There are two kinds of people in this world; those who want to look cute at Uni and those who cbf. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being one or the other, we wanted to send some encouragement out to those of who you want to dress to the nines for your 9am lecture.

Meet Miranda Lewit-Mendes, the beauty and brains behind @thegirlwholivedforclothes

She’s currently completing her Master of Genetic Counselling and runs her own blog and IG dedicated to her love for colour, patterns and vinyl. We picked her brain on how she found her style and how she ignores the judgement of her Uni peers.

To All The Uni Students I’ve Weirded Out Before

When I was in high school, I’d spend days planning what I was going to wear to casual clothes day that would make me look as cool as possible. “Cool” was defined of course, by whatever horrible item was in fashion that week in the world of private school teenage girls. One look I particularly recall involved an oversized cheerleading competition jumper, grey straight leg trackpants and knee-high magenta Ugg boots. One leg of the trackpants tucked in, the other out. 😳

10 years on and while I probably still look equally as ridiculous, I sure as hell aren’t subscribing to whatever pieces I think people everyone around me want me to wear. When I started University, I didn’t know anybody, everyone dressed differently, and I had a platform to truly be myself. It was like an epiphany moment for me that it was possible to not care what other people think. This had a significant impact and I went ALL OUT. Crazy colours, print-clashing and heeled boots that I regretted when I realised how large campus was. Getting dressed everyday had become an adventure.

That said, I definitely scared a few people along the way because of my love for dressing differently. In a class once, our peers had to provide feedback on our oral presentation and one girl wrote “maybe next time don’t wear a pink bra with a white top” – she obviously did not appreciate that my pink bra was meant to show through to match my pink skirt…

It wasn’t the smoothest transition - it involved a lot of doubt, weird phases and outfits I’d rather not remember in between. But I can definitely look back at the past 10 years and safely say I am proud that I persisted in dressing in a way that made me happy. University is unique, as there’s very little requirement to dress professionally or appropriately, like there may be at a workplace. Everyone is learning about who they are and it’s the perfect time to break fashion “rules”. I had many moments of doubt, when people would stare at my weird combinations or judge (perhaps rightfully so) that my heels were too high for walking around campus.

People always say to me “I love your outfit but I wouldn’t be able to pull it off like you do”, but really all you have to do to ‘pull it off’ is simply just wear it. For people to believe in your confidence, you just have to believe in yourself. After all, you wear clothing every day of your life, so why not have fun with it?

Follow her 👇

Insta: @thegirlwholivedforclothes

Blog: thegirlwholivedforclothes.com