Dressing the part

Little 500 week is peppered with events, both official and not-so-official. What you wear can be an indicator of what you plan on attending or doing. It might not be intentional, but sometimes it’s easy to fall into these dress codes, depending on what’s on the day’s agenda:

If you’re celebrating:
Daytime means DayGlo, and more often than not, these outfits carry on into the night. I don’t know why, maybe it’s all that sun or the need to stand out, but you’re going to see outfits that might have been inspired by a pack of BIC highlighters. If it’s cold, there are brightly colored hoodies. Sunny? Crazy-colored sunglasses, most likely Ray Bans — real or fake. From there, it moves on to hats, shoes, purses and then ’80s or ’90s wear with sweatbands and fanny packs. If it rains this weekend, someone will miraculously have a neon rain poncho or trash bag. There is no limit to making clothing vibrant and obnoxious this week.

If you’re in Indiana University Student Foundation:
Your color is red. At various events, you wear so much red that you look like a relative of Saturday Night Live’s Target lady. But technically, because this is IU, you are wearing crimson for a good part of the week. You’ve gotten used to it, as you’ve been running several events leading up to Little 5 while in red. You still get into the occasional DayGlo ensemble once in a while, but red means business.

If you’re riding in the race:
It’s a mix between bike gear and normal civilian garb. Sometimes it’s butt pads and helmets; sometimes it’s shorts and a T-shirt. This creates a balance between putting in those last few training sessions and taking a break to get mentally prepared. Whatever the result, you’d better put on that DayGlo when you’re done because you’ve earned it.

If you are busy/don’t care/have to work/consider this any old week:
Well, you’ve got on regular civilian clothes. Some of you are not happy about it, but others would rather not partake in anything Little 500-related. That’s fine, but at least do something fun because it’s close to the end of the year. Everyone earns a little break once in a while, and Little 500 could be that opportunity — at least to wear some DayGlo. Also, if you see someone in a Pizza X uniform, give this man a medal because he is working hard to serve the greater good at IU.

Whatever you have penciled in for this week, make it to a few events because Little 5 is an IU tradition. It’s also one of the only times a bike race for scholarships spawns a week of concerts, gatherings and chances to wear ridiculous outfits.