Football is in the air. A few years ago, someone named Bennett wrote in and said he looked forward to the tailgate column every year. At that point I was like “wait, do we do these every year?” But three makes a pattern. And it really is that time of the season. A few weeks ago, I was at a wedding in New York and half the guys were checking their phones from the dance floor for the latest from the LSU-Ole Miss game. I’d spent lunch trying to explain the Lane Kiffin drama to my family, which added a little intrigue to the normal excitement of gameplay. Either way, it was exciting, and if you’re lucky enough to be keeping up with the score in real life vs. from your phone… we can help you with what to wear. As we have before.
These outfits in these columns have a shelf life, but only because the exact components are seasonal. The principles and the formulas are the same year after year. Boots, sweaters, cords, sporty-feeling blazers with some texture. There are core things you can always find on our floor: high-twist suits, OCBDs, ring-ring blue jeans, tassel loafers. But a fair amount of our assortment is seasonal — made with fabric we only buy once, or garment-dyed all at one time — and once those things are gone, they’re gone. And those are the things that can be really fun to buy. I’m trying to avoid using the F word here — fashion — but that’s really what it is. Seasoning for your closet. We make these kinds of items in relatively small batches, and the idea is of course to minimize waste, but also that you’re not gonna see yourself coming and going. An interesting-colored sweater just isn’t as interesting when you see it on 14,000 other guys across the country. It’s a tough needle to thread. Demand planning 101!
Anyway, the point is that tailgate outfit roundups can be an annual thing, even if the advice is exactly the same year after year. And it is the same, so I’ll copy and paste it here:
- Err on the side of dressing up vs. dressing down. (This means a shirt with a collar and long pants.)
- Lean into colors vs. logos… high-quality clothing in natural fibers with accents of your team's color are going to give you a lot more mileage than licensed apparel.
I attended school in the tailgate capital of the world, Oxford, Mississippi, home of the famed Grove, and my friend Graham recently passed along a photo from those days. I can’t recommend everything in the picture, but I’ve had the sweater-OCBD-lightweight-outerwear formula pretty firmly set for these kinds of things since the early 80s. The plaid shirt I told Bennett to wear to a UT game in 2024 is long gone, but this fall we’ve got another killer plaid shirt — a Harris Tweed CPO — that got the nod from multiple guys in the Atlanta store when I pulled it off the rack. I think that would be excellent for a tailgate, or really most anything you’ve got planned on a weekend afternoon this fall. Apple picking. Record shopping. Getting your car washed. Cocktails in the neighbor’s backyard with the game playing on the radio.
Here we go:
