The end of the school year leaves us overwhelmed with ideas for capturing memories. You only get to graduate high school once, so every photo, trip, and memento feels extra important. But the pressure can ruin it all. If you can’t decide whether to make a shadow box or a collage, or crochet a blanket representing how you felt every day of senior year, you might end up with nothing except the doodles from your calculus notes.
We all know that the best keepsakes are the ones that feel honest and spontaneous. They’re allowed to be a little bit messy because they’re real. And while we love a good photostrip, we might have a better idea: senior cords.
Many of today’s throwback fashions emerge from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, but hold on. We’re going back a bit further. In the early 1900s, Purdue University students turned their corduroy clothes into sturdy, fashionable memories. The students decorated their “senior cords” with signatures, doodles, and even high-effort artwork that represented their time at Purdue.
These scrappy-looking pieces seem to have lost their charm around the 1970s, but some of our quirkiest style icons like Harry Styles have been spotted in senior cords now and then. But what if we brought them back for real?
Like a classic signed t-shirt, cords can get messy. Write quotes. Doodle your crush’s name. Draw the school mascot. Each moment is captured forever on the fabric in whatever medium you choose (fabric markers will take you to amazing places), and unlike that classic signed t-shirt, the cords are a bit sturdier and more fashionable.
If corduroy isn’t your style, other sturdy options like denim could give you a similar project that will last a lifetime. For dance, high-quality senior leos that will take well to paint, rhinestones, and embroidery could be great canvases for something worth displaying if not dancing in.
We like senior cords because, like any senior year memento, they create an archive of what mattered most to us. When you look back on an item you decorated on your own (or with your friends!), every color, symbol, name, and even mistake means something that only the you of this moment will have ever been able to create. Whatever you make, remember it’s an heirloom for your future self.