Game-Day Fan Garb Over The Years
LS&A Magazine has a nice slideshow up showing how game-day fashion has evolved over the years. (Or devolved - you kids get off my lawn!) Link is here: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/archives/ci.footballhautecouture_ci.detail .
It's entirely unrealistic on many levels, but I'd love it if we could organize a "throwback fan uniform" day. I understand raccoons are 100% against this idea, BTW.
A sample shot from the 1930 homecoming game against Illinois. That blanket is the bee's knees, I tell ya.
November 14th, 2012 at 2:06 PM ^
What an incredible transformation over the years. I can't even imagine wearing a suit, hat and long formal winter coat to a game nowadays. Someone would spill Coke on it, I'd be pissed and then I'd start a fight in the stands.
November 14th, 2012 at 2:08 PM ^
...it was cool to check your email on your iPhone/Blackberry back then as well.
November 14th, 2012 at 2:19 PM ^
This transition isn't limited to Michigan, either. Schools like LSU and Florida have seen the same thing.
November 14th, 2012 at 4:28 PM ^
That is truely bizzare to behold. Before my time, obviously.
November 14th, 2012 at 4:56 PM ^
It was a scorcher, that day. I think I had a white polo on.
November 14th, 2012 at 9:30 PM ^
Why's it gotta be white though?
November 14th, 2012 at 10:37 PM ^
It was hotter than hell. I've been going since '89 and that's the worst weather I can ever remember for a game. Worse than the rain delays, worse than Purdue '95, worse than all of them. You just can't get comfortable when it's that hot, packed in with 100,000 other sardines.
November 14th, 2012 at 2:20 PM ^
Sir William Johnny Tampico Crossfingers Tacopants Jihad Sr.
He was a fine ole chap.
November 14th, 2012 at 2:29 PM ^
The caption on photo number 7 is classic.
November 14th, 2012 at 2:50 PM ^
i'm glad the dogfood for the picnic/tailgate is a thing of the past.
November 14th, 2012 at 4:27 PM ^
If you're drunk enough, Snausages are dynamite.
November 14th, 2012 at 2:36 PM ^
pic 14 girl to the far right with the long hair and nive rack of lamb
woooooooooooood
November 14th, 2012 at 2:39 PM ^
I remember when I was 12
November 14th, 2012 at 2:46 PM ^
So does your sock drawer.
November 14th, 2012 at 2:48 PM ^
of course it does, since that was only last year.
November 14th, 2012 at 2:51 PM ^
Well now I feel creepy.
November 14th, 2012 at 3:13 PM ^
Easy there fella, that girl is a generous 7, an 8 if you've been drinking.
November 14th, 2012 at 5:44 PM ^
She's wearing Michigan gear. Low-cut Michigan gear. That alone gives her a one-to-two point bump. Just about any girl looks better to me when she's wearing Michigan attire. This may be creepy.
November 14th, 2012 at 7:34 PM ^
there's a reason the "mouth half open, looking down with kind of squinted eyes" pose isn't popular with photographers.
November 14th, 2012 at 8:03 PM ^
In addition to a "nive rack of lamb," she also has what seem like a sick set of cans.
November 14th, 2012 at 2:50 PM ^
It's funny that just about every male in this country wore a hate back in the early 20th century. Everyone dressed the same and had the same cars.
EDIT: I just finished the slide show and that was really cool. I love looking at old photos from the early 20th century. Those pictures from the 20s make me think of the awesome show Boardwalk Empire.
November 14th, 2012 at 2:50 PM ^
...but I'd pay a premium for one of those knit tam o'shanters that used to be all over the place in, I'm guessing, the 70s and 80s. Can't find them anywhere.
November 14th, 2012 at 2:53 PM ^
Check ebay or amazon. Swear I saw a couple a while back on ebay.
November 14th, 2012 at 3:03 PM ^
So much happiness just the year before that poor woman loses her son to the shark at Amity.
November 14th, 2012 at 3:28 PM ^
There must be a member of this community in photo 12.
November 14th, 2012 at 3:35 PM ^
I actually do think I am in it. I cannot see my face, just my hair, but recognize the dude next to me.
Yes I had hair back in '84.
November 14th, 2012 at 3:33 PM ^
Gameday fashion is a pretty interesting topic. Even though I'm not a fan of most of the casual, modern attire, I think it would be pretty interesting if someone did a blog dedicated to it. Maybe something like The Sartorialist to tease out the daring & fashionable amongst the sea of blandness in most stadiums.
November 14th, 2012 at 4:24 PM ^
And in #8, the gray-haired guy at the extreme left is identified as Oosterbaan, which is ridiculously incorrect. Check out the team photo for that season here:
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?;c=bhl&ei=1&quality=3&v…
November 14th, 2012 at 5:23 PM ^
November 14th, 2012 at 4:49 PM ^
I am in if I get to wear a fedora and a fur trench coat like the dude from 1930. His gal is pretty swell too! (I think that's appropriate 30's speak.)
November 14th, 2012 at 5:14 PM ^
What was lacking in 1979-83, when I was an undergrad, compared to today was Michigan colors. It didn't particularly occur to us to wear maize or blue t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc. We certainly were not wearing jerseys. It wasn't that we were dressing up -- we dressed like bums. But flaunting the team colors was just not in style. You can see the difference between slide 12 and 14 (or 13 and the war paint). (I don't remember white clothes that apparently were worn in the mid-90s.)
I do recall that in the early 80s, there were alums -- 50 year old guys -- wearing god awful polyester maize pants. My friends and promised each other that if in 30 years we ever came back and wore those, we would take each other out.
November 14th, 2012 at 5:26 PM ^
It's been thirty years, so you've some checking to do. If you catch one of your old friends rocking maize slacks on game day, please promise the board that before you take them out you'll first tell them (in a Col. Walter E. Kurtz voice) that you are merely "an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill."
That will make it funnier when you violently attack them. Trust me on this.
November 14th, 2012 at 7:29 PM ^
I've been checking and, fortunately, the polyester pants have apparently retired to the nursing home with the older generation. We just look stupid in our overpriced jerseys.
November 14th, 2012 at 5:19 PM ^
My Grandparents attended UM in the late 1920s, along with Richard Albert Loeb of the infamous thrill-killing duo Leopold and Loeb. My grandmother would see at Loeb at the train station sometimes and told me (50 years later), he always wore a beautiful and stylish fur coat. Mr Loeb is pictured in the Michiganensian she left to me.
November 14th, 2012 at 7:47 PM ^
Very interesting. You caused me to look up the details about Loeb -- I didn't know about the Michigan connection. He was apparently at the time (and maybe still is) the youngest graduate of UM. He was already finished at Michigan and back home in Chicago at the time of the infamous murder. He was only 18.
November 14th, 2012 at 8:02 PM ^
The article says the "maize out" started in 2005. Not sure that's accurate. They started making student shirts in 2002, I think, that were maize and that most in the student section wore. They also used to give out free shirts occasionally, like the blue ones in 2003 for the 100th version of the The Game. Before 2002, there was really no coordination in the student section on what to wear. There was a lot of white, which made no sense, and plenty of the non-highlighter, orange--ish maize. That was also the era when marshmallow tossing from the student section at the bubble-encased camera man was going strong. That was a great tradition which offset the stupid key play tradition on 3rd down.
November 15th, 2012 at 2:26 AM ^
A sample shot of a man checking the other scores on his smartphone after the 1930 homecoming game against Illinois
November 15th, 2012 at 2:32 AM ^
November 15th, 2012 at 8:28 AM ^
still wear fur to the games.