Freshers: How to dress for your very first bop

It’s your debut – your chance to show the world your imagination, ingenuity and creativity, or at least trick everyone into thinking you’re an interesting person.

No, it isn’t your first essay, it’s your first bop. Yes, you will be judged by your choice of outfit for the next three years. But don’t panic; here are four simple rules to help you dress right on the big night.

Don’t be too obscure

Remember the sage words of Ronald Reagan: “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

The last thing you want to be doing all night at your first fancy-dress bop is justifying how the paper numbers you’ve stapled to your T-Shirt OBVIOUSLY make you the Casio FX-991ES calculator featured in your A-Level physics class, or how the writing on your clothing is a pun of the bop theme.

Why would you want to be wasting time clarifying that, when you could otherwise be enjoying the thrillingly awkward conversation of subject, secondary school and staircase with your new Fresher peers? This might be Oxford, but nobody likes a smart-arse.

Winning example of comprehensible bop dressing

Wear actual clothes

This does, of course, rest on the assumption that you don’t desire to be instantly detested by the other females in your year. If this presumption is incorrect, fair enough, and please skip to Rule 3.

You might have the arse of a Kardashian and a pair of majestic mammaries, but shamelessly whacking out these bad boys during the first few days of Fresher’s Week is not going to make you any friends (or at least the kind you want to make). Sure, there’s nothing wrong with revealing the inner sass you locked away so shyly during your sixth form years, but just try to avoid any obvious promiscuous clichés during your first college bop.

Least Dressed Awards are usually reserved for the males, soz

Be practical

This first bop involves the total immersion into a completely new environment full of equally anxious strangers. You will inevitably turn to liquid courage, so it is likely that either you or some other bumbling fool will end up spilling some budget vodka on your meticulously made costume.

In other words, everyone is going to be battered, drinks will be flying everywhere, so waterproofs might not be such a bad idea. Think nautical – the wetsuit is both practical, and an instant winner on uniqueness because no one else is dumb enough to bring it from home.

Rookie error

Avoid props where possible: before an hour has passed, you’ll be explaining to everyone how your costume was actually ingenious, but you had to take it off because it was also highly flammable and didn’t allow you to stand within 10ft of anyone smoking.

*insert witty knob-related innuendo here*

Finally, don’t be too controversial

While your bop theme is unlikely to allow much room to dress up as a perpetrator of genocide, don’t take a leaf out of Aidan Burley and Prince Harry’s book and come as a nazi. No one likes the guy in the corner chanting ‘Heil Hitler’ and toasting the Third Reich.  

Learn the line between interesting and offensive. This basic rule, along with the other three, is, thus, key to the establishment of what every keen fresher seeks to do amongst their fellow nervous first-years: make the right impression.

Remember, you’ve never met these people before, and you don’t know if your social critique through dress will be appreciated or greatly misunderstood.

9/11 NO GO.

So there you have it, Fresher: the dress etiquette of Entz.