It was the middle of January, before my return to Columbia for the spring semester, when a visit to my high school allowed me to reflect on the new implications of an age-old fashion trend. College brand apparel—from sweatpants to T-shirts—is not only highly in demand at this stage of the application season, but has enjoyed an expansion into the larger market through enterprises such as Harvard’s newly announced clothing line, Harvard Yard.
The new relationships created between commercial retailers and academic institutions define the way in which our culture turns education into a commodity. Applications submitted, high school seniors employ college branding to indicate loyalty to a top choice, advertise the breadth of their search, or pay hopeful homage to a parent or sibling’s alma mater. By the end of high school, elite schools’ names become best-selling brands, supplanting the latest jeans or shoes.
However, marketing for college-branded items targets a much larger segment of the population. For example, Harvard Yard’s Oxford shirts sell for nearly $200, and its sports coats for nearly $500—far exceeding an average college student’s budget. Appealing to an older and wealthier demographic, expensive college-wear transcends the name or reputation of a particular institution, and serves as affirmation of an idealized collegiate lifestyle. Retailers from Ralph Lauren to Martha Stewart have profited from lifestyle lines, “lifestyle” suggesting a sense of identity and purpose that goes beyond simply buying the products.
J.Crew’s recent “university coat” and Victoria’s Secret PINK’s “Pink University”—a faux university whose crest is a laurel wreath around a pink dog and whose red-herring title is emblazoned on countless pieces of merchandise—further exemplify this phenomenon. Harvard, J.Crew, and Victoria’s Secret are converging on a broad demand for their respective visions of the college lifestyle.
Karl Marx discusses at length his ideas of use value and exchange value in his celebrated analysis of consumer practices, “The Commodity.” A product’s “use value” is the need it appears to satisfy—in the case of a sweatshirt, warmth after exercise. Its exchange value is its set of similarities and differences if compared to other products, which establishes a comparative value in order to make exchange possible. But what accounts for the collegiate lifestyle’s high exchange value, and why is the demand so high right now?
My original idea was that granting oneself a prestigious university’s name could serve as a buoy of credibility in a stormy economy, a résumé displayed on the body rather than hidden in a briefcase. However, Harvard Yard apparel noticeably lacks any “H” lettering, “Veritas” slogan, or the Harvard crest. At the other end of the market, Pink University exists in an academic and cultural vacuum—can you imagine the curriculum? Collegiate lifestyle attire cannot be completely explained by the résumé effect, because these brands do not depend on visible association with any actual academic institution.
In “The Commodity,” Marx explains two ways to assess an exchange value. One measures the amount of labor that went into producing a commodity, and the other measures the amount of money that is traded for it. The commodity, Marx argues, is the concrete objectification of abstract labor. When you see a coat, for example, you think of its use and of its cost rather than of the labor that went into making it. The commodity itself is a mask concealing labor.
By this logic, college brand apparel adds a new layer of concealment to labor. Not only does it mask the process of weaving the fabric and stitching the seams, but also a student’s or professor’s labor to become associated with that academic institution—to gain acceptance or earn a degree, to maintain a position or earn tenure. Columbia athletes, meanwhile, receive special Lions gear as a direct response to the work they put into their team sports. On the whole, widespread consumption of such a commodity cheapens this concealed value, since none of the personal effort is required to purchase it.
This new collegiate lifestyle gear, removing the résumé effect that invokes the academic institution, refers merely to the socioeconomic connotations of the idea of ”university.” The wearer’s ability to purchase the smaller commodity of the sweatshirt connotes his ability to purchase the larger commodity of a college education. From J.Crew to Victoria’s Secret to Harvard Yard, recent moves in the world of apparel go further to make education a commodity, a reified product symbolic of a certain social group, masking the labor behind it in a singular, new way.
Amanda Gutterman is a Columbia College first year with an intended major in anthropology or comparative literature and society. The Far-Side runs alternate Tuesdays.
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