In the South, we’re a little weird about college football. If any of you grew up or went to college south of the Mason-Dixon line, you’re already aware of this phenomenon. Not only do our college teams garner much more ardent support than any of our professional teams, but people devote themselves to their Alma maters with an emotional vigor that is rare to find elsewhere in all of sports.
So what’s this got to do with handbags, you say? Well, today is opening day of the 2008 college football season, and although most of the games aren’t until Saturday, a few will be televised tonight and kick off (literally) the happiest 12 weeks of the year for this sports fan. Not only that, but this time of year brings about an odd dressing conundrum for all female football fans that support schools in the South.
Because here, you can’t just wear *anything* to a game. We dress up for football like some people dress up for church – and we do it in our team’s colors. Some schools (particularly those where orange figures prominently, bleh) have a harder time of it than others, and I like to think that my school chose wisely. I am an alumni of The University of Georgia, and our colors are red and black. I’ve bought an untold number of dresses, pairs of shoes, and pieces of jewelry in red and black, thinking, “Great! I can wear this on game day!” In reality, there are only 6 or 7 home games per year, and I have more sundresses and red jewelry than I could ever hope to wear to them.
Not everyone understands the desire to dress up for a football game, but in the South, it’s a tradition – my mother and father did it decades before me (at Auburn and UGA, respectively), and it’s a custom that I’m proud to carry on. It harkens back to an era when social events, including football games, were worthy of proper dressing, and also an era where women didn’t go outside in sweatpants with words on their bottoms. Obviously, this tradition was made for me.
One thing that’s very important for a put-together look, as all of you know, is a great bag, and it’s no less important on game days. A good, functional, fashionable bag can make or break the day since keeping your things with you and safe while traipsing from tailgate to tailgate is essential if you want to eventually make it inside the game (tickets! Guard the tickets!).
My personal pick? The Louis Vuitton Epi Leather Bowling Montaigne PM in red (Louis Vuitton is more common at southern football games than you’d think). Epi leather is rigid and durable, and the bag would probably be weighty enough to use to smack an opposing fan in the head. The PM size would be small enough to tuck safely under the bleacher and the zip-top closure would keep things safely inside where the bag to tip over or fall off a seat (because if you lose your ticket, the world ends). And the color? Pure, Bulldawg red. Buy through eLuxury for $1500.
So to those that may have never considered the vagaries of choosing a handbag for football season, happy shopping.
And above all, GO DAWGS!
