawl charity shops, or the never-ending pages in Asos marketplace, Topshop will actually now have your back. If at a higher price.

So, vintage loving Cantabs: keep doing you. I love how wild clothing choices can be at this university and how ultimately, you can wear pretty much anything with enough confidence and people will still think you look cool. Don't listen to people being negative because at the end of the day one more brightly coloured windbreaker won't do the world any harm. Just own your look to the very last. Because I hate to break it to you but wavy garms aren't acceptable in the majority of office jobs.