I'm shocked.

I couldn't remember what those were called! They actually made good sense for people who were really into accessorizing and wanted a matching handbag for every outfit (or were in 7th grade and had nothing else to do by change handbag covers daily.)

wait, you can change the fabric on those things?

Well, it it's what I'm thinking of, those are buttons at the top of the fabric below the wood. You buttoned on and off different covers. It is a cute idea for people who change handbags.

(I had a couple of co-workers who changed handbags every day to go with their outfits. I'm more of a maybe-I'll-change-seasonally-or-if-there's-some-sort-of-serious-clash, but generally it's too much hassle to switch. With the changing of the covers, very little hassle at all.)

Not trying to hijack...
 

I have to admit I actually have and use my Bermuda Bag purse. It is a Lilly and the covers are reversible (solid color one side/pattern on the other). I also have about 20 other reversible covers in other prints, plaids and solids that match certain outfits I have.

Then again, I am a child of the 70's and 80's and sometimes I wonder if my daughter is going to grow up thinking I am the biggest retro dweeb on the planet.

***By the way what is the cause of my Greek Letters in my signature suddenly reverting back to English instead of Greek?

Bermuda bags make a comeback on GC!
 

If mine were a Lilly, I'd so use it!

Many collegians were carrying bermuda bags at my D's school this year. If only I could have found the original in my parent's attic....

It depends whether your browser has the font you used enabled.

You're right - I still tend to stay with that type of stuff, at least for work. When I walk into a store, the preppy clothes just sing to me! And Bermuda bags? Serious status at the time, especially the Lily Pulitzer or the reversable ones. They were more summery ones to me; I had an Etienne Aigner bag that could easily pass for a brief case - with matching shoes, of course. I still have a thing for Etienne Aigner. Okay, now for a couple examples of this round's Chat Dates:

Three of our choices had parties on the same night, and Ann & I went to Jade first. A sister had made a cake in their letters - the other sisters cooed over it like it was their first born! :rolleyes: Now, this is the fourth WEEK of Rush, and if I was going to fit into my clothes much longer, it was time to start passing on cakes and pizzas - none of the Chat Dates included a gym workout! Ann was smart enough to accept a piece of cake and play with it, but I just passed. We were being rushed by a set of twin sisters, who were just irritating in their squealing. Ann took a forkful of cake and said, "Honey, you have just got to try this!" and I got icing on my face - causing one of the twins to leap up and get a washcloth. Then someone started talking about the joys of being a Jade and Ann rolled her eyes at me. I could hardly contain myself at this point, so when there was a slight lull in the talking, I said, "You have been just too kind to have me here tonight, and I need to get moving. Thank you so much!" and got up. I turned to Ann and in a fatal move, said, "Are you coming?" In her fatal move, she said, "Right behind you!"

Leaving the open mouthed twins, we went to Garnets, where they were having a fraternity party. Meg was already there, and told us that she had asked a few of the guys who they prefer, and got all different answers - but that they all mentioned the houses we liked. Lisa and Ann's roomie were also there. We didn't make it to the third party (with the Opals).

I remember that the next day was a tea at Rubies, mostly because I was wearing an Anne Klein wrap-around dress, and so were the rest of my little group! We also all had ankle-strap shoes on, and a hairband - we looked like the Bobbsey Quads! After the tea, we all retired to Ann's roomie's car, teased our hair nice and huge, lost the headbands, and added more makeup, before going to a fraternity party at Diamonds. Two of the sisters got completely drunk, and one started to cry on Meg's shoulder, saying, "I really love you!!!" Yikes! Did that mean she didn't love the rest of us?

We had been told that the last two rounds were the most important, and somehow, most of us had some quirky invitations! All of us but Lisa had an invitation to Opals, even though we hadn't attended their last party, but Meg was the only one to receive an invitation to Diamonds - even though we had all had what we thought were great experiences there! We had all turned our rankings over to our Rho Chi (the Emerald), as we were supposed to. We had all been borderline rude at Emeralds. We seriously suspected that she had pulled a fast one, and left a note with the Greek Advisor, stating as much - not that it helped at this point.

I chose:
Rubies
Garnets
Emeralds

Yes, Jade had cut me over the cake incident, even though I had a Chat Date scheduled with one that day!

Ann chose:
Garnets
Opals
Emeralds
Another victim of the cake incident!

Meg chose:
Diamonds
Garnets
Emeralds

Lisa chose:
Garnets
Rubies
Emeralds

I went to where I was to meet the Jade, and upon seeing my "date", said something like, "I didn't want to just stand you up, even though we cut each other." She took it well, but I heard a LOT of whispering as I left. The Semi-Final Round was the next night.

Is this why I keep seeing Ws instead of omegas?

I wanted to ask, but it seemed too silly.

This is how I always think of the 80's, too....MY 80's anyway! Funny thing is that I still dress pretty much the same way as I did then. I just bought a navy wrap dress and my husband said "don't you already have a dress like that?" Well, I DID, but it sure doesn't fit anymore!

I don't know if it was a "cool" thing to do everywhere or not, but we always wore our string of pearls inside our button down collar so it draped nicely on the front of the monogrammed shetland sweater. When we weren't wearing our add-a-bead necklaces, of course.

I didn't realize how subliminally influenced I was by the Official Preppy Handbook until I found it a few months ago when I was cleaning some bookshelves. I showed it to my husband and we were a bit freaked out that the drawing of the family inside the front cover (mom, dad and 4 kids) looked frighteningly like us!

More Honeychile!
 

Please update!

I was letting NBH have her moment in the sun! ;)

Three Round Parties (as much as I can remember, anyhow!): I wore a red kilt (Sinclair clan, if you know it),
http://www.lindaclifford.com/Images/SinclairRed.jpg with a black turtleneck and a black blazer. I almost wore my pearls, but I was saving those for (please, oh please!) Pref. I had black hose and black shoes with just a little heel. I was already feeling a little too tall to bring out the 3" heels! These parties were an hour long:

Rubies: The singing as we entered was intense! In the background was circus type music, and we were given tickets of two different colors. We used the first ticket "to get into the Ruby Circus", and were seated with a sister on each side. The theme was that life is a circus, it takes all sorts to make up a circus, but the best circus was comprised of women like the Rubies. They served popcorn, peanuts, rootbeer floats, and Cracker Jack, with a clown tossing the peanuts & Cracker Jack. We also played games with the other tickets, and won small, Ruby-oriented prizes.

Garnets: More singing! At this point, I had one of their songs completely memorized, as it was so catchy. We were at a Parisian fashion show, "The Garnet Garment Show" - a runway was down the middle of the room, and sisters modeled outfits that college students "wear": the goth, the fraternity groupie, the too busy studying to have any fun person, and of course, the All-Around Wonderful Garnet Sister - who had her happy moments, her sad moments, liked to have fun, but still had a good GPA. All of the sisters wore their colors, a beret, and were scribbling notes like a reporter would. During the fashion show, a cheese board with crackers & olives was served, then afterwards they served quiche, and a really amazing fruit salad (not that icky sweet canned stuff!). How could I forget the Perrier, with a Garnet label and a slice of lemon?!

Emeralds: "Midnight at the Oasis" All four of my Rush Buddies were with me, all stuffed, and not very open to a desert theme. The sisters wore harem-type clothes (which looked a lot like sheets to me!), with the elaborate eye makeup and the veil over their mouths during the first part. We were each handed a dish with pita, hummus, olives and grapes, along with a goblet of grape juice. Laden down with this, we tried to sit gracefully on plump pillows, and for the life of me, I cannot remember a single thing about the skit. There was one sister for every two or three PNMs, or in our case, one sister for the four of us. The one sister made a comment that she had heard that the four of us came "as a package deal" and she could just wrap us up in a big bow - YIKES!!! We were the first four out of there.

We were encouraged to list three sororities for Pref. AGAIN, we didn't list Emeralds, and handed our invitation lists to our Rho Chi. Lisa wrote "declines Emeralds with regrets" on her list.

What a fun thread to come back to after a GC hiatus :) Thank you, Miss Honey!

Hmm, I'm curious to see if Emeralds tries to get them again for Pref. (Pesky Emeralds! :p)