{fashion focus} Showing your true (Pep) colors

Next week, we as a university will be celebrating one heck of a week. With that in mind, I thought I would chat a bit about Homecoming fashion — well not fashion, per se, but Homecoming color.

Our colors are orange and blue — two of the most intriguing hues in the color spectrum. Of course you must wonder, as I did for a while, how the color blue could possibly be interesting — or more so than others.

I was sitting on the beach last weekend watching the sun fall down through the water to the cities beyond my vision and I noticed that orange and blue make up one of the most beautiful color combinations I have ever seen. The gold that was left over from the sun’s last minute rays sparkled across the wet sand as the tide met with the beach — it was then that I saw what beauty was.

The blue hue spanned from white to navy in one fell swoop and immediately I realized all of the emotions that colors could possess. In just a few minutes, the sun went from broiling red to bronze to a yellow tinted blanket across the deep blue of the ocean. And there it was, the feeling of surrender to something beyond my control — the marvelous and definite separation of the water from the sky.

I know Pepperdine’s colors are blue and orange because of the ocean and the orange groves, but I choose to think that it’s the beauty of the ocean as it meets the last hint of day painting a glorious new picture for us to appreciate each day, every day.

Next week we’ll have T-shirts everywhere in various colors of blue and orange — some deep, some muted. Some people will even go all out and get ribbons, pants, jewelry and hats that enhance the occasion. And it will be wonderful. We will be a sea of orange and blue for a week (or at least a game on Wednesday and one on Saturday) showing the beauty of who we are as a united school.

There isn’t much to Homecoming fashion because it just seems to be “whatever goes,” but for one week, people can see who we are. We are a campus on a hill, we love our school and we love the ocean.

And we are lucky.

We are lucky to be where we are, where we can sit on the hill outside Dorm 14 or along the road on Greek Row and stare at the beauty that is Pepperdine.

I guess this wasn’t really about fashion this week, but about what to wear next week. I encourage you to look back in your closet and pull out that old orange tank or sweater and pair it up with some jeans, grab that tattered hat you bought when you were first accepted back in high school and slide it on. Let’s show Gonzaga who we are as a school and go out to support our basketball teams in glorious splendor. We have the opportunity to be a sea of orange and blue — two glorious hues in the spectrum that make up one of the most beautiful color combinations that I have ever seen. After all, there’s just something about that ocean . . .

{originally written for Pepperdine's Graphic newspaper}