We continue our popular series Girls in Morningside Heights with this week’s featured character, Jessa. She’s eccentric and beautiful, and you want to hate her because she’s so cool and worldly, but you can’t because you know that she can’t help being European and therefore awesome. She’s all over the place and sometimes seems really self-centered, but beneath the chaotic aura is a young girl just trying to figure it all out like the rest of us.
Jessa is definitely one of those interesting, alternative majors like Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures, Philosophy or even Women’s Studies. She shows up late to every class, meeting and event she is ever required to go to; that is, if she even shows up at all. Even more frustrating is the fact that she clearly will have not done any of the work, but still manages to say something brilliant that has your professor beaming (or maybe it just sounds that way because of her British accent). Over winter break, she’ll travel to some exotic location such as Tanzania or Morocco under the pretense of learning a language or volunteering, but somehow can only recount stories about the crazy party scenes she experienced there. She’s your go-to girl if you need to find: a palm-reader, a vegan Thai meal, or a Turkish prayer mat in the city in a pinch. She’ll do anything to help you out even if she can’t get her act together and find her notebooks for class (or even her shoes sometimes).
In terms of style, Jessa has her look down. Her clothes have a bohemian, otherworldly feel that make it look as if she just stepped out of the pages of a vintage magazine. She favors kimonos, scarves, hats, beads, chunky sandals, and has even been known to rock a feathered vest on *special* occasions. Her look is utterly thrown together, reflecting her varied and eclectic personality and experiences. And if you ask to go shopping with her, she’ll take you on a whirlwind tour of downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn, stopping places like Buffalo Exchange, Hamlet’s Vintage, and Monk Vintage. Despite being from an incredibly wealthy family (some people even say nobility), Jessa refuses to pay for anything mass produced.
She might be hard to pin down, but Jessa has the keen ability to see right through your latest boy troubles and solve it all in one sentence, which makes her a very valuable friend. She is extremely confident and has a lot of experience, but somehow finds herself in difficult situations sometimes. However, she always means well and will not miss your dinner party in 620, or is just there to bum you a cigarette on those days when nothing goes right. You may not always be sure where she is and what she’s up to, but that would take away her mystery, wouldn’t it?