Wearing Letters
 

I am curious as to whether women on your campus or sorority wear their letters or greek apparel. When I was at ULCA Many years ago it was not considered cool to wear shirts and sweatshirts with your letters. Instead for events we would wear shirts with our sorority spelled out. I noticed on Instagram a lot of the girls wear UCLA apparel instead of sorority apparel (unless it is Bid Day or an event). As a woman who didn’t rush until she was a senior (I was a transfer student), when I went through formal rush I was surprised at how many of my classmates were actually greek! I wanted to participate in informal recruitment prior to formal recruitment but I didn’t think I knew anyone in the greek system. Maybe things have changed but I felt like at UCLA there was greek life when you were on sorority or fraternity row and then there was your academic life on campus.

interesting. In many parts of the south, sorority members often wear sorority t-shirts (including party shirts), letters, hoodies, and jackets to class.

I still wear my letters discretely of course at my age! I am so proud to be a ZTA of Zeta chapter!!

I do too!

It's interesting that you say this. Now I'm realizing that when seeing collegiate members recently - my chapter's social media, convention, etc. - there are rarely stitched letters being worn, and more often, our sorority name is spelled out.

Even looking at the shirts, sweatshirts, etc. on AST's online store, there are very few stitched-letter options. https://ast-emerald-boutique.myshopify.com

At the two campuses I went to you saw people wearing letters everywhere. We even had a day called "jersey thursday" At this specific university, all the sororities had hockey jerseys with letters on them in their specific colors and the fraternities had baseball jerseys. All the orgs would wear these around campus. If you were a new member and didn't have a jersey yet, you would just wear a pair of letters you had.

At least now that I graduated I wear my letters or various t shirts around the house, but I have a Tri Delta hat I wear everywhere.

It’s to get around the “no drinking in letters” bs. Not to mention some chapters say you can’t wear letters if you’re looking grubby. Women aren’t going to pay $60 for a sweatshirt they’re only “allowed” to wear at certain times.

You would think it would be encouraged to wear letters to class to market the sorority to pmns-especially a chapter who needs to COB. I never did buy a sweatshirt with the large stitched letters because it wasn’t a thing at UCLA. My husband went to a different college and was in a business frat and has his sweatshirt With the large stitched letters proudly hanging in our closet.

People wear letters all the time at IU. I still wear mine on occasion.

Very prevalent in the south

Back in the day, we were asked to wear letters every Tuesday.

New members aren't allowed to wear the Greek letters, but they were asked to wear their bid day shirts, event shirts with the sorority name spelled out, or at least green and white - along with NM ribbons or pins.

Sisters could wear any of the above, or stitched letters, or we could dress to pin and wear our badge.

One semester, I had a class that had lectures only on Tuesdays. I think some of my classmates thought I only owned two sweatshirts :D

Back in the day, we couldn’t WAIT to get our letters! Every day was letter day for like two weeks after we finally got them. Part of the fun was getting to pick your fabrics and colors for your own sets.

We wore our letters all over campus. My very first gift from my Big was an AOII jersey shirt with the fancy stitched letters. I still have it!

Hadn't thought for a LONG time about how we wore NM ribbons to classes in Fall before we were initiated. Some days we pinned them to our Pledge Books, which we were required to carry at all times. Thanks for the nostalgia boost!

I literally LOL at this!

Reading this made me think...when I was an undergrad—and for a few years after—most college towns had a GREEK SHOP of some kind. They sold bumper stickers, keychains, glasses, cups, T-shirts, a variety of jewelry, etc.
And you could ORDER sweatshirts or jerseys with sewn-on letters in a variety of patterns.
I haven’t seen one of those shops in YEARS. But then I haven’t been all over the country.

So...fellow Greek Chatters...are those small Greek shops still around, or is everything online now?

I think that Auburn still has at least one.

When I was living in the Cleveland area, someone was looking for a Greek shop and I couldn't lead her for one. She went to Miami University in little Oxford, Ohio where there were a couple of Greek shops.
My guess is that while Cleveland has a lot of colleges with Greek system, the schools are not concentrated in one locale of a large metropolitan area.

There is a combination competition swim gear/ GLO supplies store at the small shopping center just outside George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. Swim and dive teams are huge around here. The Greek side just has gear for the organizations at George Mason.

It seems like an odd blend but it works as this shop is still in business while many other small stores have gone under.

University Spirit is still going strong on Baxter Street in Athens. They still supply many of the chapter bid day gifts.

Your post has me curious, as I haven't been to my alma mater's hometown in eight years. Normally the student bookstores each had a floor or large section devoted to Greek merchandise, including the ability to choose embossed/stitched/sewn letters for clothing purchases.

The only stand-alone Greek merch store I remember closed some twenty years ago, and it had been right at the edge of campus. That was about the time most NPC groups already sold greek merch by mail thru their orgs, at least ours did, and ours strongly encouraged purchases Thru HQ Only to receive QUALITY & PROPERLY LICENSED greek items.

But times change, so I'll devote a bit of time exploring and asking around concerning Greek merch stores next time I visit.

We didn't have a Greek merch store in town; but, the bookstore at my alma mater (Long Beach State) had a decent little section of items available. There was a store near to San Diego State; but, it closed about 2011 or so. SDSU tried to add Greek merch in the student union; but, that effort was short-lived. Since people can buy online now, it's probably put a lot of places out of business.

Bought the decal letters for my car and my license plate frame at that same CSULB bookstore:). When I was there we drove to the Balfour store near CSU Fullerton to order sweatshirts, mugs, etc.. or looked at the catalogue.