“We are bored of the clichéd stuff. Now, we want the brand to speak for itself,” says Bhanu Prabhakar, coordinator for sweatshirts at Hindu College. Unlike two years ago, when Hindu had used the quote “frankly dear, I don’t give a damn” from Gone with the Wind, this year the college is planning to have a plain black sweatshirt with just the college logo. Miranda House and Sri Venkateswara College, famous for slogans such as “where the mind is without fear” and “Venkateswara, Don’t look at us just follow us”, are also falling into line.

But even as this trend catches on in other colleges, St Stephens’ College has been coming up with such sweatshirts for the past three years now. “We don’t see the point in stating the obvious, which for us is that St Stephens’ is the best,” says Boban Verghese, college president.

The trend for simple designs is a marked deviation from the “slogan fever” that had caught on in DU these past years, when colleges even held competitions for the wittiest one-liner printed on college gear.

Sumit, the owner of R K Enterprises, which manufactures 90 per cent of the sweatshirts in DU, says though slogans are definitely out, some departments demand that college sketches be printed on the front of the sweatshirts. He says this year he has already received orders for nearly 4,000 sweatshirts. The cost varies from Rs 250-Rs 350, depending on the style. “We charge extra for the quality and the design. This year, hoods are in,” he says.

According to Lalit Singh, president of Sri Venkateswara College, the demand for sweatshirts is highest among freshers, who are buying them for the first time. “Second year students have a been-there-done-that attitude while third year students buy them for the sake of memory,” says Singh.