dress Checks
 

At your school, during rush do you have dress checks, or is the individual leftup to "use her best judgement" and go along with the days theme? Also, what did your chapter (or any other chapter that you remember) wear on the different days of rush, like philanthropy day, skit day, etc.?

I think dress checks are important, they help make sure everyone is looking their best for rush. Remember when you went through rush? I know I showed my roomate and everyone else in the corridor the out fits I was considering.

As far as what to have the chapter wear at what round, I think that depends on what other chapters on your campus wear. Also think about what your chapter members would be comfortable in and what works with the theme.

We had guidlelines and we could choose our outfits but they had to pass an inspection by the rush chair.

On the first day we all have to wear the same t-shirt (that's a panhel. rule). We usually paired it with khaki or demin, which ever looked better with the tee and white, stacked-sole sneakers. We could wear pants, shorts or capris. Most people wore capris or shorts because it's so hot in Oklahoma in August. The rushees also have to all wear the same shirt the first day. They can wear it with whatever they want.

On house tour/philanthropy day we wear something different every year. It is up to the day chair and the rush chair. This year we wore bright colored capris with black tops. We got to chooses the color and the top could be any style as long as it was not long sleeved. We wore black sandals-no flip flops. This was knid of funny because the year before we wore black capris with a bright colored top. So we pretty much just swithced. We have found that it is a little easier to not wear dresses on the house tour since there is a lot of up and down stairs and sitting and standing.

On skit day we wore solid colored dresses. Again we could choose the style and color. It just had to be solid colored. Our skit was Alice in Wonderland so it kind of went along with that. Last year our skit had a wedding theme so we wore something that you would wear to an afternoon wedding. It was very pretty.

On pref we always wear the same white dresses. Some of the houses wear all black.

The Thetas on my campus this year dressed really cute for house tour/philanthropy day. Their philanthropy is CASA and they do an event each year called Theta Rocks the CASA. They have a concert with a couple of popular bands to raise money. They all dressed like "rock stars." In outfits like one-armed shirts and black pants or strapless shirts or shiny tanks. When I first heard that they were doing that I was concerned that it sould come off somewhat trashy but it was really cute. They didn't look like hard core rock stars more like they were going to a mixer. Some of them crimped their hair. It was very cute.

Okay I think I've written long enough. PM me if you have any questions

We do dress checks and I think they're very important. It is important because it checks to make sure that all the girls are wearing the appropriate and proper attire assigned for each day. We check to make sure shorts are not too short and clothes are not too tight.

UCF has different themes. Day one is Go UCF day. Day two is philanthropy day. Day three is video day. Day four is prefs. Day five is bid day.

On the first day, we all wear black capris and a UCF shirt.

On the second day, we wear our jerseys.

On the third day, we wear a bright colored top and black bottoms.

On the fourth day, we wear long black dresses.

On the fifth day, we wear our bid day shirts.

I feel like both are important. It is important for the members to choose their own clothes so they feel comfortable. It is also important for the outfits to be consistant with each other and the themes. There is always that one person who cannot pick out an appropriate outfit. We all have "that girl."

We had dress checks when I was an active and I was always, always, always one of the people being critiqued! lol

I certainly wouldn't have been considered "Goth" in college, but I liked to wear black pretty much all the time. It was just "my thing", I guess, plus I happen to look damn good in black! :)

So every year the VP/Membership would come see me and ask what I was planning to wear to the rush parties and I would show her and, of course, everything got the thumbs down. Expect, of course, for my Pref Party dress. In fact, much of the chapter borrowed little black dresses from me for Pref Parties!

It's funny to look back through my scrapbooks and see me decked out in floral print Laura Ashley dresses and pastels because because I NEVER dressed like that outside of rush. But I am a living, breathing example of why dress checks are needed! :)

Whether or not we do checks varies from year to year. It's up to the rush chair to decide. We do "costume checks" for skit night, just to make sure everyone knows what they're wearing (there are a wide variety of costumes). They tell us pretty specifically what to wear on each night, as in, black pants and a nice pastel-colored top (not a t shirt, not red, etc), but the only night we'd do actual checks for is pref night (dress must be black, not too short, no spaghetti straps, no sequins or fancy detail, etc.). I think we're doing dress checks this year, but we didn't do them last year.

We don't really need to do checks for most nights of rush because it seems like we all pretty much have the same "fashion sense." We all know what appropriate black pants are, and we all know that "wear jeans" means boot cut, semi-dark, etc, not tapered ankle acid wash.

We don't do dress checks anymore because we have no choice in what we wear. We get sized and then the rush chair orders all of our clothes and we have to pay for them. We all wear essentially the same thing, just some people in different colors or some people get assigned pants, some skirts, etc. The shoes are the only thing that are not ordered by the chapter.

The too-tight clothes thing can be solved...that's why the rush chair orders our clothes. She has you try on the different sizes and if a girl "insists" that she is an 8 and she is really a 14, the rush chair orders the correct size and then says, oops, well this is what you were put down for...I know it sounds bad, but some people think that their body just doesn't change!!!!

Yup, we did dress checks. We were given a list of what to wear - basic guidelines, such as "black dress, skirt and blouse, or pantsuit for pref", rather than "you must all wear exactly the same dress". But our rush chair did go over everything.

I came back as an alum one year to help out my chapter during rush. Alums were told we could wear whatever we wanted - letters, or badge attire with our badges, etc. So I show up in letters, and the rush chair chews me out - "Where's your white t-shirt?" So I bit right back - "You're lucky to have me here at all to help you out, and you know what, you just lost my help" - and walked right out. She never apologized, and that was the last year I helped with rush.

I'm the VP-M...so dress check is my job. I talk a tough game before hand, but wuss out the day of the event. I'm not tactful, so I don't say anything at all. It comes back to bite me sometimes... :p

Our first day, we wear jeans and a bright colored shirt......

Second round is t-shirts with something that makes us unique..(The theme is "unique but united"...I wear my t-shirt with my cheering skirt, shoes, and carry poms..heheh)

Third round is philanthropy....for that one we wear khakis and our philanthopy t's....


Fourth round is pref, so everyone is in long black formals, except for me, I wear a long white one

How did this work out for you? I am helping advise my chapter and the rush chair is tired of white dresses. Every chapter on campus wears either white or black. We have thought about going to red or green. We were afraid that the colors would be different from each other. Did you choose the dress or was it tailor made? Did you have problems with redheads?

LyreLyre,

Green dresses don't sound too appealing(somehow i just can't picture a whole chapter dressed in green), I think red dresses would be unique and pretty. BTW, I am a redhead and red looks awesome on me:)

Okay my school still has frills rushing so
First round we all have stitched letter shirts that match and a khaki skirt that comes to the knee or above (not high above, just above) with casual sandals.
Second round those in the skits wear appropriate outfits and the rest of us dress alike for the theme. We all dress alike.
Preference we all wore black skirt suits. They all have to be above the knee but not more than two inches higher. If your blazer was open you had to wear either a black or white shell and our badges. The great thing about suits is you can use them for everything and everyone needs one really. We wore black close toed shoes and black hose.
We don't really fret over what to wear cause we all wear the same thing so if you look dumb, well so do all your sisters ")

One of our local chapters uses red preference dresses and it does make an impression. Each girl can pick her own pattern and have it made by whoever. However, the Rush Adviser orders the material so that way it is all the same.

I don't miss dress check. I'd always get stuck behind "that girl" that had the inappropriate outfit. I'm glad that I got the classic black dress though as it comes in handy now. I think that its a necessary evil to make sure that the girls look their best and the clothes are ok.

Hootie, the individual in question was 2 years behind me, so she's graduated by now. Unfortunately I now live too far away from my chapter to really help out with anything. :(

I have a thought on the dress thing - I once saw a choir perform, where all the men did the standard "concert wear" tux, but instead of standard black and white, the women all wore different brightly colored dresses - like jewel tones. If you did something like that, you wouldn't have to worry about matching colors. You would just specify sleeve and hem length, and things like "no backless dresses", and let everyone pick out her own. That way, everyone gets something she likes, and you really stand out during pref.

I think that would be pretty but we already have a day that we wear solid colored dresses. At pref we look for some kind of continuity. The reason I thought red or green is that they are our colors. A room full of red would be striking I think, but green would probably look better on most people.

In the spring, our rush chair picks out the exact outfits, brings samples to the chapter house, and everyone tries them on and orders the correct sizes.
Last year we wore:
Day One: khacki shorts, tank tops, and sandals.
Day Two: Capris, Shells, Strappy Sandals*.
Day Three: Black Pants*, Boots*, bright tank tops.
Pref: Black Dresses*.
We were responsible for getting all the starred items, the rest were ordered for the chapter.
We do another dress check when school starts to make sure it all works.

lyrelyre,

I think the green would be better just because there are a lot of sororities that use red. Green would be OK if it was a mossy or celery-type color - not screaming kelly green. Then again, you have to make sure it doesn't look like you're wearing camoflauge. :)

Dress....I have a couple of thoughts.

My chapter back a few years ago, we hired a PR consultant. She comes every year and does dress checks (head to toe) during work week. Interesting, but worked. And no, we didn't go to a big snooty campus, just wanted to be great!

I agree with individuality, but think some conformity is great.

Pref dress idea: We had dark purple dresses, very nice. Our colors are white and royal purple, so that was appropriate.

I really don't like seeing women in "bar" clothes during recruitment though.
Great topic!

I agree somewhat. I think a sage green would be pretty. On my campus every chapter wears black or white, so any color would be different. I was thinking red because of the statement it makes-an eye full of red is much more stunning as long as it looks good.

paying for all the same clothes
 

When the chapter orders the clothes, we all get billed for them, so it is not the chapter paying for it. It's actually cheaper than buying your rush clothes on your own since we get a discount for ordering in bulk. We have used different companies. We never get all of our stuff from the same place. I know we have had stuff from Gap, Old Navy, Speigel, Express, etc.

How early do the clothes get there? Is there time for alterations if they are needed? Do people throw a fit about the costs? About how much does it cost? Where did you find a pref. dress?

I know I'm asking a lot of questions but I'm an advisor and my rush chair is trying to eliminate wardrobe problems.

OOOh, I really like the idea of pref dresses in sorority colors!

What if you did classic red dresses (sleeveless, knee-length) with green scarves tied around the neck?

Or solid hunter green with a red carnation pinned on?

Does your house line up in the hallway to greet the PNM's at the door? If so, I also think it would look beautiful if every-other girl wore solid red/green.

You don't think it would look like Christmas with all the red and green?

Well, no I don't. I mean, those ARE your colors. I think the PNM's will all be aware of that and won't associate it with the holiday. I may be a little biased as my boyfriend is a Kappa Sigma, but I always think that as long as it's done in a very classy manner the red/green thing always looks fantastic!

Rush clothing is extremely important on our campus. People will talk for weeks about ABC's dresses, and XYZ's skimpy tank tops. This past year we had dress checks at our spirit week, the week before rush, and our VP Membership told us if we needed to get something else. I think our outfits were really cute, and worked for everyone.
Each day has a theme for us. On the first day, it's school spirit day, and everyone is supposed to wear shirts that say USF on them, or sometimes sororities will have their members wear shirts from other prganizations that they are in on campus. We wore black baby T's that said USF Kay Dee embroidered in gold, jeans and black sandals. The second day is philanthropy day, and we wore fitted polo shirts, either light pink, light blue, or black, and khaki capris, with brown or black sandals. The third day was video day, and our theme was Glamour, so we got the fitted t shirts from Express, in all different colors, and wore them with nice black pants and cute accesories. For prefs, we wear black cocktail dresses, with black pantyhose and shoes. And on bid day, you just wear your bid day shirt and jeans, or shorts, or khakis.

I think a red/green combo or either by itself would be pretty. We've always worried that with red, green, lyres, and angels that things will start to look a little Christmas-like. I saw the cutest sweatshirt once but I couldn't bring myself to get it. It was solid and it had letters embroidered in red and green and next to them a blond-haired angel playing a lyre. It was so December, if you know what I mean. So anyway, we always try to be careful about too much red and green. Then again the university isn't worried about Halloween (orange and black) so why should we worry-right?

KD, that sounds almost exactly like what my chapter wears. I mean, right down to the descriptions of the shirts and the khaki capris...:)

rush clothes are sized and ordered at the beginning of the summer so that they can be ordered in time. Usually this needs to come in with enough time to make sure everyone is the same size still...ahem...and to make sure they got the order right. We got pref dresses this year from David's Bridal and they will be the standard for at least a couple more years since they were an investment. Let me think about cost...probably around $200-ish for the clothes and then the pref dress which you use again is $100 and you had to buy your own shoes and have them approved (sandals, loafers, heels for the different days).

A way you can get around the cost is to have just the shirts ordered and then dictate what they wear on the bottom. Like black slacks, black belt, black shoes....stuff that people probably already have to minimize expense. But when you do that, you definitely have to do in-person clothing checks in the beginning of preparing for rush and a week before to make sure they still fit and that they haven't gotten worn out looking.

Our chapter tries to pick clothing that generally we already own so we do go out of control buying new things, though it is an excuse for a weeks worth of new clothes. A friend of mine in another chapter had VERY strict guidelines for rush and had to spend quite a bit on new outfits.

It's funny how obsessed we get about OUR rush clothes because the rushees are doing the exact same thing, and does anyone care THAT much?

In my chapter it seemed like people would gripe about needing new clothes for rush. I was always excited about it. It meant we got new clothes and it was almost always something I'd wear again.

That was alwas my arguement when people complained. Girls get all new clothes for rush and then complain when they need to buy anything for rush on this side. If rushees are going to this much effort we should be doing at least the same.;)

We rush in January so we have to dress appropriately for winter weather (although it is always HOT in parties.) I help with dress check and I feel mean but at the same time the requirements are pretty clear...i mean, what part of black do they not understand?

During formal rush, we have three days:

Slide Show/Video Day: Black pants, our jerseys (yuck! but panhel requires all the sororities to wear them at least one day during rush!) and black shoes...most girls wear their black boots

Skit Day: your skit costume or a black suit. It is sort of stuffy but it looks really nice. Also, the rushees are always dressed in cutey outfits so they can look around and instantly she who is a Chi O and who is potentially going to be in their pledge class! One note, your black suit has to close high enough that you don't need to wear anything underneath (sometimes that is tricky!)

Pref Day: black dress with sleeves (because it is january and because this eliminates girls have deodorant all over their black dress)

On Bid day we just wear Pin attire.

Thetas on our campus usually dress super cute for rush. One year they had a safari theme and they all wore khaki pants and white button downs unbuttoned so you could see their different animal print tanks underneath.

If our rush chairs ever decide to change around what we wear, this thread has been really helpful with ideas!!

Our rush is pretty Southern, Tibi, but it's not too dressy here. We don't have houses so it all takes place in on-campus rooms.

First Day (Ice Water Tea Party) - We wear our chapter stitched letter jerseys and all wear identical shorts and black slides.

Second Day (Philanthropy Party) - We wear cute white philanthropy tees that say "Zeta Tau Alpha" in black on the front and a pink ribbon on the back and the phrase "Think Pink!" with Susan G. Komen's logo and foundation name underneath. Sounds odd, I'm sure, but really cute.

Third Day (Theme/Skit Party) - We wear either a costume to be in the skit or a "The Late Show with Zeta Tau Alpha" (identical to Dave Letterman shirts people can buy as souvenirs) with top ten reasons to go ZTA on back...it goes along with our skit. We all wear cute khaki shorts, brown belts and gray tennis shoes.

Pref Night - Black Dresses (not quite cocktail but still very dressy) and pearls.

Most chapters dress similarly to us - Panhellenic mandates what chapters can and can't wear (or at least gives strict guidelines). I like the ideas I've seen here; I will share their with our VP-Membership!!

It was always interesting at my school to see the girls during formal Rush. Almost all of the Rush activities took place off campus (there were no houses, and the chapter rooms just weren't large enough for Rush events). Each night of Rush a different sorority was responsible for getting the cars to take the Rushees to the events. The neat thing: each sorority was assigned a different color car to get. One night they were all black, another blue, white, etc..... It looked very impressive!!!!
Bid Day at my school began on the Quad, this large green square in the center of campus. Each org was assigned a different spot. They would stand there and wait for the Rushees to come out of the students Union with their bids. On Bid Day you could determine the ranking of the groups by what they wore to Bid Day. The "top" group wore pin attire with their badges. They were a very large group, and looked very elegant in their dresses. They also always had balloons of their mascot, and this HUGE set of letters. The two groups in the middle "tier" wore the Bid Day shirt with all the same color shorts. They looked very cute, comfortable and casual, and united. The lowest "tier" wore the Bid Day shirt and whatever kind of bottoms they wanted. There were some members in denim cutoffs, some in pants, some in khakis, etc.... They looked unorganized and random.
I was able to observe formal rush on the campus for 6 years, and bid day always looked the same. There were only four groups, and everyone knew the order in which each group was "ranked". I just thought it noteworthy that the bid day dress code seemed to reflect the unofficial ranks.

There are a couple of houses on my campus that do this. I don't really like it. At my campus the PNMs are in "lockdown" in the dorms. They change into their Bid Day shirts before they come outside. They run to meet their group and then go back to the house. So the new pledge class is in shorts and tees and the rest of the chapter is dressed up. I always thought I would feel weird in a new place and being the most casual person there-like I was under dressed.

"So the new pledge class is in shorts and tees and the rest of the chapter is dressed up. I always thought I would feel weird in a new place and being the most casual person there-like I was under dressed."

I guess this was another difference at my school. The Bid Day parties all took place off campus, usually at alums houses, so after pictures on the quad everyone went back to their rooms, the actives changed into Bid Day shirts and shorts, then everyone went to the all-day party. I can see your point about being dressed casually on your first day. I'm sure it was easier for the pledges after everyone was dressed the same.

One year the Tri-Deltas had the cutest idea. On the front was a pocket-sized picture with Delta Delta Delta, Bid Day, (date). On the back of the actives' shirts, in HUGE letters, was "GO (triangle triangle triangle)". The pledges' shirts were the same except instead of GO they said WENT.

bid shirt idea
 

The year I pledged Kappa Alpha Theta, the actives' rush shirts said in big letters on the back, "Think Theta."

Our bid day/pledge shirts were exactly the same, except the back read "Thought Theta." They were really cute, and a few years later everyone's still wearing them.

It was a really good idea, because right away the whole chapter had one shirt "in common," new pledges included.

I asked my daughter and she said nothing really stood out. There were capri's with shells in the sorority colors, dresses in the same styles, sweaters tied around necks. She said she remembers ZTA dressing in a rainbow of colors. Black, conservative "after eight" for pref. The overall look was conservative, classy throughout the parties. Sorry, not much help. h2oot has been through it more than my daughter maybe she cold help.