Senior Overalls Keep Traditions Alive

Jumping for joy, seniors (from left) Isabella Garcia, Mitra Mirpour, Ashley Truong, Teresa Datta, Linda Pham, Megan Doan, and Liana Wang show off their handmade overalls. 

It is nothing short of a rite of passage - the careful trimming of assorted red and white patterned fabrics, the strategic placement of letters and numbers, the slightly embarrassing wearing of overly adorned denim. The making of senior overalls has been a long-standing tradition at Bellaire High School. Senior girls show off their creations during the each game day of the school year, displaying class pride through their choice of fashion. 

There are a multitude of different aspects that make up the quintessential “Senior Overall Experience.”

“A lot of it is about being with your friends and making them together,” recalls Mitra Mirpour. “If I had made them alone, they would have turned out very differently. Art is a collaborative thing, and I think that when you are working with other people, even if you are working on individual projects, because you are with other people, the project becomes a collaborative thing.”

Creating overalls at Bellaire High School is a fun bonding experience that helps commemorate senior year. 

The sharing of fabrics can result in visual connections and similarities between pairs of overalls, but the collaboration extends beyond the physical details.

“I can see a piece of each of the people who I worked on my overalls with on my own pair,” explains Mirpour. 

Another important priority in the making of senior overalls is to emphasize uniqueness. Most people write their names on the bib portion of the overall, but other decorations vary. Common design features include the class year (2016), the school mascot (Cardinals), the school shout (Slap Clap Cards), and of course the Class Grade (Seniors).

“A lot of people made theirs Bellaire themed. I made mine Mitra themed,” Mirpour explained. “For me, it is a piece of memorabilia about myself. I want to look back at my overalls and be like ‘Oh yaeh!’ that’s the kind of person who I was back then, a person really obsessed with ’90s TV shows - I had the word ‘senior’ written in the ‘Friends’ TV show font, and I had a quote from ‘Boy Meets World’ on a side leg.“

Mirpour also added some advice for seniors of the Class of 2017.

“Don’t care too much about how it looks. Even if you mess up, no one really notices. Mine were really bad, but I did that on purpose. I messed up, and then I thought ‘Oh, I liked that I messed up,’ so I messed up everywhere, on purpose. If your zero in 2016 is off by seven degrees, no one will notice it. And if the glue is peeling off on the edges, who cares? Also, buy cheap overalls,” Mitra recommends. “I bought mine from the Target kids section for $15. You are probably only going to wear them once so don’t spend a ton of money on them.”

In other words, don’t go to Gucci and buy their nicest golden threaded dungarees - solid advice for any future-overall-tradition-continuer.