Just as true Tiger fans claim purple and gold pulses through their veins, the colors run rampant on the backs of LSU students, faculty, staff and die-hard fans when the Bayou Bengals take the field in Death Valley.Game day at Tiger Stadium brings more than 92,000 people to the University area to show off their purple and gold in a variety of fashions. From dresses and button-downs to body paint and outlandish costumes, Tiger tailgating proves a hodge podge of football fashion.Jessica Pattison, apparel design doctoral student and instructor, said gameday wear varies between the different groups of fans.”It all matters to the person and what type of social group they’re in,” Pattison said.Pattison said fans who dress up for the football games keep the traditions of southern belles and beaus alive.Mimi Faucett, interior design sophomore, said she and her Delta Gamma sisters usually wear dresses on game days, but the fashion is not required by their sorority.Harrison Breaud, business administration freshman and Sigma Nu pledge, said it’s tradition for new fraternity members to wear button-down collared shirts, ties and khaki pants to the home football games.But to Jeff Noel, mass communication junior, dressing up does not mean dressing in office attire.”I do body paint for a lot of the games,” Noel said. “For the national championship, I had a purple mohawk with gold on the sides [of my head] because the helmets are gold with a purple line down the middle.”Noel said the atmosphere in Tiger Stadium inspires him to dress up in body paint, a purple-and-gold afro and his gold lucky gym shorts for each game.Pattinson said dressing in costume allows fans to feel more free-spirited.”[In costume] you have a different identity, but you’re sharing the same identity with everyone else,” she said.OTHER SEC SCHOOLSWhether it’s jorts at Florida or cow bells at Mississippi State, every SEC school has its gameday traditions.Caroline Lee, lifestyle editor of The Daily Mississippian at Ole Miss, said all the girls at Ole Miss tailgate in heels and wear nicer dresses in the Grove.Lee said male students at Ole Miss often wear coats and ties, and she’s never seen anyone paint their chest in Rebel colors.Jimmy Carter, assistant sports editor for The Arkansas Traveler, said the gameday wear at Arkansas is more laid-back than at Alabama or Ole Miss.In an effort to make sure every student has a blue and white T-shirt on game day, Kentucky has a “Tradition Tee” program letting students submit T-shirt designs for the University’s first gameday shirt, said Ben Jones, The Kentucky Kernel sports editor. Jones said freshmen get T-shirts for free, and other students can buy them at the bookstore.GAMEDAY TRADITIONSThe Pajama Game started when the University was an all-male military school. Male freshmen had to attend the first home football game of the season in their pajamas and leave their shoes in a pile outside the stadium, according to the LSU media relations Web page.But the economy and weather caused a decline in Saturday’s Pajama Game participation among students.”I did not see the turnout I would have liked to see [for the Pajama Game],” said Martina Scheuermann, SG vice president. “The weather was a factor in that. We really did everything we could to remind students that this is a LSU tradition.”The gold game, another University tradition, will be Oct. 10 against Florida. Fans are simply encouraged to wear gold clothing.—-Contact Mary Walker Baus at [email protected]