Accidental Stylist: The Han Solo

The Accidental Stylist is a weekly post where Mercer, our residential clumsy hipster, tries out and writes about the newest and flashiest in alternative fashion. Were you curious about bubble nails, but didn’t want to have to try them yourself? This is the feature for you.We’ve all seen it. The first leaf turns slightly yellow and everybody is all up in a tizzy about sweaters, flannel and fall. The best way to tell what time of year it is is fashion: in spring, the short-shorts come out before the frost is gone and in fall, boots, spandex, long sleeve shirts and puffy Northface vests appear before you can say pumpkin spice latte. It’s Han Solo season, y’all.Despite it being the harbinger of all basicness, this ensemble is what errybody is wearing, and thus I felt necessary to give it a go myself. While you might say that my usual spandex-and-a-teeshirt attire is similar to this; I assure you that it is not. There is something to be said for wearing the same thing as everyone around you, which I have never done. Except for when I was at catholic school.The goodHyper-functional, unlike most biddie trends.This outfit was great in that is allowed me to feel like I was prepared for whatever I had to go and do that day. The vest kept me warm without overheating me (though, I wore my fancy-pancy rabbit skin one instead of heading out and dropping one-bajillion bills on a Northface one), and if I did get to hot, I could always just take it off. Tight jeans or spandex under boots is a great way to ensure that your feet aren’t going to get mangled or blistered if you have to do a lot of walking, and also offers great support. The long sleeve shirt, in its own way, is also really versatile: you can push it up your forearms, roll the sleeves, or leave them down to provide some extra coverage if needed. Really, in terms of other biddie fashion trends that I’ve seen, this one surprisingly makes sense.SimpleMark another clothing item down in the “this is so simple, I could put it on with my eyes shut” category. It is, in all sense of the word, very basic. It doesn’t surprise me that this is all some people wear for a whole season. Do any of you remember that episode of Doug where he opens his closet and it’s all just khaki shorts, green sweater vests and white tee-shirts? That must be what it is like for purveyors of the Han Solo: a sea of dark, tight pants, loose long-sleeve shirts and boots. I could definitely see the attraction of that given how functional it also is. You could wear it everyday with the confidence that you looked good without really having to do anything.Good outfit for HalloweenMy husband gets “sick” every year for Halloween, so the elaborate costumes that I make us (such as Business Cat and Grumpy Cat), always go to waste. This outfit is like one of those day-time business casual, night-time party animal outfits: you could wear it to work, and then head out to a party later claiming that you were going as Han Solo with ease. You’d also be ridiculously comfortable and warm doing it. Win. The badExpensive…Nice boots and Northfaces are fracking expensive. Let alone the shirts and other stuff that you have to wear to make this trademark ensemble complete. I guess you could just wear the same boots and vests every day, but that would make an already boring outfit even more boring—a mind-blowing idea.Unoriginal/boringWhile there is something comforting about knowing that you look like everyone around you (there’s a reason that private schools do it), it’s also really boring. I am a big fan of expressing your personality through what you’re wearing, and if your personality is wanting to look exactly like everyone around you...we probably won’t get along. I couldn’t stand the muted tones of this outfit everyday moving into winter, a season that is literally all grey all the time here in Boston. If I did try to bring the color that I find so necessary into this outfit, I’d look like a clown. It just wasn’t made for it.Despite looking like Han Solo, you’ll be doing no kessel runs in under 12 parsecs in this outfit. Comfortable, basic, but boring, I would probably wear this again in the event that I had nothing else to wear or needed a quick costume. A jedi craves not these things. I’d much rather stick to its fun brethren of printed spandex, baggy shirt, and hoody.