Like most college students, whenever Urban Outfitters has its 50 percent-off clearance items sale, I divert myself from wherever I was originally walking to and walk right into the store.
This was the case last week when a friend and I were casually slumming the streets of Melrose Avenue and stumbled upon the Urban Outfitters in the midst of such a sale. In all honesty, they actually happen quite a lot, and yet never fail to thrill me.
I instantly picked up a black ruffle dress for $5 off the rack that got me all sorts of internally excited. It was only when I got back to campus that I realized it was a romper.
Rompers, also known as onesies or jumpsuits, are a few of the many banes of my existence, along with leggings as pants and hair in food. They are, quite literally, pants attached to your top.
Rompers can also be a dress and shorts combo, and if I’m using my late-’90s terminology correctly, they are another version of skorts, also known as a skirt-shorts combination. Rompers are what babies wear, and if either of my two readers has been picking up the hints in this column, I am not too fond of babies.
And I’ve never understood the appeal of an outfit that confines you in the throes of awkwardness when you have to go to the bathroom. I mean, when you got to go, you have to take it off from the top, which can be a hassle in times of urgency.
Likewise, since the shorts are attached to the top, it can only be a wedgie fest from here on.
As first-year history student Helen Alonzo said, rompers are hard to pull off. I think so, too, since if my shorts were attached to my top, I would have much difficulty shuffling, maneuvering or bending over.
Rompers are omnipresent around campus and seem to be the outfit de jour for going out. Coming in all different prints and designs, from the leopard to the floral to the baggy and the tight, there seems to be a romper for every occasion.
Then I realized that the appeal of wearing the romper on nights out is the perfect outfit for partying, since when one is lying down on the pavement in a drunken haze, at least a romper can save you from losing your splayed-out dignity.
As I contemplated just returning the romper I got, I realized I hadn’t even tried it on. I haven’t worn a romper since I was a tot, so this was going to be good, and I mean good in the humorous sense.
As I pulled on the romper, I realized, this doesn’t look too shabby as I vainly looked at myself in the mirror.
Sure, the shorts were a little tight, and I mean tight not in the size sense, but I had a change of heart about rompers. I then understood the appeal of the romper, not just as infants’ clothing or bathroom constraints, but as a style. When you find the right one, frequent urination or resembling a toddler does not matter because when it fits correctly, it can look pretty decent.
I still haven’t worn the romper out, although once I’m stuck in the outfit trying to go to the bathroom, I’m sure they are going to go back on my banes-of-existence list.
If you’ve ever gotten stuck in a romper while going to the bathroom, e-mail Jue at tjue@media.ucla.edu.