A southern question re: shoes
 

Ok, this question is for the southern ladies regarding shoes:
(and I realize that I might be caring a little too much)

My 10 year college reunion/homecoming is this weekend at Elon in North Carolina. I haven't been to homecoming in a few years. The campus is severly preppy, with a lot of northern girls taking on stereotypical southern style and they dress for tailgating/football games. I have a few outfits to choose from for tailgating/the game, one of which involves black pants and black and white pattered high heeled shoes (which are adorable). Is it ok for me to wear shoes that include white (but an even amount of black & white) after labor day in the south?

Yes.

Second this.

I wish an undergrad would comment on my attire.

Yes:)

I asked my mom. I'm not southern but my mom is.

are they spectator pumps? typically, spectators are only worn in the summer.

IMO, there is no way to answer this question without seeing the shoe. For example, I have a pair of houndstooth print pumps that would fit your description and they would be totally out of place before Labor Day.

Houndstooth in Tuscaloosa AL is appropriate in any season.:D

We'd have to see the shoe. Off-hand, I'd say stay away from the white. Bone, off-white, almond - all acceptable after Labor Day.

Wear white and you WILL be talked about. And not in a good way.:p

LOL

I was a Californian living in the south (at one point) so don't think my opinion counts. The only color rule I ever went by was don't wear red or blue on the east side. :p

Take a pic of your shoes for these ladies . . .

I know people that send each other pics of what they buy or are going to wear.

Sooooooo much easier being a guy.

;)

FWIW, this whole thread makes me want to live in the South...just for a little while. The idea of the "no white after Labor day" rule being this important totally fascinates me!

ETA: No judgment/sarcasm here, fyi. I'm just fascinated by the "cultural differences" of northern vs. southern ladies :) Plus, who doesn't love a good shoe discussion??

In some areas of the south, if you are wearing white shoes after Labor Day,you'd better be getting married!

Yes...very much depends on the where and the who as to how strict this rule is.

I'm Northern and I would never wear white shoes after Labor Day. It has nothing to do with north vs. south...it's a basic fashion rule.

Thanks, 33! I was wondering if this was still another of my mother vs. northern society problems I have.

And trust me, there are many!

I do think it is more widely observed nowadays in the south - someone should make a poll! :cool:

If anything, it should be observed MORE in the North, as I think part of the reason is that you don't want your white shoes to get gross in the snow/slush.

That's nothin' compared to Alabama red mud.

And for some of us with big feet, there rarely is a good time to wear white shoes, regardless of the longitude and latitude.

co-sign to both

All I have to say is this is one more silly fashion rule that I can hardly bother to remember much less follow.

They're just silly.

If you don't want to follow it, then don't. But I honestly don't understand how looking at a calendar is that complicated.

Most "rules" are just common sense. Common sense tells you that white shoes with a sweater and pants in January is going to look effing stupid.

And along that note: dear elderly lady who was bitching about it being cold in the store today. Maybe you wouldn't be cold if you weren't wearing OPEN TOED SHOES IN OCTOBER.

Maybe my northern is coming out, but white shoes PERIOD, or a specific type of white shoe?

Honestly, I wear what I want when I want. I don't care what the "rules" are.

Using an arbitrary date on the calendar to tell you when a piece of clothing is no longer socially acceptable isn't really common sense.

Nor do I see why white shoes would be stupid in January. How is that common sense? Why would they look stupid because it is January? Seriously, I have zero comprehension of why the color changes from fine to oh god no not that.

k_s - white dress shoes. White sneakers are all right.

Winter clothes are mainly in darker colors. It looks stupid in any season when your clothes are darker than your shoes.

While this may be true, none of it falls into "common sense."

And I don't really even think it's true that winter clothes come in darker colors or half my winter sweaters are a lie.

/not that they're necessarily fashionable, but wtf do I know.

OK, I figured y'all were talking about dress shoes.

I'd still wear them though *shrugs*

Does the no white after labor day thing apply to guys as well? I never quite understood that; I have a pair of off-white khakis that I like because they go well with basically everything I wear, but I'm not sure what the rule on that is.

Also I recently heard a rule from some of my brothers that you shouldn't wear seersucker after labor day or before Easter; I kind of see the point to this (seersucker being light material generally unsuited for the usually cold weather of that time period) but I've never heard that one before. Anyone more familiar with the real South know the background on that?

i used to laugh at the "no white after labor day" rule until i moved to the midwest for school and found that when it snows it makes EVERYTHING disgusting, now it makes sense and i follow it simply to keep things from being ruined. i think it must have started in the regions where it snows then just progressed to the rest of the country.

i dont always follow the rules about my shoes not being lighter than my clothes, but i also don't wear true white..i hadnt heard that rule until just now

Off white =/= white. I don't usually see white men's pants, so I don't think you really have to worry about that. What guys SHOULD worry about is the wearing navy and black together....DON'T DO IT! Summer, Winter, Spring or Fall - black + navy = wrong.

You're right about seersucker - lighter material for hotter weather.

k_s ITY?

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/2544/tarlekyp6.jpg

He and his ilk are the only guys I've ever seen wearing white dress shoes. :)

North vs. South
 

One difference I've noticed is that in the north the rule is no white shoes before Memorial Day, while I was taught that in the south it is no white shoes before Easter.

I love breaking out the white shoes at Easter! :) (Hey, simple pleasures are the best.)

I think I can solve this puzzle for y'all. I study ritual behavior for a living, and I'm a native southerner.

Humans have marked the changing of the seasons with ritual behavior for millennia. Often the practices are arbitrary in nature, sometimes functional. In the southern US as well as many of the former British colonies, light colors are associated with warm weather because there is a general presumption that white reflects light rather than absorbing it, same with heat (this is scientifically debatable, but it's the functional belief behind the custom). Although I doubt there ever seemed to be widespread concern about one's feet overheating in dark shoes in the summer, the whole "light colors in the summer" was adopted in part because of semi-correct, semi-erroneous belief - and shoes just fell into that package. Now in these days of air conditioning, people still wear lightweight fabrics (and cover themselves up with sweaters b/c of the artificially-created chill indoors!) and light shoes as a way of marking late spring, summer, and early fall. The "rule" about the shoes is just a marker of identity - the way some people separate themselves out from others by noting a lack of observance in what has become a largely aesthetic tradition. So part of the "she wore white!" chatter is because of a desire to create a pleasing summer aesthetic, and part to create a social divide between "us" (i.e., "nice" people in the know) and "them" (tacky people not in the know).

Now this applies to shoes, seersucker, and linen. With clothes, its the fabric that is more important than the color - a winter white wool suit is perfectly "acceptable" for a woman. Generally it "should" be worn with non-summery shoes.

I've even heard that women are "allowed" to go without hose in the summer, although just to show you how deep the "us" vs. "them" thing goes, my mama would have replied "LADIES always wear hose, no matter the season."

Anyway, that's what is going on from a sociological perspective.

Seersucker is definitely a spring/ early summer material. You could wear it after labor day or before Easter, but it just looks silly. It would be like a woman wearing a sun dress in the winter. I still wear open toed shoes in the winter if I'm wearing fancy heels, but NOT if I'm walking through snow or ice. Shoe fashion for high heels doesn't change in the winter. Open-toed shoes are still acceptable.

Lol -- I'm wearing this to my 10 year HS reunion.

I was always taught Easter as well.

The dowager I mentioned was walking through Sears in a sweater and pair of casual pants. :) I don't think she gets a pass. She's also a little further north than you are. For me, I love my black satin dress sandals, but if I wore them past September around here my toes would freeze off.

The date isn't exactly arbitrary. It's just a shorthand way of saying no white shoes when summer is over. Because white dress shoes have a spring-summer/warm weather look to them.

As for James and Preston, guys do have to pay attention to this stuff too. The no-white shoes means no white bucks. And by extension, it means no clothing like seersucker. As noted by AF, though, white =/= off white, nor does it = dirty bucks.

That's how I've always heard it.

Ha, it's harder to be farther south than me now unless your name is AzTheta or AZ-AlphaXi! I agree she gets no pass.

If I'm going to an event where strappy sandals are appropriate, I'll often wear my knee high (dressy) boots in the car then change into my sandals before going in.

Also, I'd rather be shot dead than wear pantyhose. If I wear any type of hosiery, it's tights. Otherwise, I'll suffer to go bare.

To be quite honest, I don't know how I feel about patterned shoes, I really really hate plain white shoes, so I'll never get caught in the Easter v. Memorial Day debate. If I have an outfit that would go nicely with white, I've found that it'll probably go nicely with silver, and that doesn't fall under the same rules.