It’s fall, y’all. The season of pumpkin spice lattes, candy corn, pumpkin carving and a very occasional nip in the air — after all, this is Florida — has fully descended upon us.
With this season, it seems every basic white girl’s wildest dreams are coming true. I, too, am a basic white girl who loves fall. Sometimes I wear flannel, drink fancy fall-flavor-infused coffee and use the Pumpkin Harvest soap in my bathroom, which smells heavenly.
However, I have a few autumn musings that don’t fall nicely into this wanderlust season that’s sprinkled with fake leaves and misted with all of the pumpkin scent one could ever want. At times, even the most basic girls sometimes just can’t handle fall. With that in mind, here are some friendly suggestions for the fall season.
First, it may be fall, but leggings are still not pants. One might treat them as pants, and you have every right to do so. Please, wear leggings if your heart desires. Just understand that they are not pants.
Leggings are tight and stretchy and, on a good day, might double as yoga pants if you’re lucky. On a bad day, they look like tights or fuzzy paint plastered over girls’ backsides.
Leggings get a little better if one is wearing a relatively long shirt, but I’m not sure the female species will look back on this fashion decision with fondness.
Call me old-fashioned, but there’s just something about seeing people from behind wearing leggings without a shirt of adequate length that isn’t flattering for myself or the wearer.
Second, in any SEC college town, fall means football. This year, it seems football also means tailgates and games filled with high-waisted shorts that miss the short mark by about 5 miles and move into the “Are you even wearing pants?” territory instead.
There’s no nice way to put it: Your butt hanging out of your shorts just isn’t cute. I understand that this is college, and high-waisted shorts are a popular college trend. You probably have a nice butt, and even Meghan Trainor says she’s “bringing booty back” in her new hit single, “All About That Bass.”
However, those extra inches of padded skin don’t make my list of things to see on gameday. Orange and blue, Albert and Alberta and thousands of fans screaming “Go, Gators!” all make the cut. Your butt does not.
My third and final fall observation concerns skimpy Halloween costumes. They’re old news, but they’re still hanging around — or should I say, hanging off of their respective wearers, despite how stupid they are.
Again, girls have every right to wear an itty-bitty costume if they want to. They’re probably not all that different from clothes worn when going out on any other night of the week. However, it’s still silly.
If you want to be a cat or Minnie Mouse or Superwoman, be those things, but don’t be the scantily-clad version of them because you won’t even look right. Minnie Mouse wears a red and white polka-dot dress, not black booty shorts and a polka-dot crop top.
Fall is a fabulous season. Pinterest boards come to life. College students double as apple pickers, pumpkin- patch visitors and corn maze goers. Basic white girls everywhere are thriving in their natural habitats, but sometimes that thriving gets a little out of hand.
College students are adults. We can all make our own decisions. Yet, in light of these three interesting fall trends, and as a basic white girl, I personally suggest a little more class and a little less … well, you know.
Lindsay Alexander is a journalism sophomore. Her columns appear on Wednesdays.
[A version of this story ran on page 7 on 10/22/2014]
