ESN Finland overalls

Have you seen Finnish students walking around the city in their overalls, ("haalarit") filled with patches and colors? What's going on, what are these weird partypants?!

Wearing overalls is a very big tradition among students in Finland. One could say that the official party outfit  to Finnish students is overall. They represent you and your fellow students as a collective, especially since every study field has its own overall color and/or design. Overalls come in all colours. Blue, black, white, yellow, green, red, pink... You can tell who belongs to your group just by checking out his/her overalls colour.

And if you have an overall, you are most likely to have badges ("haalarimerkki") on it too. Plain overall just happens to looks weird, and besides that also badges have meanings. They tell where you havebeen, who your friends are, what you like, which team you support... Also other party gear - like handcuffs, whistles and bottle openers - can be attached to your overall. You can't find two of a kind - they are all unique! It is also quite common thing to exchange parts of your overall (usually sleeve) with other students. That is to show love, friendship, side 

subjects or even having two main subjects. You can see people wearing them in every major student happening, like parties, meetings, excursions to other cities, Vappu, etc.

Finland is not the only country in the world having such a strange party wear. The overalls tradition is around 30 years old. And just like so many other student traditions of ours, our Swedish student cousins are behind this tradition as well.

Just remember - your overalls should never be washed ;)

To read more about the overalls: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_overall and http://www.niksula.hut.fi/~mmm/haalari/kulttuuri/joensuu.html

Like ESN Overalls on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/esnoveralls

   Now it will possible for you to get ESN Finland overalls which will identify you and hundreds of other exchange students in Finland!

ESN Overall Party will take place [beginning of 2013, to be announced]

You can buy your overalls in XX XXpm! At the same time you will also be able to buy ESN patches, etc. You can purchase your own "student uniform" for only 25€! 

ESN Overalls will be sold will be sold on a "first come, first served" basis! So hurry up to to make sure you won't be left without! (Also the amount of the certain sizes is limited!)

You can also buy your overall from ESN-IAC office (Lemminkäisenkatu 30). 

(See IAC's Facebook group for more information: https://www.facebook.com/groups/14238125346/?fref=ts)

 Text & Photos by: Laura Isomäki