Written by: Gabrielle McLaren, Editor-in-chief
BURNABY, B.C. — Alice Fitzgerald, a third-year SFU student, announced to friends, family, professors, classmates, and SFU administration that she was dropping out of summer classes this semester because of creative fashion difference with the season.
In an exclusive interview with The Peak, Fitzgerald was frank about her decision to abandon her summer plans.
“It all started on the first day of class, since I thought I should have a really bomb first-day outfit — you know, maybe that way, I could find love in one of my tutorials,” Fitzgerald said. “So I got up, showered, put my hair up in a fun and flirty messy summer bun that I found on Pinterest, and then opened my closet . . . only to realize that I don’t own a single piece of clothing that isn’t black, and that all of my outfits require at least three layers. Also, I refuse to wear shorts.”
According to Fitzgerald, she spent several hours looking for an outfit she could wear without wanting to claw off her skin in the suffocating Robert C. Brown Hall during her first class of the day, but that she could also wear in the frigidly air-conditioned West Mall Centre for her second class. All three of Fitzgerald’s siblings, her mom, and a friend who joined the crisis room via FaceTime tried and failed to salvage an appropriate outfit from Fitzgerald’s closet.
“In the end, it was all about being honest with myself,” she concluded. “I just can’t function in this weather.”
Despite the confidence with which she made this decision, Fitzgerald is now in the distasteful position of finding a good summer job that hasn’t been taken yet. At the time of publishing, Fitzgerald was still contemplating whether or not it would be simpler to reverse-hibernate until atmospheric conditions compatible with her wardrobe returned.
Fitzgerald is not alone in finding the summer season hostile to her fashion choices. As a matter of fact, so many students have felt personally attacked by the sun that they have formed their own club: SFU Students Against Summer Weather Now.
“We’re currently the fifth-largest SFSS club,” president Jeremy Wu said in an interview held in a blissfully air-conditioned Starbucks so close to his home that he only had to subject himself to nature for three minutes. “I think that highlights just how important this issue is to students.”
Wu, who is also the club founder, said that he was inspired after he passed out from heatstroke in an intersession philosophy tutorial. He was left unaided for two hours before somebody realized that he hadn’t simply fallen asleep.
“People say I could have taken off my beanie,” Wu recalled. “But my beanie is the most important part of me. It would be like asking a mother to ritually sacrifice one of her children. They just don’t understand what it is to have an aesthetic.”
Wu quickly found that he was not alone after browsing SFU Reddit. His first club member was a fourth-year kinesiology major who still has stress-nightmares about that horrifying slurping sound their bare thighs made when unpeeled from an AQ tutorial room’s awful, sticky plastic chair.
“What this club highlights is that SFU needs to do more to support students during this fashion transition phase,” Wu insisted. “Unfortunately, we are unable to meet during the summer because none of our members can leave their homes, so most of our activism is done during the Fall and Winter terms. But one day, we will make a difference on this campus for the meteorologically inconvenienced.”
SFU administration did not respond to an interview request in time for publication.
