When the Tiger Stadium lights dim and game day comes to a close, she steps off the field not only as a colorguard athlete, but as a fashion designer who looks to tell a different kind of story.

Sophie Rangel, a senior textiles, apparel and merchandising major at LSU, creates her own custom clothing items when she’s not performing for the colorguard team during football and spring competition seasons.

Rangel first piqued an interest in colorguard her freshman year of high school when one of her friends on the team convinced her it would be fun to try out. While said friend left the team shortly after Rangel joined, she decided to stay anyway and eventually fell in love with the sport.

Rangel performed all four years of her high school career and originally didn’t plan to continue performing wherever she attended college. In the South specifically, many universities don’t have colorguard teams, which was a factor she took into consideration, she said.

However, LSU’s winterguard team would be what changed her mind. During Rangel’s high school competitions, LSU’s winterguard would compete at those same competitions and she often found herself admiring the team. Thus, she decided to try out for LSU, and the rest is history.

Regarding her passion for fashion, that love had always been present in her style and love for clothes, but ultimately blossomed out of excess spare time.

When the world shut down for the COVID-19 pandemic, Rangel sought to find a hobby to take up the majority of her free time. She learned how to use her grandmother’s sewing machine and started thrift-flipping and upcycling different articles of clothing. Rangel was so fascinated that she began to flip five pieces of clothing a day, she said.

“They were pretty rough quality, but I was so inspired to keep learning and practicing,” Rangel said about her original designs. “I kept practicing until I started my apparel design concentration at LSU. I learned a lot more about sewing techniques and how to make and use patterns, how to sketch more professionally, draping, etcetera.”

Once her love for fashion had been built, the new challenge for Rangel would be the ability to balance both colorguard and design. That process wasn’t an easy one for Rangel to start, but nonetheless, she persisted.

Before Rangel switched her major concentration to apparel design, she struggled with the aspect of a merchandising concentration because it felt as if it was forced, she said.

“My first semester at LSU, I struggled a lot with letting colorguard take over completely,” Rangel said. “It felt like I was kind of just floating through and [merchandising] was something I had to do in order to keep doing colorguard at LSU.”

As Rangel found her groove once she switched concentration, she in return found the balance between colorguard and creating her own fashion pieces she’d been seeking. She gained a newfound eagerness to improve her skills and learn more about sewing and design creating.

However, the colorguard schedule and overall time management was also a prominent issue in terms of finding physical balance. Colorguard rehearses with the Golden Band every day of the week except for Monday during football season, not including additional separate rehearsals and sectionals occurring after that combined practice.

Due to the time consuming schedule in the fall, the only fashion pieces Rangel typically gets to design are her class assignments and pieces for the thrift store she works at, Good Choices Co.

Usually, Rangel stays up into the late hours of the night just to prepare her pieces for her sewing labs in class. She does this in order to use her entire class periods to work on whatever project she may be designing at the moment.

When colorguard draws to an end and winterguard season starts in the spring, Rangel has more availability to create her own personal pieces and throw herself into bigger fashion projects. She’s found it much easier to dedicate her time to crafting collections and working on her bigger pieces in the spring so that she can relax during football season.

When Rangel approaches creating new designs and collections, she often takes inspiration from apps like Pinterest before she officially starts designing pieces, she said. The inspiration she looks for ranges from movie posters to characters on television, whatever piques her interest. From there, she creates an overall mood board and finds a theme for her design.

“I use the mood board for inspiration in color, fabric texture, silhouettes and general mood. I like to sketch my designs and style them in my sketches,” Rangel said. “Then, I get to create the pieces. Sometimes in class, our assignments are to design [pieces] using specific criteria included and it forces me to design things I usually wouldn’t, but it is great practice.”

Recently, Rangel has found herself drawing inspiration from different forms of dance and has tried to base her designs around that. She loves the dancing element that comes with colorguard and watching dance in general, so it’s one of her favorite inspirations when it comes to designing pieces, she said.

Rangel’s favorite piece that she has designed throughout her journey was a circle skirt that she created in her personal collection called “Chamaka,” which was for an FALSU event in the spring of 2025.

“The collection was inspired by the differences in Mexican culture and Mexican-American culture that I have learned as a Mexican-American,” Rangel said about the piece. “I put some of my own style into it and it was so rewarding to see that skirt specifically on the runway and I was very proud of it.”

As her senior year at LSU comes to a close in the spring, Rangel is so grateful for the opportunity colorguard has given her and the time she’s had to express her passion for design. Through the sport, Rangel has made lifelong friends and has had an amazing experience because of what the colorguard team has contributed to her four years.

“Colorguard and performing have really helped me overcome so much in my life,” Rangel said. “I wouldn’t have the strength to do my fashion without the confidence that colorguard has given me, or without the support of the people it has connected me to. I am so thankful that I have gotten to experience it at LSU.”