It was a chilly autumn day?one where you could see your breath?but nevertheless, five senior girls marched out to the center of the field, dressed in the most decadent skimpy dresses (the kind that end above the knee) their wardrobes would allow. In that group stood four popular girls, and it was assumed that one of those four would win the crown of Homecoming Queen.
But something magical happened that day on the halftime field. The band quieted, and the names of each young lady blared across the stadium. Each of the four popular girls stood in anticipation of her crown. Then, shock: As announcer named the Homecoming Queen, the four popular girls dropped their jaws in horror, and the girl at the end?the girl that everyone forgot about, the nice one, the kind one?stepped forward and received her crown. The popular girls were livid. On that Homecoming Day of parades and floats, of football and heaping doses of school spirit, it was this Cinderella-story of the girl that everyone wrote off prevailing over the four popular, evil stepsisters. Some force broke the typical high school social constructs and allowed a special moment for an unsuspecting girl: magic for one night. In a word, special. This was my highschool homecoming.
This doesn't happen on your average Bowdoin Homecoming. The day fades into shades of mundane. There is a day; there is a football game. But there is no dance, no dress, no day devoted to showing off school spirit. Lacking any of these things does not doom a homecoming to the anonymity of any other day, but there is a certain spirit behind these things that create a very specific atmosphere?magic, if you will. Bowdoin students treat the day as any other day, mostly because it is any other day. There are some events, some concerts, but little of the fanfare that I saw in high school. No magic, unless you deem a win by the football team "magic." To me, homecoming should be a bit more special. Though there are a myriad of ways to approach solving the situation, I believe a more definitive Homecoming Style should be implemented.
There are several routes you can take as far as fashion is concerned. First, and this is perhaps the only time I will come remotely close to endorsing this, show as much Bowdoin pride as possible through bookstore apparel. Every Bowdoin student has some sort of shirt, sweatshirt, jacket, or hat that says Bowdoin somewhere on it, and dressing in as much of this as possible does show a certain amount of dedication to the cause at a football game. But many Bowdoin students already employ this strategy of Bowdoin-ness.
Showing Bowdoin pride should extend beyond simply wears that brand "Bowdoin" across the chest. For some reason, this seems lazy?like the work is already done. Get creative! Perhaps think of this: How many outfits can you make in your wardrobe that contain solely black or white? Do you have those hideous, white acid-wash pants that you bought for the 80s party but have found no other way to use them in a socially acceptable manner? Now is your chance! Pair it up with a black shirt or black jacket, and you have school spirit through the epitome of tastelessness. If you have nothing that would allow you to reach full black/whiteness, raid a downtown Brunswick thrift shop for their stock of potential.
Try creating a tradition of Bowdoin Homecoming style. University of Virginia has a tradition where women go to football games clothed in dresses last found at the fashion forefront circa 1900, but they come with parasols and sweet tea to match. You and your roommates can dress in full suits (also on the cheap at local thrift stores) and bowler caps, capturing Bowdoin schooling of a different era. Come dressed in all madras patterned material, because if you have madras in your closet, odds are you think it's pretty cool, and odds are it makes some wealthy, country-clubbin' Bowdoin alum proud.
To many, this may seem like putting on a costume, and though Halloween is fast approaching, this is not near the intent. In fact, to an extent, fashion is a part of what I am calling for. Every man can wear a suit, and every woman can wear a dress, but it would not replicate the essence of what I experienced at my high school years ago. This is a call for a re-manifestation of the way Bowdoin perceives pride and showing it. It is a large-scale, homecoming weekend, public art project to bring the feeling of Bowdoin to our time and represent the times before ours. In the end, this should not look like trick-or-treating, but a campus style transformation?one that is not the Bowdoin we know, but still remains, somehow only we can recognize, distinctly Bowdoin. It should be, in a word, special.