That's perfectly fine. And really, I think it's got more to do with campus culture than anything else.

I agree, we didnt' have jerseys but all the chapters had shirts in different colors. I have a bright green SK intramural shirt with white letters. Did we do this to piss off the KDs? No, we did it because we already had an orange, lavendar, pale yellow, blue, purple, and white T-shirt. It was cute, not offensive.

All the chapters on our campus did this from everything from bid-day T-shirts to party shirts to PR shirts.

In marketing courses, you learn about branding (and I don't mean with a hot iron). Like, the Chevrolet symbol is one of the most recognized symbols in the US. You know that Coke is red and white and Pepsi is blue and red. It is my opinion that things with our letters on them should be in our colors for this purpose. It creates a stronger impression if you wear the colors consistently. Our chapter in college had bright yellow baseball jackets with red writing that we got at Initiation. We all had the same jacket and you could spot an Alpha Gam coming from across campus. The Tri Sigmas had purple coats, Sigma Kappas had maroon and Alpha Xi Delta had dark blue. Each of the fraternities did the same, although I believe both the Phi Sigma Epsilons and the TKE's had red jackets, so it was kind of confusing with them. I was sad when my chapter stopped getting the yellow coats and started wearing any old color around campus.

If others choose to do things differently, each to his/her own. I just choose to only buy things in our colors when they have letters.

We did all have the same jackets simply because it was cheaper to order them in bulk. But T-shirts, nah, they come in all colors. With only 5 chapters on campus, and recruitment done early in the fall, "branding" wouldn't really have worked for us. We wore letters nearly every day leading up to recruitment and it would've looked weird if we were ALWAYS wearing maroon.

My sorority is not a "brand", it's a sisterhood. Period.

There has been a lot of discussion about jerseys, but what about letter shirts/sweatshirts?

Back in my day, we had our traditional set(s) of letters in maroon and white, but we also had our own letters made in various patterns/colors on backgrounds of any color. It was actually cool to do so. Aside from the monotany of having everything maroon and white, the maroon would always eventually bleed onto the white, even years later.

We call those jerseys here, just because not many people have traditional jerseys...they're more expensive to make than a t-shirt with letters. I only have two real jerseys. The others are t-shirts.

I have a t-shirt with a pattern, but it's bears in red, buff, and green. My sweatshirt is black with red, buff, and green letters. I have another t-shirt you can just buy from online greek stores with red, buff, green layered letters on a white t-shirt. A gray shirt with red letters and white background screen printed on (cheap to have made, got as a gift...and no one on campus has red and white...that and I can't not wear it when it was a gift, so I do). And our recruitment jerseys that are white with red borders and red, buff and green letters...my other jersey is yellow with red trim, red letters with yellow dots, and green trim around those. It's not all the same. Most places make patterns with more than one color...I'm having one made in the fall for my birthday with a red/green plaid for the letters and a yellow trim...sounds ugly, but it looks cool, I promise. It's just a loyalty thing for me...but then again, I take that stuff very seriously. You won't see me wearing orange and blue (Auburn) if I can ever help it...and NEVER during football season.

People have, say, green shirts with tie dye letters, or brown shirts with blue letters (Chi Os have bags like that, actually)...that's not what I was saying bothered me, personally...I mean you won't see me doing it because I want only AGD colors...but it's the use of someone else's specific color combination on YOUR letters that bothers me...especially on my campus where there are only five sororities. I know a lot of girls don't look up all 26 NPC's colors. Don't really expect them to...I'm just a nerd and like doing it. But it's not that hard to avoid one of the five color combinations on campus.

-And she didn't say the sorority is a brand, but that the colors brand them as different, and this is true...I like being true to Alpha Gam, so I don't like borrowing others' color combinations or symbols. Mine are good enough for me.-

It just really depends on the campus. Our green and white intramural shirts were not confused with KD's Green and white "AOT wouldn't you like to know" shirts. All the chapters did it, and no one really had jerseys. Our sweatshirts, like our jackets, were ordered in bulk so they were the same but it didn't carry over anywhere else.

We only had 5 chapters as well and there was no reason for branding on my campus. Nor did we feel like were stealing each other's colors and/or symbols.

Well, ya know, each to his own. I just don't feel the need to use someone else's colors or symbols...mine are good enough for me. I can where whatever color clothing I want, but I don't see it as a huge sacrifice to stick to my own colors on my letters. If I like the color pink or the color blue or the color green I can wear that any time I want...why does it need to be on my letters?

I agree a lot of it is campus culture. While I love the two blues of Kappa, there's only so much you can do with them, YK?

I was so excited to wear letters after I pledged that the first few weeks of school I went to the local t-shirt place where you could have custom letters made. I picked out a lovely wine/maroon shirt and chose a light blue for the KKG and white as an accent behind. I picked it out because that's what I thought looked pretty at the time, it wasn't until a few years later that it dawned on me those were actually Pi Phi's colors. Nobody said a thing to me about it.

Sticking to the official color(s) is a neat idea- one of my chapter's most memorable recuitment parties was the one where we were all in Cardinal Red. However, since AOII only has ONE color- it would be pretty hard to only have things it that color- besides you can't really have a red shirt with red letters on it!

I remember one of our Chapter Presidents had red hair-- so she didn't have any red shirts/jerseys since it clashed with her hair. But then again, it wasn't our campus culture to only stick to our oficial color(s).

My sorority was called "Delta Delta" at a poetry reading for one of our sisters who had won a prestigious prize for her poetry. Double D. Hahaha

People at DePauw pronounce fiji as "figgy" sometimes, and there are also clueless rushees who think that F and J are actual greek letters.

Freshmen also always seem to confuse Delt (Delta Tau Delta) with Phi Delt (Phi Delta Theta).

As far as the whole Alpha Chi Omega thing goes, just about everyone at DePauw calls it Alpha Chi.....i've never heard someone say A-Chi-O. And we don't have a chapter of Chi Omega, if that makes any difference.

I'm in BKX, the science honor society. We get mistaken for a real GLO all the time and a lot of people on the campus can't pronounce greek letters, so we get called "Bet-uh Kappa Chai" a lot!

Mmm tea.