In the past, students got up every morning and found a nice outfit for school, now they throw on whatever clothes they deem clean enough for online school that day. Fashion is a large factor in what each individual represents. As people, we generally gravitate towards the nicest or trendiest clothes to make ourselves more appealing. Because of the coronavirus, we stay indoors, most of the time, with only our family members around to impress with our impeccable fashion sense.

Being online for school is difficult enough, so to many students, it seems unnecessary to add the pressure of having to dress top-notch every day. Deciding what to wear can be a stressful process for teens and adults. For this reason, having a laid-back approach to outfits sounds more than adequate. Freshman Jack Henzke, considered wearing nice clothes to Zoom calls “useless” and proved his point by stating “sometimes you can’t even see half your face.”  Students have considered this and gone in the direction of dressing down for their classes. Peeking inside Seattle Prep on an ordinary day — before classes moved online in March —kids would be seen wearing casual, yet stylish outfits and accessories. A nice shirt and a pair of jeans would be perfect for an everyday look. Now, with school online, the “everyday look” has definitely changed.

Looking around a Zoom call, everyone is seen wearing a relaxed outfit. At the start of the school year, a majority of the students were wearing T-shirts or even a tank top at times. Both are valid options when all anyone can see on Zoom is a head or just the top half of a body. Seeing anybody’s bottom half is rare, but students have, rightfully, navigated away from jeans and khakis to sweatpants and shorts. Now with the Seattle weather getting chillier as we approach fall, cozy clothes like sweatshirts and sweaters have been worn a lot more. Some students have even started to wrap blankets around them to combat the cold during class.

Another thing that many students, have started wearing are blue light glasses. They come in many different styles and do not just serve as a fashionable accessory; they help your eyes by filtering out blue light from the screens. Blue light glasses prevent straining your eyes and clear your vision from glares from the screens we stare at all day.

When it comes down to it, fashion is one of the best forms of expression. It shows what type of person you are and can make you feel confident in your skin despite other people’s opinions. Although our clothing styles have a more difficult time shining through over zooms, the mediocre clothes have allowed us to adapt with showing ourselves through how we act and help us learn to be more confident despite wearing plain clothing.