Picture this: it’s an official start to your academic year, and you’ve just secured your typical university dorm room. What would you do to make the space your home away from home for a year? While most students would bring in items from their own bedrooms – like stuffed toys or favourite lamps – some students have literally gone out of their way to create a space that feels more like a luxury hotel room.
The trend #DormTok on TikTok isn’t exactly new, but each year, as students start to move into their new dorm rooms, new designs start to populate the hashtag.
Dorm room transformations
While most of these dorm rooms can be pretty small, some spaces feature chandeliers, artworks, fancy headboards, plush carpets, and vanity tables that transform a regular room into a fancy boudoir.
It comes as no surprise that the majority of these “designer dorms” belong to female students. While most students design and decorate their own rooms, some of them have help from parents – some parents even plan the design a year before moving in!
Some parents even engage the services of interior designers – yes, ‘dorm interior designer’ is a thing (at least in the USA)! While prices vary, interior designers charge up to USD10,000 per room!
Their services may include designing custom curtains, monogrammed linens, couch, coffee table, headboard, and wallpaper; some even include luxury light fixtures and custom-made real wood shelves and cabinets!
Ole Miss and fancy dorms
The tradition of fancying up dorm rooms is particularly popular in colleges and universities in the southern states of the USA, like Mississippi and Louisiana. Just Google “Ole Miss Dorms” (Ole Miss is the nickname of the University of Mississippi) and you’ll find tons of fancy dorm room makeovers; in fact, Ole Miss started this trend. It’s practically a tradition that’s been around since about 2010, where girls would participate in “dorm tours” just to see the decorations inside other dorms.
Designer dorm rooms are so big in the southern states that there are Facebook groups and even TikTok channels dedicated to revealing, reviewing, and ranking these rooms.
Of course, TikTok and Instagram enhanced the trend, which really picked up speed post-Covid when students realised the importance of a comfortable space. Nowadays, you’ll find dorm room inspo pages on Instagram, Pinterest, and Youtube – most of these don’t break the bank.
What do you think?
While the #DormTok trend has been huge in the US, Singapore’s dorms haven’t quite caught onto the designer bug just yet. However, it really doesn’t take much to make a dorm room more inviting and comfortable without breaking the bank – you can simply rearrange furniture, get better bedding, and introduce greenery to your room.
Some people argue that it’s frivolous to spend so much on a room that you’re only going to live in for only one year. However, some say that a comfortable living space is more conducive to studying, and we shouldn’t underestimate how much décor can impact one’s mental health.
