Overalls and jackets
Cloth patches are often collected on the overalls and jackets as souvenirs of different student events and other students met in these events, with whom patches have been exchanged. The colourings and patterns of the overalls and jackets and the emblem of the school or student organisation on the back express their wearers’ place of study and degree programme. In some student circles, it is customary to exchange part of the overall leg with the person you are dating.
The overalls originally became more common in Sweden through the local sitsi culture. In Finland, the first manifestations of student overalls were construction site overalls acquired by the students of the Guild of Civil Engineers along with the construction of the Teekkari Village. Almost at the same time, the campaign overalls were used in connection with various campaigns of technical students. Overalls spread among the guilds in Otaniemi around the end of the 1970s, and at KY, the first “painter’s” overalls were seen at the Mursujaiset of 1979. Overalls have generally become known in Finland through technical students.
In Aalto University Student Union, student overalls are especially used by technical and business students, and jackets are seen on ARTS students. The colour and pattern of the overalls and jackets tells you what their owner is studying.
Colours of Aalto Students’ Overalls and Study Fields
- Guild of Architecture: painter’s white
- Guild of Automation and Systems Technology: purple, with a black pocket on a black sleeve and a light blue pocket on the right thigh
- Guild of Bioinformation Technology Inkubio: reddish-brown (= brown) overalls with white cow spots
- Data Guild: silver grey, with a black sleeve
- Guild of Physics: off-white
- Guild of Information Networks Athene: forest-green
- Guild of Mechanical Engineers: pink
- Guild of Surveying Engineers: matte black with a fuchsia sleeve and pocket
- Association of Process Engineering Students: blue overalls with red, blue and yellow stripes on the sleeves and legs, to remember the old guilds of the School of Chemical Technology
- Guild of Civil Engineers IK: dark blue with a green sleeve
- Guild of Electrical Engineering: pure white
- Guild of Computer Science: shiny black
- Guild of Industrial Engineering Prodeko: white overalls with annually changing rainbow stripes
- Teknologföreningen: technical-red
- Aalto University Business Students (KY): dollar-green
- Probba (Mikkeli Business students): dollar-green
Other overalls in the Aalto Community:
- Overalls of the former guilds of the School of Chemical Technology: Red for the Chemistry Guild, bottle-rack-blue for the Guild of Materials and Metallurgy Students and cellulose yellow for the Forest Products Guild
- Guild of Surveying Engineers (those who started before 2014): matte black, with a burgundy sleeve for students of Real Estate Economics and a green sleeve for the students of Geomatics
- Guild of Civil Engineers (those who started before 2014): dark blue, with a green sleeve for students of Environmental and Civil Engineering
Jackets of ARTS
Even though overalls have not achieved similar popularity at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture as in the other fields at Aalto, one of the School’s associations has created their own garment for the First of May. The student organisation of the Department of Design Nuoret Designerit [the Young Designers] ry, or NuDe, has ordered strikingly stylish First of May coats for its members since 2016. The first coats were sewn from a fabric donated by Vallila in the pattern of the classic lab coat. The print changes yearly, but the coat gained its name from the first print, Vallila’s Vappukukka [First-of-May flower]. Since then, also Kooma ry, the association of Art education students, has organised white coats with a grey hem, and GRRR, the association of graphic design students, has organised jackets with a yearly changing pattern.
You may also notice the following about overalls:
- The overalls have a leg in a different colour.
- It is customary among students to exchange overall legs with the person they are dating. So, if you see, for example, rainbow-patterned overalls with a pink leg, they probably belong to a student of industrial engineering who is dating a student of mechanical engineering.
- Green overalls have a furry collar.
- It is customary for business students in the culture section to add a furry collar to their overalls.
- Green overalls have white fabric around the upper arm.
- Business students in the Cultural Committee add this detail to their overalls.
- There is a colourful string around the wearer’s waist or hanging from their shoulder down to the hip. At times, a tassel may be hanging from the string.
- These often tell that the student is a student union volunteer. The colour of the string / tassel tells in which committee the person is or has been active.