In order to learn more about what fashion was really like here at Montevallo, we sought out an alumni who attended the school during the 1980’s. We interviewed Susan Lee, an alumni and current staff member at Montevallo. Susan graduation from Montevallo in 1989.
(Image courtesy of Susan Lee)
She currently works as the Administrative Assistant for the Exercise and Nutrition Science department. This gives her a unique perspective on the university and its fashion. Having her perspective on both past and present styles greatly assisted us. One thing we learned for certain from our interview is that Montevallo students have always loved being comfortably dressed. Or under-dressed, depending on whether or not pajamas are appropriate class attire.
Here are several highlights from the interview:
K: If you would like to say your name.
S: Susan Hill Lee, Class of 1989, at the University of Montevallo.
K: So you attended Montevallo for four years?
S: For three years, I transferred in from UAB (The University of Alabama at Birmingham). I graduated from here with a language arts degree, that allowed me to be certified as a secondary education major. I taught middle school and high school English for a while, after graduation.
K: Do you have any particular experiences, especially being an RA, like, involving fashion?
S: At the time, the professors were trying to keep students from wearing pajamas to class. It was a really big issue about wearing loungewear or sportswear or pajamas to class. So they wanted you to be dressed in a semi-professional manner, and they didn’t care about blue jeans, they just didn’t want to see the athletic wear, or pajamas.
K: Were you supposed to tell people not to wear pajamas?
S: No, in the dorm it was anything goes. I don’t know how many times we had fire drills and you would end up on the main quad in nothing but a towel and your flip flops, and it was always the coldest day of the year, it never failed.
K: Did you notice a difference between the way the sororities dressed and the rest of campus?
S: Yes, there were some distinctions among sororities that I noticed. I had a lot of friends that were in sororities. The Phi Mu’s seemed to be a lot of your early childhood education majors, and your elementary education majors, and they seemed to wear a lot of bows in their hair. Chi O’s seemed to be your more preppy. They wore a lot of the sorority jerseys, fraternity jerseys. They seemed to have a better dress code among themselves. You could tell if somebody was in a fraternity or a sorority because they had dress up days, and they seemed to not be out in their pajamas. And there would be some kind of, especially during certain times of the year, like Greek Week and Rush. You would see some very definite: on this day you wore a dress, or dressed up, and on this day you wore this jersey or this color. Very much like the Purple and Gold, you kinda knew which Purples and Golds were in sororities based on their colors and how they matched it with their sorority letters.
K: So the dressing for Gold and Purple side was, would you say it wasn’t as much of a thing or more of a thing during the 80s?
S: Not like it is now. Being on campus now, it was not as divisive as it is now. I was a Green, I did not participate.
S: I remember a lot of colored jeans, a lot of fluorescent colors, like how we think of highlighters now.
S: I remember having a pink and green raincoat that had little whales on it. I had the matching umbrella and the matching waterproof shoes.
S: You can’t wear heels on cobblestone, not stilettos.
S: Boat shoes! Sperry’s. The boat shoes were the perfect item to have on campus with jeans and a t-shirt.
K: Were boat shoes very popular here? I know my mom has mentioned wearing them during college.
S: Yes, they were, because they are the perfect shoe for cobblestone.
K: Is there a present day equivalent to the boat shoes?
S: Sperry’s.
E: Yeah, people still wear them.
S: I still have a pair.
K: What were some other things you would wear on a daily basis?
S: A lot of tennis shoes, when I started student teaching it was back to professional dress. I remember, a lot of, kind of a slouchy button-up shirt over a t-shirt or a tank, and a lot of stuff for your hair.
S: I remember the colors more than anything.
(Image courtesy of Susan Lee)