recruitment clothes
 

Hey ladies, ok, so Im going through recruitment on the other side this fall, and I am wondering about clothes. We have 4 different outfits.

*day 1: black capris, rush t-shirt
*day 2: khaki shorts/capris, chapter letters
*day 3: a solid color summer
dress, and sandals
*day 4: pref night dresses

so...I don't even have a pref. night dress yet, or a solid summer dress (oh, but I have tons of patterened/floral ones :mad: )

What do you guys wear? And where can I find a good solid color light dress?!?

Either way, I am very excited and cannot wait to meet all the news girls, and esp. get a little!!! :)

J.Crew
 

For the summer dress I would definitely try looking in J.Crew stores. I was in one a few weeks ago and they had awesome sales going on pastel linen dresses... I'm talking like $30 and below for dresses that are usually about $80.

What sort of dress do you need for pref night? Black cocktail, or something else? We have to wear plain black cocktail dresses in my chapter. I bought my dress at Ann Taylor, they usually have very nice, classic dresses (for ladies on both sides of recruitment!)

Since we are trying out "No Frills" rush this year, we are not allowed to wear matching outfits. In fact, only 2 sisters can be wearing the exact same shirt, or exact same jean capris or something, or else it's an infraction. I'm pretty sure this is our wardrobe for the week:
Spirit Day: USF themed shirt, jean skirts, sandals
Philanthropy Day - the only day groups of 5 can match: Each group goes out and buys matching shirts of any kind, jean capris, and whatever shoes.
Sisterhood Day: Patterned Skirt, whatever shirt to go with it, dressy shoes, like slides or something.
Prefs: Black cocktail dress, black pantyhose and black shoes. I guess we are technically all allowed to wear the same, even though everyone's will be different.
Bid Day: I guess we can match this day too, Bid Day t-shirts, khaki shorts and black sandals.

I understand that they don't want you all to match in no-frills, but I can just imagine it going too far ... "Hey, did you hear? They're wearing jeans over at the Mu Mu house, and I hear three of the girls are wearing Levi's 501s! Let's tell on them!"

I don't know about your campus store, but it would have impossible at mine to find enough different college-spirit shirts for a whole chapter.

Recruitment Clothing!
 

I think I've FINALLY managed to pull together all of my Recruitment clothing, now all I need is a bit of a tan to go with it...

Ice Waters - Teal shirt from Express, khaki skirt or capris, and teal flowered flipflops from Express.

Philanthropy Day - Red or navy blue capris from Express (I got the red, they're CUTE!), plain white shirt, white strappy sandals with wood or cork sole.

Skit Day - Above-the-knee dress in any print but plaid, in either pastel yellow, pink, or blue with the white strappy sandals from Philanthropy Day. Mine is pink and took me FOREVER to find, but it's pretty cute.

Pref Day - Nice black dress and dressy black shoes.

I've never been thru formal recruitment before, but I'm told this year is VERY strict - we have notes on what jewelery we can wear and what color our toenails have to be! It's been an interesting ride, I don't really understand why we all have to be wearing matching flipflops but OH WELL... I'm still looking forward to meeting a lot of new girls and getting a little sister!

At the colony where I am an advisor, they have a semi-frills rush, but they are no longer allowed to wear matching outfits. SO, they bought the same little polo top, embroidered with letters, but in all DIFFERENT colors, and they were ok'd! Thank god!! It will be so weird to be at a recruitment again!

Hey KerriMarie, so you were told to buy clothes from a specific store (Express obviously)? I have never heard of that before...but I guess it does make it easier to make sure everyone matches!

I have a question...I love Lilly Pulitzer, and where I am from it's worn all the time...but since I have been in Gainesville it seems no one wears Lilly, I was going to wear a pair of Lilly capris but am wondering if the sororities will think I am weird because of how bright they are....

Here is the link to the pattern they are in...


http://www.lauderdalelifestyle.com/i...chools_out.gif

Yeah, it actually worked pretty well - there were five or six shirts we could choose from, so ladies of different sizes could get the shirt that suited them best, but they'll all be the exact same color. The people who worked at Express knew all about our Recruitment wardrobe before long, and we would go up and ask about red capris or whatever and they knew everything else that we would need! :)

Im starting a fraternity on my campus in the fall, and I was wondering if any fraternities anywhere go through this whole outfit thing for rush. I doubt it but you never know. Also does having the same polish on your toes encourage sisterhood? Just wondering.

Matt

Wow... soooo different!
 

Not only do we wear similar outfits for rush, we wear all the same style number (3 or 4 choices per day) from all the same line/brand and even have size restrictions! (IE: No one over a size 8 can wear the white capris) It all has to be brand new, with tags- even shoes, and we even wear themed jewelry. Then, of course, there's the whole obligatory highlights, tanning, nails thing too... Guess that's just big southern rush for ya'...:D

I forgot Pref!
 

Oh yeah, and we all buy the same fabric for Pref day, and the same pattern, and have seamstresses make our dresses privately. (There are 3 choices...)

While I was active at FSU it was the same type thing for my chapter as SoExcited mentioned for hers. We were told of a specific stores/color codes/style numbers and were allowed to choose from what was available. Tags had to be on for dress check, etc. With pref dresses it was just an approved black dress (following a variety of specifications) but we didn't have them cut from the same material/pattern.

We also had to get the EXACT clothes they told us to. They sized us so we wouldn't go too small and then they ordered our clothes for us and then handed them out. We absolutely could not wear the clothes before rush. And no more than one ring per hand, and all jewelry had to match (i.e.: if you wore a silver drop, your rings had better be silver too...no mixing metals. And I always thought the body slimmers and thongs for no pantylines were stupid until I saw groups who didn't bother with that...there were definitely people who looked interesting...

All of you are talking about rush clothes... that's CRAZY! We have no choice. We pay a fee, and our clothes are bought for us (the only exception is first round they buy the same jersey for us, but we have to buy our own khakis, and pref night we just have to wear the same style dress). As far as I know, that's what other sororities do, as well.

wow I had no idea that a big southern schools (is this a generalization? sorry!) or some big schools rush is so meticulous...our ruch chair just made sure we had a type of outfit, you know the same type of dress or whatever versus actually ordering everything for us. I guess you guys end up spending a lot of money on rush? Is that ever a problem? I myself am pretty pennyless right now, buying a new skirt for one of the rounds was pretty major for me.

wow, i sound cheap.............but i LOVE spending money on clothes..:(

Rush is definately expensive
 

Yeah, Rush can get costly. The wardrobe comittee (which I am on) writes out a specific budget per piece, per day, per girl and hands them out at Chapter. The brands to choose from aren't exactly cheap either- this year it's Express, Abercrombie, Victoria's Secret, a tailor-made dress and custom belt- plus new shoes for every day and accessories. (Not to mention hair nails tans type stuff)

I can't tell you how much we pay, I don't think... DG secrecy... but I'll tell ya it's a pretty big chunk of change. And I never realized that this was just in the south... I mean, it really looks NICE walking into a room where everyone matches. One of my favorite things about rushing was walking into the ZTA room second round and all of the girls had matching capri pants on. It was really cute. And we all talked about how cute the KD and DG dresses were. It makes a good impression.

What happens to individuality? I bet it does look neat to see everyone dressed up the same, but it also looks like a bunch of clones. Well I am from DC, but go to school in New England and I see there is a big difference between the rush process. The sororities at my school I think they wear the same color dress during pref night. Once I was visiting my cousin that goes to UGA and I one of the sororities rush shirts said "individually unique, together complete." I agree with this slogan.

Why?!?
 

We dress alike so that girls Rushing can't compare us to one another. (" IE: Well, all the girls in the KD house had those expensive dresses, but at AGD- did you see those 2 girls in the faded jeans?") and base their preferences that way...

Part of the reason is to help the PNMs differentiate between the houses. When you visit 10 or more, things can be confusing. Though most of the girls may not remember an individual's dress, they may recall the girls who wore pink shirts or the baby blue T's.

The sororities are competing with each other to bid their "dream list" so looking great and being remembered is imperative. Once it's over, the individuality returns full force.

but on the other hand, if one house has girls decked out in abercrombie capris and express oputfits, and then another house has girls wearing "similar" but not the same outfits, then would'nt girls be thinking, well all the girls in xyz sorority had expensive outfits that all matched perfectly vs. the xyz sorority with non-descript outfits....then choose the ones that looked cooler, or spent more money?!?! it just confuses me, i;m not trying to start an argument. our sorority is not allowed to make girls pay more for rush outfits...we tell them they should be wearing a certain outfit but we can't pick a specific brand to shop from because that goes against our by-laws...........

Wow, this is all completely alien to me. We had guidelines as to what to wear each day, but we didn't make a huge deal of it if we were supposed to wear jean shorts but someone was wearing khaki shorts instead. As long as you still followed the guidelines and looked presentable, it was okay. Preference was the round with the strictest rules, but that was only that we had to wear a black dress, black hose, and black shoes. We would even point out that although we were all wearing the same basic outfit, we were all individuals and it showed in the styles we had selected. I think I would be very afraid if I walked into a room full of women in the same outfit, because I wouldn't want them to make a clone out of me if I joined. But, that's just my personal opinion based on years of no-frills rush. :)

Yeah, we were so much more laid back. Things like ... first party, jeans, identical rush tees, brown shoes and belts. Problem was, not everyone had a sense of fashion, and we didn't have dress checks. So you get these long arguments ... I don't have brown shoes and I won't get any ... why do I have to buy a belt? ... so what if my "black" pref dress is half white ... I don't like khakis, too preppy, so I'll just show up in black pants ...

Aggh! I'm not sure I'd want us all in brand-new, identical clothes, but there has to be a happy medium. Sometimes it was hard to convince certain members that "looking your best" didn't mean "surrenduring your identity to the Borg." No, combing your hair won't make the rushees think we're desperate conformists!

To the person who was talking about labels (Abercrombie Capris)... it actually matters less if you're wearing the same thing. Like, for sororities who don't match or have guidelines, the "rich" sorority girls could be wearing all brand name clothes while the "poor" sorority girls are wearing Wal-Mart (exxageration, of course!). I'm not saying that we match every other sorority. There's no way to regulate that, but we do match each other. I know, though, that KD's dresses and our dresses are similar. Plain colored sun-dresses. But if KD gets brand named ones and we don't, I have no idea. And this is speaking from being a girl going through rush. Also, our first round, we don't wear our house jerseys. We wear different ones every year. Last year they were Hawaiian print. The colors of the jerseys alone seperate us. And since four of the sororities on our campus (Kappa, ADPi, KD, and DG) use the same color (blue) we do everything to make sure that we stand out, which is why we don't wear house jerseys. I mean, that way, if a girl says, "Yeah, I want to go to the sorority that wears the blue jerseys" you know that they aren't confused which one. And if we used the other DG jerseys (the red ones) then they would confuse us with Alpha Chi or Chi O. My point is, there are different ways to stand out from the other sororities, while still being unified as a sorority.

What is a house jersey?

The standard jersey. Like, y'alls is the blue shirt with white letters (so's ADPi's), Alpha Chi's is the red shirt with green letters, Chi O's the red shirt with yellow letters, KD's is the green with white letters (though recently they've started using blue with green letters)... it's whatever shirt is your colors, and the standard jersey. I don't know, maybe you don't use jerseys like us, anyway. I know the Alpha Xi Deltas at Newberry do, though, b/c I've seen a picture.

Nope, we didn't do that. We had embroidered letters, but in whatever colors anyone wanted.

Is a jersey like a baseball jersey?

Sorry, these questions must sound stupid to you! Regional differences, I guess (my school was in Ohio).

:eek: I can't believe how much money some of you must have to shell out for rush clothes!! What if a sister can't afford to buy the latest from Express or hire a seamstress to make her pref dress??

Our guidelines were a lot more laid back (medium-frills northeastern school). We were just told what types of clothes to wear, and it was up to us to pick out our own black pants, white shirts, etc., which were then approved a couple of days before rush. The only exception was rush t-shirts bought by the chapter.

We always had one event where we all wore letters - this showcased our individuality. They didn't have to be new letters, but they couldn't be obviously worn-looking.

One year, our rush chair required us all to go out and buy new Keds to wear at a couple of the parties. Try smiling for 6 hours straight when your feet are in agony!! The funny thing was that after our last party, she hobbled into the back room yelling "ow! ow! ow!" The rest of us gently reminded her that she picked them out... she was less than thrilled :)

Well, maybe hanging out together changing our toenail polish everyday will improve sisterhood! :)

Honestly, I have no idea. I think it's all pretty silly, but since I've never been through formal rush at FSU I have no clue if we're being extra-strict this year or what - but judging by the other FSU girls on here, it sounds like we're all doing the same sort of stuff! It's a Southern school with a big greek population - you've gotta compete, and if all the XYZs are wearing cute matching outfits from Express and your sorority isn't pulled together as well, it can hurt you. It's shallow, yeah, but what can you do??

Hi. It took me a little while to find this, but I finally found a picture of the Wofford KD's wearing jerseys. It's at this site:http://www.wofford.edu/kd/photos_2.htm

They're kinda like t-shirts, but thicker, and they have the ringer sleeves. Anyway, I hope this picture will help. There's a picture of the Newberry AZD's on the greek life website for Newberry, but you can't see them very well. That site is:http://www.newberry.edu/studentaffai.../greeklife.htm

You may be more interested in that one, though, since it's your sorority.:-)

UF rush?!
 

To the UF greeks....what is your sororities guidelines for rush? Is it similar to FSU? (everyone buys the same brand...hand-made dresses, etc)

Or is it more like "wear black pants" not "wear Style ###, Express black pants"

Everyone wearing the same exact outfit, style, color, seems kinda silly to me. But that's just my humble opinion....

Re: Wow... soooo different!
 

So then what do the girls over size 8 wear? I'm a size 8, but if I were a 10, I'd be pretty upset if someone told me I couldn't wear the white capris like everyone else. :rolleyes:

And why do you have to wear a *new* pair of shoes? Is that a new pair *every* day? What's the difference between a dress that you've worn once...and no one in your sorority has seen you in it, and a dress with the tags still on it for the check??

Does this happen in all schools? I'd never heard of anything of this, but maybe it's b/c I'm new to this whole process.....

The guidelines at UF are strict but not THAT strict. Like we have certain things we can and cannot wear, and we have dress checks during Spirit Week, but we (my house) don't have the same articles of clothing or have to get brand new clothing (the brand new clothing thing to me is sort of strange but I've heard other houses do it sometimes.)

Round 1 all sororities wear orange and blue. Sundresses, shorts, whatever. But classy. No jeans are allowed in any round, at least for my house. Tank tops are all right, but only if you have really dressy bottoms. No Reefs!-->This kills us, but it has to be done. Orange and blue but not ultra-Gator colored orange and blue gameday stuff.
Round 2 you wear jerseys (lettered tops) and nicer bottoms.
Round 3 are sundresses and springy-type tops and skirts.
Prefs are dressy dresses...our house has white gowns. They have to be starch white. Seriously, when I was shopping for a gown I had to ask the saleswoman for a piece of paper to hold up to it just to make sure.
Bid Day you dress Round 3-ish because of all the picture taking as a pledge class and as a house.

We're highly encouraged to get our hair and nails done, stuff like that, but no one's going to follow you to the salon and make sure you do it. It's about using your better judgement--do what you need to have done.

Oh, this is interesting...we're not allowed to be uniform. Like if we all have denim skirts on we're screwed. If we all have the same pair of pants from Express on we're pretty much doubly screwed. That's because the UF Panhellenic Council does not allow sororities to look too much alike and if they do the sorority will be fined (with exception of prefs, of course.) They think it looks cultish and scary.

I think our dress guidelines strike a good balance between oh-my-god-scary-southern-rush and girl-please-we're-real-people-too. :D

We don't have to show tags, but shoes definitely have to LOOK new... And I can't believe that y'all aren't allowed to match... every sorority here matches on first, second, and pref rounds... Third is skit day, though, so people wear costumes.