Tag Archives: Flair

Swim Meet Flair

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General Information about Item:

  • Material Lore – Ornamental
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Aidan Pierce
  • Date Collected: 03-02-2018

Informant Data:

  • Aidan Pierce is a male student in the Dartmouth College Class of 2018.  He grew up splitting time between Hong Kong and London. He is a pre-med student and intends to pursue a career in medicine after graduation. Aidan was briefly a member of Dartmouth’s Club Swim Team in the fall of 2014.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: The competitive nature of swim meets requires strong team cohesion, and so traditions such as this one are often utilized in order to further bond the team. Furthermore, the practice of wearing bright clothing is common across many organizations at Dartmouth, indicating that it may be imported from other facets of Dartmouth culture at large, but was made specific to swimmers and the club swimming team. Having all of the members of the team wear ridiculous, easily identifiable pieces of clothing, allows them to easily associate with each other, while publically displaying their association with the team.
  • Social Context: This tradition was mentioned in a one-on-one conversation with the interviewee, more than two years after he had left the team. The traditional clothing is specifically worn for competitive meets, and allows competitors to somewhat identify their teams and supporters in the stands, when they surface for air during the pandemonium of the race, thereby giving them a feeling of support.

Item:

  • “Flair” is a slang term in the lexicon of Dartmouth College, which indicates brightly colored, absurd costumes such as neon tutus (both for men and women), cartoon character onesie suits, and nonsensical accessories. The Dartmouth Club Swim Team members all wear flair to all of their meets,

Image of Flair:

Transcript:

  • “A common tradition we always used to follow [when Aidan was on the team] was that we would wear flair to all of our meets. It’s pretty widely practiced, a lot of people actually did it. It’s funny to see everyone dressed up so ridiculously, it really helped us relax and connect with the rest of the team before meets so that we’re prepared to compete.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • Flair is ridiculous when you first see it, but once you try it on, it’s really fun.

Collector’s Comments:

  • Having worn flair to other events, I completely understand the informant’s sentiments. When a large organization has a uniting uniform (whether serious or silly), it certainly helps to build camaraderie.

Collector’s Name: Ashwath Srikanth

Tags/Keywords: Material Lore, Ornamental Lore, Flair, Swag, Clothing, Swimming

Flair/Dyed Hair

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Title: Flair/Dyed Hair

General Information about Item:

  • Material: Clothing
  • Language: English
  • Country where Item is from: USA

Informant #1 Data:

Ethan Isaacson lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, and is currently a student at Dartmouth in the class of 2018. He was born on January 5th, 1996, and is studying chemistry and physics. He went on freshman trips when he was an incoming freshman, was a trip leader his sophomore year, and was on Hanover Croo, known as HCroo, this past fall, so has seen many different aspects of the trips program.

Leigh Steinberg was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was born on April 19, 1996. She is a student at Dartmouth in the class of 2018 and is a history major and plans on going into consulting after graduation. She was a trip leader before her sophomore year of college and was on Hanover Croo, known as HCroo, this past fall.

Informant #2 Data:

  • The informant is a Dartmouth ’18 male. He went on a first-year trip in September 2014 and was a member of Lodj Croo in September 2017.

Informant #3 Data:

  • The informant is a Dartmouth ’18 female. She went on a first-year trip in September 2014, was a member of Lodj Croo in September 2015, and served as one of the two Lodj Croo Captains in September 2017.

Informant #4 Data:

  • The informant is a Dartmouth ’18 female. She is active in the Native American Community on campus, SPCSA, and Sigma Delta. She is a Government and Native American Studies modified with Anthropology double major from Martha’s Vineyard. She went on cabin camping in September 2014, but never led a trip or was on a croo.

Contextual Data:

People are wearing flair and have dyed hair from the first moment freshman arrive on campus. Flair is also prevalent during many other times at Dartmouth, like weekend social events and club meetings. It is used as a sign of expression and individuality at Dartmouth.

Item:

All Croos are known for wearing a lot of flair during trips and also are known for dying their hair wild colors. They do so in order to try to teach the incoming freshman to have a good time and not worry about what other people think about them, as the Croos all look ridiculous but they do not care. It also serves a practical purpose, as it helps distinguish who the Croolings are versus who are trip leaders and trippees. This tradition has been going as long as they know.

Transcript of Informant #1 Interview:

So part of it is that we look crazier and more embarrassing than they ever could. There’s a line in the safety show that goes, “nobody cares about your clothing. Look at us we look like clowns.” And I think that’s partially true that it’s a cool approach that they can’t look more ridiculous. Um but also the craziness is an interesting part of trips culture and Dartmouth culture and it’s just the sense of them being inducted into this very insular and weird community that accepts them fairly unconditionally. And that the crazy colorful appearances are a physical manifestation of that.

I think it also has a practical application of really distinguishing us from trip leaders and trippees. It’s like a more fun neon staff shirt.

Informant #1’s Comments:

  • She sees flair as one of the integral parts of trips to make people feel more comfortable

Collector’s Comments:

  • Flair seems to be more common at Dartmouth than any other school I have heard about

Collector’s Name: Henry Senkfor

Transcript of Informant #2 Interview:

“Another thing Lodj croo does is that we dye our hair and wear flair at all times. No normal clothing, and many of us dye our hair a different color. I went blue. The reason we do that is so that the trippees don’t feel like the weirdest or most awkward person in the room. If we’re making a fool out of ourselves, it’s easier for them to feel confident in themselves.”

Informant #2’s Comments:

  • Informant sees flair as a fun part of trips.

Collector’s Comments:

  • Informant #2 has a large flair collection and kept his hair dyed for a long time.

Collector’s Name: Roshni Chandwani

Transcript of Informant #3 Interview:

“One of the biggest ones for croos and Dartmouth is flair, obviously. Everyday, we get into a new costume, and that’s definitely a really fun part of trips and makes the incoming class realize how important flair is to Dartmouth, and that will carry out throughout their time at Dartmouth beyond trips. One that’s important to croos would be dying your hair. Dying your hair is really important. The point of it is that you can be easily identified as a crooling, as opposed to a trip leader, so if something’s going and you’re not sure, you can find somebody with crazy hair and ask them questions. That, paired with the flair, helps croolings stand out from everyone else involved with trips as people who are a little more self-deprecating and willing to make fun of themselves, and that helps freshmen feel more comfortable as they come in. And even though they’re awkward and embarrassed, we’re all weird and awkward, so it’s fine.”

Informant #3’s Comments:

  • Informant noted that the purpose of flair is to make everyone feel comfortable in being wacky.

Collector’s Comments:

  • Informant #3 has a large flair collection that she still uses.

Collector’s Name: Roshni Chandwani

Transcript of Informant #4 Interview:

“Its funny cause you drive up and your parents are in the car, and they’re like why are these people wearing ridiculous outfits? And then so you move and they kind of just drop you off. Then when you get assigned to your trip leaders, they are also dressed in ridiculous outfits per usual. And, as a senior, the concept of flair is still going strong. Especially once you enter a Greek house and such.”

Informant #4’s Comments:

  • Informant has a large flair collection given to her by graduated members of her sorority. Today, as a senior she sees flair more within the personally relevant frame of its place at Dartmouth within Greek life and theme parties. She sees flair as a way for Dartmouth students to show their playful side.

Collector’s Comments:

  • It’s interesting how this aspect of DOC Trips folklore continues to be relevant to Dartmouth students throughout their time at the school, regardless of their subsequent participation (or not) in the trips program. In this case, the informant is not involved in trips after her own trip or even the outing club.

Collector’s Name: Clara Silvanic

Tags/Keywords:

Flair, Dyed hair, DOC, Trips, Clothing

Wearing “Flair”

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  1. Title: Wearing “Flair” to a Swim Meet
  2. Informant: Sierra Levene, 19, Female.  Sierra grew up in Wyoming and currently attends Dartmouth College where she is a freshman.  She just began swimming competitively on the Dartmouth College Club swim team this year.  When interviewed, Sierra discussed various aspects of swimming that were difficult to understand when she first joined the swim team.
  3. Material: Clothing, Customary: Tradition
  4. Language: English
  5. Country of Origin: United States
  6. Social / Cultural Context: The team wears “flair” to their swim meets, which is crazy/ unique clothing.  They do this at club meet competitions, like when they competed at Harvard this past year.

  7. (Audio Only)

  8. “The meet I went to we had a cheer, and also we all wore flair and no one else did.  So like the entire meet, our section area or whatever, everyone was wearing flair”
  9. Informant’s comments: Sierra thought that wearing flair was something unique their team did and really set them apart from other teams.
  10. Collector’s comments: Although not common among all types of competitive swimming, this is one piece of folklore we found that was very unique within club swimming.
  11. Tags/Keywords: Flair, Material