Graduation cap fashion makes a statement
After many years of going to class and studying, college seniors have devised a creative way to top off their time as undergraduates.
Many graduating seniors are carrying on the tradition of decorating their graduation caps to show off a bit of their personalities at their commencement ceremony later this week.
“I think this idea is fairly new to the graduating scene,” said senior communication studies major Alex Kaufman. “I think it’s a cool way to leave a lasting imprint on what you will leave behind at school and what you are looking forward to in the future.”
Senior film studies major Lindsay Strach said she has been fantasizing about how she would decorate her graduation cap since she was a freshman, as she was inspired by all of her friends that carried on this tradition before her.
“Seeing how nice theirs turned out gave me enough reason to at least brainstorm some designs I would consider on my own cap,” Strach said.
Senior film studies major Lindsay Strach parodies the television show “Game of Thrones” with her graduation cap.
Photo courtesy Lindsay Strach.
Now that the time has finally come for Strach to decorate her own graduation cap, she said she decided that she wanted to pick a design that would look nice and be hilarious at the same time.
“It is cool if people think I’m funny or witty, but what I think it really says about my personality is that I choose to look at life through a more positive and humorous lens,” Strach said.
Her finished product is a play on words from the popular television show, “Game of Thrones,” reading “Game of Loans” with a subtitle claiming that “interest is coming.”
“I have to admit I got the idea from a Pinterest post,” Strach said. “But I definitely made it my own.”
Senior health science major Lisa Peterkin described using Pinterest as the “classic” research method to find the perfect design.
Senior psychology major Casey Federico uses her cap to thank her family.
Photo courtesy Casey Federico.
“I found that a lot of them were sayings that were really cute like, ‘Thank you Mom, Dad, and coffee’ and all these really fun things,” Peterkin said. “But I thought that would be kind of hard to see from a crowd and I wanted it to stand out.”
The design that she decided on features an American flag as the background with her sorority letters monogramed in rhinestones.
Peterkin said that all of the seniors in her sorority had collectively decided to decorate their caps.
“Everyone thought that it would be a good idea and decided that they wanted to do it,” Peterkin said. “I thought it would be fun since everyone else was doing it.”
Kaufman said the decision to decorate her graduation cap was more of a personal choice.
“I like the idea of personalizing something that will reflect my time spent at Chapman,” Kaufman said. “I want my grad cap to be simple and classy, to sort of show off me growing up and moving into the adult world.”
Although she is still going through the process of decorating her cap, Kaufman said that she has everything already planned out.
“I have a blue and white damask fabric as the base,” Kaufman said. “I’m going to put a white bow on the back end of the cap and stamp a fleur-des-lis on the tail of the bow and at the top I’m going to put my monogram initials.”
These designs may seem a bit complex, but they are actually very easy and cheap to make.
“I personally didn’t want my cap design to be too flashy or busy, so I stuck with two materials: decorative paper and rhinestones,” Strach said. “I found this perfect goldish-bronze paper at Joanne’s for only about 50 cents each and I already had a lot of rhinestones in my possession.”
Kaufman and Peterkin both said they only spent about $5 on their materials.
“It was kind of a struggle making it because at first, when all the paint was wet, it looked awful and I was like, ‘Uh, this is a mistake. I can’t really order a new cap at this point,” Peterkin said. “But once it all dried, it looked really good so I’m happy I did it.”
Strach said that she didn’t have to put too much time into physically designing her cap.
“It took longer to experiment with the placement of it all on the cap and even longer to make sure it wasn’t going to be upside down,” Strach said. “But the time to actually cut and glue everything down didn’t take longer than two hours.”
Although the women are putting a lot of effort into their graduation caps, Peterkin and Kaufman said they don’t think the men in their class would be very interested in decorating their own caps.
“I think it’s more of a girl category as it falls under the crafting genre,” Kaufman said.
Peterkin said that she offered to decorate her male friend’s cap, but he denied the request. However, Strach said that she has seen plenty men decorate their graduation caps.
“They aren’t as pretty or accessorized as many female grad caps are, but it is all up to personal preference,” Strach said. “Guys go for the humor usually. If not that, they go for simplicity.”
Photo courtesy Sarah Zucca.
