Wearing overalls in Helsinki

Wearing overalls in Helsinki

Helsinki, one of the biggest cities of the Nordic countries. When I booked my flight, I expected to be hiking and exploring the beautiful nature, of the Nordic countries, as much as humanly possible. Maybe some sightseeing in the cities of Finland, going on a trip to Lapland and some partying from time to time. Oh man, how wrong I was. Of course, I go to university from time to time and the trips are there, but the party life is certainly the biggest part of my exchange period here.

Figure 1: Helsinki city centre (02/09/2017)

Figure 2: Nuuksio Espoo (09/09/2017)

What are they wearing?

During my orientation days, I saw some of the students, so-called tutors, wearing overalls at school. I thought it was such a weird thing. Using sweatpants as clothing, okay, but wearing an overall?! A tutor is a (Finnish) student who helps the exchange students during their time in Helsinki, they are great for knowing which parties to attend to and where to get the cheapest alcoholic drinks. Still thinking about the weird looking overalls, I survived the first week in Helsinki.

In the second week, we had a welcome party of another university, so everyone was going to the park for the pre-drinking part of the party. I went to the park and heard some sounds of students when I was walking near the meeting spot. When I arrived, there were hundreds of students sitting, standing, lying, rolling and most important of all; drinking and wearing all sorts of overalls. Green, yellow, blue, pink, whatever colour you can think of, even the orange overall prisoners wear was present.

Sometimes the colour indicates the study you are doing, sometimes it indicates the university you belong to. For example, the university Laurea in Helsinki has blue/greenish coloured overalls, which every student uses, whatever study you are doing. At my university, Metropolia, you got orange with white overalls for Electronic students, blue overalls for IT, dark purple with light purple sleeves for Industrial Management and so on.

The overalls the students were wearing at the pre-drinking party were however not just plain overalls with some sponsors printed on it, no, the overalls were full of patches. Some students did not even have place for more patches, others just started with collecting them. The moment I saw this and heard about overalls being used during parties and other occasions, I was in love. I had to get my own overall!

Figure 3: Overall with patches (29/08/2017)

Getting my own

I asked multiple tutors about where to get overalls but the answers were disappointing. I am officially an Industrial Management (IM) student here, in Helsinki, but they did not order the overalls yet and it could take months until they would arrive. However, not having an overall was not an option for me. I went to the IT office with some IT-friends and they had some overalls left from 2016. I immediately bought the only M size they had left, since L or XL would be too big, and for the XS size I would have to cut of my feet.

Figure 4: The IT overall (28/08/2017)

Wearing the overall

Everyone knows what an overall is and how it should be worn. However, the students in Finland (in most cases) do not wear their overalls all the way. The overall is worn like you can see in the pictures, only the bottom half is used. The sleeves are tied together and some people use a belt to hold the pants up. I am not using one right now, but I totally should since I dance so much during parties, which makes my pants go down all the time.

The reason to love overalls

The tutors told me that wearing overalls during student parties and other occasions, was a thing only people in Finland do. It is also known in Sweden; however, it is not nearly as big as in Finland.

With so-called Appro’s all students wear overalls and gather at one point in the city. An appro is a pub crawl organised for students where they can earn patches and get cheap (alcoholic) drinks. Imagine, the city being overflown by students wearing overalls, and people not caring at all and being used to it. Not only do you represent your study or university, there are way more reasons to love the overalls:

Figure 5: Patches earned during student appro's (23/09/2017)

• Since drinking in bars and clubs is so expensive in Helsinki, students start pre-drinking all over the city(this might be not totally legal). However, you do not want to spend time finding a bench or a place to sit. With the overalls, you can sit wherever you want, on the street, in the grass, it does not matter. You will never get your pants dirty!
• All these pockets! You got so much space for your belongings in the overall. If you are lucky your overall has a lot of zippers to make sure that when you are showing your awesome dance moves, your belongings will not fall out.Besides, when you are walking the streets you can easily hide some drinks in it.
• At a party, you will not get your clothes dirty when a drunk student, or maybe yourself, spills a drink. The tradition is that you may never wash your overalls. Imagine how clean the overalls are after partying for four years straight.
• In winter time, it gets cold in Finland, the Finnish students may get used to it after a while, but as an exchange student it is an adjustment. Since the overalls are big you can wear your normal pants underneath it, which means you got an extra layer of clothing to keep you warm.
• Everyone in Finland knows that when you are wearing an overall, you are a student, probably drunk or planning to get drunk, just having some fun. When you enter a train or bus laughing and clearly drunk, no one will really bother. If you are not wearing your overall, they could have a problem with it.

Earning, collecting, buying and... sewing

After a while I collected (and bought) some patches to sew on my overall, but the question was, how?! I never sewed anything successfully, let alone stand sewing on all the patches. The first two patched took me around two hours. But eventually you will manage the sewing mastery, as a student in Finland. I hear you thinking, why not using a sewing machine or some fabric glue? Well, glue will not survive all the parties and other horrible things the overalls must withstand. A sewing machine could be the solution, it is however, following the tradition, not allowed. You must work, bleed and curse for your patches. At my freshman party, I had almost mastered the sewing mastery and I was proud.

Figure 6: Sewing patches on

Figure 7: Earning a patch during an univorn run at the freshman party (08/09/2017)

I was scared that I would not have enough possibilities to earn patches during my time here, since I am only here for 4, 5 months. When looking at the date, it is now the 2thof October, which means I am already here for almost two months, only two and a half months left. I already got 20+ patches on my overall and still got 18 patches to sew on, so I think I am going to be okay. It requires some blood, sweat, time, money and using your curse dictionary, but it is totally worth it.

Not only can you earn patches by parties and pub crawls. There are also activities like cruises, sporting events, and even during a game of dodgeball. Furthermore, patches can be bought at certain shops throughout the city and from students themselves. There is a whole market concerning patches in Finland, students making, designing and eventually selling them.

Figure 8: Patch earned during dodgeball event (27/09/2017)

Even more sewing...

The last thing I want to share about the overalls is the combining aspect. When you are in a relationship with someone or even marry someone from another study or university you split your overall. For example, when you are in a (serious) relationship you trade one leg and attach this to your own overall. This is another good example of how dedicated students are regarding their overalls. Of course, some students are more dedicated to earning patches and wearing overalls than others. You can see an exchange student like me wearing an overall with many more patches than some fourth-years who have been studying in Finland for their entire study.

Lastly

I will be home by Christmas and I am sure that I will miss wearing my overall. Wearing your overall makes you feel like you belong to the student society here. Wearing an overall indicates that you are a student, proud of all the patches you earned, proud of the study/university you are part of and always in for a party. It bonds you with students you do not know, since it is a topic to talk about. You ask which university they are from, where they got a certain patch from and things like that. Having more patches than others does not mean people will like you more or think you are ‘better’, you ‘belong to the group’ with a plain overall or an overall that is full of patches, it doesn’t matter.