Whether it's waking up 5 minutes before a lecture, to the unpredictability of British weather - Cambridge has its own unique influence on our style. Often, we create looks that are quite different to what we would wear over summer break or when we go home for Christmas. This not only allows us to explore different sides of our fashion taste, but we also get to incorporate our “home style” into our Cambridge closets, and vice versa.

Having spent her summer travelling through Spain, England, Austria and Russia, Anna, a second year History and Russian student at Pembroke, speaks to me about how her style changed over the summer and how she has introduced some of those new discoveries into her wardrobe now she's back in Cambridge.  

there is less pressure in Cambridge to constantly look your best- everyone  understands you won’t be dressed to the nines if you’re running on less than eight hours of sleep

“Being less stressed with work and general Cambridge things, I had more time for fashion in the summer so I started to think about my style and appearance in a more conscious way again. Through that, things like the general color palette I go for definitely changed. I used to stick to very autumnal, earthy pieces, but over the summer I added more colour to my wardrobe like a bright purple jacket or a red scarf.”

Over the colder months - especially when we spend them holed up in the library - it’s easy to forget some of the items we love during the summer. For Anna, summer also meant getting to enjoy trends like ankle bracelets or crop tops again. While some of them may not be overly transferrable to Cambridge winters - even the prettiest ankle bracelet couldn’t get me to commit to baring ankle in sub-zero temperatures - some summer favourites may stick. After all, three months is enough time to form fashion habits that continue on into your autumn wardrobe.

“I’ve always had one or two favourite necklaces but over the break I started to wear them more regularly and over time it ended up becoming a habit- there’s a golden bee necklace that I naturally started to wear every day and have continued to in Cambridge.”

Incorporating favourite summer pieces into your closet at university can help maintain the relaxation and inner balance of the break, or feeling close to home, once term starts again. However, it also works the other way: Cambridge can allow you to explore your style in a way that you maybe wouldn’t do at home. While she feels comfortable in exploring new things both in Cambridge and at home, Anna tells me how she experiments with new cuts and styles at Cambridge.

“I feel like there is less pressure in Cambridge to constantly look your best because everyone is stressed and understands you won’t be dressed to the nines if you’re running on less than eight hours of sleep. Plus, at home there are usually quite widespread ‘popular trends’, whereas people in Cambridge definitely dress in a more varied way, allowing you to draw inspiration from different styles.” 

The summer relics we bring back to Cambridge may be a new favourite dress or the pair of earrings from a city we visited, or metaphorical souvenirs such as a commitment to adding more colour or flowing fabrics to our wardrobe. Cambridge is a busy place and between running to lectures, seeing your friends and making time to fit in self-care breaks, touching up your make up or planning your outfit might not always come first. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing - going back to your familiar Cambridge style after a summer of experimenting can be just as fun as the return to cooking with your friends after a break filled with “foodie trips”.

Yet a summer relic we can all bring back to Cambridge is the relaxed aura and blissful casualness with which we threw on our looks in the summer. For our part, Anna and I will definitely be trying to keep the summer glow alive in Pembroke for as long as possible.