From left, Bama fans Caroline Cooney, Katie Gehring, Lauren Magliocca and Betsy Beam. (Astrid Stawiarz)
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Decked out in her Saturday night finest, wearing a fitted houndstooth skirt, black shirt and perfectly blown-out hair, pretty brunette Betsy Beam is at the Ainsworth in Chelsea, ready to get her gridiron on with the rest of the University of Alabama Alumni Association. Several bars throughout the city host game day for Southeastern Conference schools, and it’s becoming so popular that arriving three hours prior to kickoff is necessary to get inside.
Beam, 25, is an Alabama fan who enjoys displaying her team spirit fashionably. Crimson, houndstooth and anything with an elephant printed on it — Bama’s mascot, though the team is referred to as the Crimson Tide — catch her eye. “When you look good, you feel good and have a good time,” she says.
For most, football games are a chance to throw on a jersey and jeans and yell for their alma mater. But for stylish Southern women, it’s an opportunity to dress to impress — even when they’re far from home. For these New York transplants from Dixie, college jerseys are anathema — watching football is a chance to make a fashion statement.
“It’s weird to me that people in the North don’t dress up for games,” says Katie Kittrell, 26, a University of Alabama graduate and native of the state.
“[Watching football] is an outing. You’re going to an event — you need to dress nice.”
Kittrell often accessorizes her game-day ensembles with a pin that says “Chicks Love Their Nick” — for head Alabama coach Nick Saban — and red pants, which she bought “primarily for Alabama games” in homage to the team’s crimson and white colors.
For 24-year-old roommates Chelsea Roberts and Amanda Ress, both from Louisiana, Southern game-day style isn’t a choice — it’s a requirement, because most games double as dates.
“It started off where you go on a date with a fraternity boy and they have to wear a suit, so you dress up and wear a dress,” Roberts explains at Legends NYC in Midtown, where the Louisiana State University Alumni Association meets every Saturday. To support her team, she’s clad in a tiger-striped blazer that pays tribute to the school’s mascot, Mike the Tiger. Laini Vogel, 31, lives in Hoboken, but is also originally from Louisiana. She says her shopping trips are affected by LSU’s gold and purple palette. “It’s one of those things where you see a cute purple dress and you think, ‘Oh, I can wear that on game day,’ ” she says. Katie Gehring, 24, is another Dixie gal who has kept her Southern style since moving to New York.
For Gehring, dressing up for games is a given. “When I think about girls in the South, it’s about putting your best face forward.”
Meanwhile, Alabama fans search for houndstooth pieces (which also happens to be one of this season’s hottest trends). The school adopted the pattern for its beloved football coach, Bear Bryant, who wore a houndstooth fedora to every game.
Lauren Magliocca, 24, graduated from Ole Miss. She says it’s the South’s huge Greek system that requires formal game-day dress. On a typical game day, men between ages 15 and 50 wear a jacket and tie, while women wear dresses with heels and curl their hair. “Transitioning [to New York], it’s a little different,” says Magliocca. “Not a lot of people wear the pearls and the lace and the bows, all of the things that are Southern. But I still do when I go to [watch] games. We would never wear a sweatshirt to a game. No matter how cold it gets, we would never do that.”