By Eve Ahearn
"Unlatching a trunk, the 21-year-old freshman revealed bolts of colorful fabric that he said he planned to use for theatrical productions -- an utterly bizarre notion, at this rugged school intended to train missionaries. Where did Ledyard think he was, Yale?"
So writes Bill Gifford '88 in his 2007 book "Ledyard: In Search of the First American Explorer."
In addition to being the first American explorer, did Ledyard also bring the first flair with him to Dartmouth when he arrived in 1772?
When defining flair, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart' conception of porn is useful -- its unavoidable, indefinable, but I definitely "know it when I see it."
From the first time I laid eyes on Dartmouth, pulling up to Robinson Hall for Freshmen Trips to see a boy with a blue mohawk and an outfit full of neon and fishnet humping a lamppost, to last night when I saw a gorilla chasing a banana all through third floor Berry " flair seems to be everywhere.
Where did it come from though, and when and how did flair become so imbedded in Dartmouth culture?
There is no official documentation of the origin of the term flair, though some say that it's from the 1999 movie Office Space in which actress Jennifer Aniston's character refers to the mandatory "fun" or "personally expressive" pins that she has to wear for her waitress job as "flair."
"That's always been my own intuition [that it's from Office Space]," Outdoor Programs Coordinator Rory Gawler '05 said. "It was a term that people were already using [when I was a freshman]."
Dartmouth students have been dressing in costumes, though long before Office Space and its portrayal of every oppressed cubicle worker's dream was released.
During Freshmen Trips for example, Lodj Croo always had a show and eventually H-Croo did too, but costumes were not always part of the equation until the '80s.
"Though wild behavior of the Lodj Croo had been a feature of the program since the 1960s, the early 1980s saw a similar degree of spirit begin to overtake the Hanover operation. The Outing Club used some of its best talent to make the boring Hanover Croo work of getting trips ready to leave in the early morning a "truly magical" event. In 1980 the tradition of costumes for the Hanover Croo and a stereo to provide early-morning entertainment became established," wrote David Hooke in his 1987 book "Reaching that Peak: 75 Years of the Dartmouth Outing Club."
Although some people began dressing up in costumes for Trips in the early '80, it was hardly the norm.
"Some people would get dressed up for trips, it wouldn't be unusual for people to show up in a tuxedo for example. People didn't dye their hair though," Deputy Director of Outdoor Programs Brian Kunz said about flair on Trips when he began working at Dartmouth in 1984.
During the '80s the character of Freshmen Trips itself changed when there was a decision to change the purpose from only being an introduction to the DOC to becoming an introduction to the College itself.
"There was a debate over trying to [open trips to] all students to participate or keep it only for students who were interested in later joining the Outing Club," Kunz said. The DOC chose the latter as, "We feel that this is a great introduction to the College regardless in your interest in the outdoors," he said.
The change in the intention of Trips translated into a change in leadership and attitude, now everyone on campus was eligible to be on Trips or on a croo. "The whole campus could become a leader. People who have great personalities -- that's what you need, we can teach them how to light a stove and set up the tarp," Kunz said.
These new kinds of leaders were concentrated on making all kinds of freshmen feel at home and involved, so they got creative. "At one point in the '80s students wanted money to buy funny outfits, and we denied that request because we didn't think that College money should be spent for that," Kunz said.
Current croos can rely on the buckets of flair that have become part of the supplies for the program to welcome freshmen. "In Trips in general you do the hair and the flair and the crazy dancing to get the trippees out of the shell," former Vox Croo chief Molly Roy '09 said.
Flair can serve many other purposes on the trips as well. "During Trips it's another way to distinguish croos and the trip-leaders from the trippees and make us look more ridiculous so that they feel less awkward, and in general I think its fun to make yourself look silly and different," former H-Croo chief Catey Pease '09 said.
Despite the increase in flair in trips in the '80s, however, flair was still not a large part of everyday student life. "Dartmouth has been a flair-free zone for 200 years. When I was a student, there were a couple of guys -- a couple of gay guys -- who would walk around in pink feather boas, but that was a complete provocation, and people really reacted to it. It was a sea of green sweatshirts and sweatpants," Gifford said.
"Most of that started happening in the late '90s and it escalated. Students compete with each other, one year people do x, then students do x times two [the next year]," Kunz said.
The result of the competition has been a rapid increase in the prevalence and intensity of flair in the last 15 years.
"I think that here, because of the competitive nature of Dartmouth students, it has become a creative contest," Gawler said.
Flair has had such a rapid rise to popularity -- will it ever go out of style, like the clothing itself that people use for flair?
"I think it has become more and more prevalent with everyday activity. There's a lot of love behind the idea of flair, people get excited about seeing other peoples creative ideas. The more prevalent it becomes, it won't go out of style," flair enthusiast Patrick Martha '05 said.
Flair may be a relatively new phenomenon to Dartmouth, but its wild nature definitely matches the nature of one of Dartmouth's early students, Ledyard.
"[Ledyard] was a ham, he was a complete ham. People remembered him, that's for sure. He livened up the place, in the way it needed," Gifford said.
Eve is a staff writer for The Mirror.
