HBCU students brought more life to their campuses this year and plan to continue in the fall with an increasingly popular trend: Telfar Tuesday.
Students at institutions like Howard University, Spelman College and Elizabeth City State University, are sporting the luxurious bags, created by fashion designer Telfar Clemens, according to Reckon South. The bags — and what they stand for to some students — inspired Elizabeth City State University’s Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. chapter to start the Telfar Tuesday tradition on campus.
“Sometimes our HBCU lacks student engagement, so we have to get people to come out and be themselves. Sometimes that looks like putting on your bag, cute clothes and going outside,” said Deleini Froyze, a junior at Elizabeth City State.
Students are associating the feeling of carrying the designer handbags, which aren’t cheap but are more affordable than most designer bags, with artist Saucy Santana’s song “Material Girl.”
“Material Girl is kind of like: I am getting everything I want and deserve,” said Arrietta Putman, a junior at Elizabeth City State and Zeta. “Growing up, we can see from past Black generations that sometimes they didn’t take care of themselves, and it’s not because they don’t love themselves but more because they might not have been able to or didn’t have the time.”