High-ticket Events vs. the “Broke Student” - Glitz in the Bubble

Sophie Rose Jenkins

Image credit: St Andrews Charity Fashion Show

If you meet a university student in the wild, you’ll meet the topic of money sooner rather than later - they’ve probably gone into their overdraft just greeting you. Money talks, but in St Andrews it shouts. And with tabloid headlines often putting the words ‘St Andrews’ and ‘billionaire’ in the same breath, it’s easy to assume these “broke student” stereotypes don’t exist in the bubble.

In Candlemas especially, the town transfigures into a Vogue cover; it’s show season at the university with some of the UK’s largest student-run fashion events. When tickets easily exceed £100 and many dedicated students attend several in a semester, it seems the glossy magazine spreads of St Andrews couldn’t be farther from the image of the “broke student”.

From the outside, these pricings don’t go unfounded. FS boasts showing pieces from Vivienne Westwood, Fendi, and Ted Baker (although even their own website debates whether these collections were couture or high street), with local class-markers Spoiled sharing the bill with royal-warranted Johnstons of Elgin in the 2025 show. From a distance it’s impossible to define the art of the sponsorship deal, but the opportunities presented to those able to gain a place in the runway line-up are unmatched.

And gaining a place is hard; I could spend weeks on the beauty standards of fashion shows in a town full of 10,000 new adults exploring the validity of their identity in the world. In singling out (almost exclusively size 6) students as the most beautiful and literally putting them on a stage at a hot-ticket event with a luxury price tag, these events perpetuate ideals we’ve grown up being taught to ignore. Anyone invested in fashion knows that luxury is more than a price tag, but this secret language sounds louder than ever when students are being defined on the street as worthy of hoping for a chance to wear these labels.

Soapbox aside, fashion show culture in St Andrews finds other creative methods of exclusion. These events are famous as where the now Prince of Wales first paid attention to Catherine Middleton, and it seems every new generation of students is eager to get their foot in the heels of potential fame. LinkedIn profiles regularly feature fashion show committee positions next to sought-after internships at luxury brands and posts featuring the words ‘select group,’ ‘privilege,’ and ‘leading brands.’ The names of these shows are on the lips of every student, but those who can say they participated are a clear step apart.

However, each of the fashion show committees does ensure charity work is a key value of their advertising. Each year the lucky beneficiary is proudly emblazoned across profile banners, social media campaigns, and screens at the shows themselves. In the best faith, it doesn’t take much searching to uncover the impressive figures raised for charity by these events in recent years.

But the world of luxury philanthropy will always inspire visions of an aloof ‘saviour complex’ blindly waving thousands of pounds at donation pots for photo opportunities. Statistics on St Andrews fashion show websites state that their money goes to “numerous worthwhile organisations” - so spectators can easily become doubtful of just whether these measures aren’t simply another shiny thing to place on a pedestal on a sleek all-black website. “Broke” students, impoverished students, formerly homeless students still exist in St Andrews; it might be nice for the money to go somewhere the students can actually be certain of the good it does.

These rifts in the student image about the town would be easy to forgive if fashion shows were simply an unknown clique. The events culture of St Andrews revolves around two types of evening - balls and fashion shows. With such a lack of clubs available, student night owls gravitate to glamourous, once-in-a-lifetime events seemingly every other week. It’s great that our student body has access to these experiences, but the suffocation of the small town and the frequency of these names on runways, social media feeds, and real life only exacerbates the existing estrangement between those who “fit in” to a town where Barbour and Ralph Lauren are high street names and those who more identify with the millions of young people wishing for the opportunity to live the royal life this town chases.

It’s no secret that the demographic of St Andrews prides itself on labels - Barbour, Vivienne Westwood, Ralph Lauren - but when these labels make it beyond the clothes tags found on the street - ‘elite,’ ‘select,’ ‘exclusive’ - the town comes with the asking price to match. Some of us are still tucked away in the backs of lecture theatres, but the “broke student” living on a part-time job and occasional high-street wardrobe refurbishment that you will see across the world is far from what’s walking the runways in St Andrews.