Wearing letters in colors other than your GLO's
 

I know I have seen this topic before, but I cannot find what I need via the search feature.

I keep reading about wearing ONLY your GLO's colors when it comes to letters, but back in my day, we used to get shirts/sweatshirts of any color with cute fabric for the letters themselves.

Is there a new trend in not allowing or discouraging members from wearing letters in colors that may belong to another group? For example, I have an old yellow sweatshirt with red and green plaid twill letters. I know that at least one sorority has these official colors. So would that be disrespectful?

I have seen sisters (NPC and non-NPC) wearing different combos of colors and patterns. FOR EXAMPLE: Is is inappropriate for an AXiD to wear a pink sweatshirt patterned fabric letters of, let's say, pink and white hearts (Phi Mu has pink and white)? I mean, it would be cute, but is it inappropriate now? Greekwear sites still offer patterns.

I am not speaking of chapter jerseys (which they didn't do in my era), I am talking about letters we buy each other or ourselves.

What's the scoop here?

If your sorority doesn't have any rules against it, I say do what you want.

We determined last time we had this argument that there are two factors:

1) Campus culture - if everyone else only wears their colors, you look odd wearing something else

2) Branding. When you think XYZ, you think Orange and sea green, for example, and it helps PNMs remember which is which.

I came from a campus where it didn't matter, and I have plaid letters, zebra letters, blue & purple letters, purple & white letters, green letters, navy & maroon letters, etc...

Same here - I have letters in a variey of colors. It wasn't a big deal on my campus.

As a redhead, there are certain colors that just don't look flattering on me...at all. (Everyone has colors that don't flatter them, of course, but I think most redheads have a longer list of "bad" colors.) I guess I lucked out that, with our colors being red, buff, and green, I can at least wear something that has green as the main color. (I'd look god awful in a red shirt w/green and buff letters though. :o ) If I had ended up in a chapter that had primarily pinks or other colors that don't work for me...eek, I'm not sure what I'd do if we "had" to wear letters in our colors.

(As a side note - GPhiB's brown and mode would look awesome on me. ;) )

I've only really seen NPC sororities wear letters in colors other than their own when I think about it, at least on my campus. I've never seen anything D9 in colors other than their own, and I don't think that even the NIC fraternities really wear other colors.

D9ers DO NOT wear colors other than their own. (Unless they're clowning other groups.)

YOu beat me to it.

Also in the event we, D9, were trying to clown another org by putting on their colors (like in a stepshow) we will not put our letters on those colors. EX. AKA will NOT be on Blue and White, or ZPhiB will not be on Red and White. See this thread.

I remember a thread where some ladies had all gotten together and made THEIR ORG's letters in the other 3's colors, and the back of the shirt said "we look good in any color".

LOL:D
Yes, those photos cirulated on the NPHC circuit for some time.

I have seen one of my own sorors, a Delta and an AKA use fabric with pattern however the color of the fabric was the correct color of the respective sorority. I thought all of them looked really cute.

Our campus culture for letters is heavy on patterns. In my sorority, the family trees have specific patterns associated with them, so littles are usually given those as their first set. But other than that, it is pretty much whatever you want.

Generally, people don't get letters in the other orgs solid colors (for example, Tau Delta's colors are white a blue, so EKT wouldn't get letters in solid white and blue, but blue shirts with a pattern with some sort of white background, not a big deal). It seems that people prefer patterns over colors....I only have one set of letters in the solid colors of my organization.

I've definitely wasted breath on this one...

Personally I think it's most respectful to wear only your organization's colors on your letters. I won't be making any jersey with anything but. Patterns are a good alternative because they can incorporate many colors...I usually don't even do that unless I can incorporate red buff and green but patterns aren't the same as blatantly using someone else's colors.

As much as I love my sorority to death, I'd rather not look like a Christmas tree every time we have an event or do anything that requires that we wear letters.

Are you sure no one's going to confuse you for a DG? I mean your signature is pink & blue...;)

That's why it rocks to have 4 colors, ladies. :)

While red & white are our primary colors, palm green & gold are our supplementary colors. A lot of times chapters who are on a campus with another NPC sorority with similar colors (i.e. AOII or Chi Omega) use the gold as an accent color.

this is actually a sore subject in TBS / KKY. most of the HBCU chapters stick to Blue and White, with a "classic touch of gold"... i am assuming because on HBCU campuses blue +white or blue+gold "belong" to other Orgs. However, at district and national conventions when a whole bunch of WEIRD band people from HBCUs, PWIs, big state schools, etc get together - i have seen letters in everything across the rainbow as well as patterns (spongebob squarepants, no lie).

I have seen a chapter of a D9 sorority with neon/electric versions of their colors on their line jackets. this was back in 98 or 99 and i have NEVER seen it since.

Tshirts: I have ladybugs in various neon colors, Lightning McQueen letters (COS I LOVE HIM AND the Disney/Pixar film "Cars"), Minnie Mouse letters, Music notes, blue moon and stars, green with red ladybugs, Hello Kitty in pink gingham, etc.

But my jerseys (which are a very "official" thing for most chapters on my campus) are only in: your colors
(although my chapter uses navy blue as the top letter color cos white and pink are hard to see together. However, I do have a pink and white jersey because I'm a purist!), family colors (family jersey), Boyfriend/Big Brother colors (if you are THAT close with someone in a fraternity).

If I saw someone wearing a jersey in my official colors (ex. an ABC in a Pink and White jersey or a white/pink jersey with a pink & white paisley or something) it would be a very tense moment.

But, If it was a white jersey with a pink, white, and grey/brown/green pattern or a blue jersey with pink and white letters than whatever...

But sweatshirts, tshirts, jackets, bags, laptop carriers, dog carriers, dog sweaters, door cozies, lettered doiles, makeup bags, whatver else you can come up with, do whatever! I mean what can you really do about it? Colors are fun!

I have a green t-shirt with magenta Alpha Phi Omega letters and a magenta t-shirt with blue and gold letters. Both letters in both shirts have patterns. I was never dissuaded or discouraged from wearing them.

Families?
 

I've heard a lot about getting letters in patterns or colors that match for your littles so your "family" shares a common theme. Is this a relatively new thing?
I have a photo of me and my big and her big...etc. going up to 5 of us but other than that, I had never heard of "families" within a chapter before. It seems like it's being discussed in general more now than ever before. It's been 20 years since I was in college. Any other "oldsters" have any perspective on this?

Anyway, on my campus everyone wore whatever colors they wanted to. I love my sorority's colors, but there's only so much green I can take. The only thing I have left is a heather grey sweatshirt with pink letters on a white background.

NPC sorority members at my school would pretty much pick out and wear whatever colors they wanted. It would be considered bad form to wear your letters in another org's solid colors, but if other orgs' colors happened to appear in a pattern, that was fine. I only ever had two lettered items in green and white, and they were a screenprinted sweatshirt and a bar hat... my favorite colors are blues, purples, and black, and most of my letters reflect that.

Because I'm in a local, and we were refounded in 1988, we all go back to one of five founding member trees. Each of the trees has a sort of "theme" or even a very specific pattern that they use...it's a way to keep everyone straight! Some girls are in 2 or 3 different trees, so it can be confusing. Don't know how this would work in a national organization, unless you went back to chapter founder trees?

One of my Chi O daughters had a family who all had bumblebee letters for their sewn shirts. Really cute!

Which is easy when your chapter's a few decades old or less, but go back much further than that and your screwed :p Even 20 years would be nearly impossible without having intended to do so in the first place. And that's assuming meticulous record keeping. I'm quite impressed!

So, BabyPink FL...just curious...a jersey is not a sweatshirt, right? is that like a football jersey? not sure I have the right idea exactly. I know Gamma Phi and Phi Mu have not been on a lot of the same campuses, but we are expanding in the South...and we Gamma Phis have always used pink and white for the pink carnation...and also because brown is tough to come by in greek letter fashions!

On campuses where the jersey color is a tradition, would Phi Mus take exception to Gammies wearing pink and white?

Sat next to a Phi Mu on a plane coming from TN to CA once...she was so adorable!

My first letters were 'family' letters, but (I've said/explained this a few times on GC, I guess my chapter is highly unusual)-we have two families in my chapter and we're one of the few SK chapters that does so. We have Big/Little like everyone else, but we also have Mom/Daughter (now Sigma/Kappa). The Mom/Daughter families are the ones most equivalent to everyone else's big/little families. You don't know who your mom is, you find out during I-week, they buy you your first letters and make you a paddle, you give them a pillow.
Anywho-my family colours are maroon with white trim on a grey background. Kinda neat because they're also the school colours.

That's really interesting. So you kind of have two bigs? Are you generally closer with your "mom/sigma" than with your big? And then your big could easily be in a different "family" than you, am I getting that right? That's really unique!

My pledge class sweatshirt is green with magenta/green patterned letters. (We ordered them toward the end of our pledge semester and got them around initiation so they were our first official lettered items of clothing!)

I can't think of anyone in my chapter who has a lavender and maroon block ANYTHING. There are some gray sweatshirts with dark purple and light pink... but nothing in our actual colors.

I have a sweatshirt in white with teal letters and black border, and a black sweatshirt with hot pink letters (no border).

Pretty much right on both accounts. I was (still am) a lot closer to my big but that was due to extenuating circumstances. I still love my mom, otherwise I would not have requested her :)
But yeah, your big and your mom are in different families most of the time. My big wound up being part of my mother/daughter family though I can't quite remember how-whose mother she is.

SigKapCoug-I have block letters with our colours :D I got them on a pair of black butt pants (the letters on the butt). Maroon letters with lavender trim. I think I got them from http://www.sororityspecialties.com. Alas I cannot wear them anymore because the drawstring came out during the wash and I have no idea how to get it back in. The one time I DON'T tie it in a bow for washing...geez.

You can get a plastic straw from about any food place, cut a slit in it maybe an inch or so from the end. Put the drawstring through it, tie a knot, then work the straw through. When it comes through the other end, tie a knot on the strawless end, cut the straw.

Voila!

You rock! Even though it's now too warm to wear these pants I can undo the mess!

Your family's just your big, your little, and your ancestors/descendants (for lack of a better thing to call them). When sororities have 2 pledge classes a year families grow much more quickly, and if somone stays in school for longer than 4 years she can have a lot of "descendants" (i.e. one of our sisters was in school for like 5 years and so was able to be there at the same time as her 6 little).

Each family had a certain style of lavalier (silver or gold, straight or diagonal or disc) and we got family sweatshirts (the crest on white) but the sweatshirts weren't a big deal. Mainly because probably a bunch of other families had to use the same since selection was rather limited. There are so many colors & patterns to choose from today that I can understand why having a family jersey/shirt/sweatshirt would be fun.

Jersey link:http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i6...chapterpic.jpg
I won't lie, I'd have problem with it. Gamma Phi has brown and mode. I don't know how they do some campuses with both, but I don't think it would go over well at my campus as an official jersey color. I notice a lot of GPB chapters adopt pink and white. I've seen only one adopt pink and black. Granted, you can use whatever colors you'd like honestly. But I personally wouldn't care much for it. We (NPC) all have for the most part, different colors and we chose (historically) these colors for a reason but I will admit that brown is not the easiest color to rock, so I do understand:) . Notice I said personally as in speaking for MYSELF (just so no one gets mad. Please no one have a fit!) And some groups do have the same basic colors Blue/Gold/Silver tend to get used up a lot but at my campus we've never dealt with it before either, so I guess we'd have to just adapt if that were the case.

I wear colors other than blue and white all the time :)

I have pattern ones too, like most other PHA sororities do.

as a BGLO member, that is a no no. that shit will get you fucked up by members in your own org, especially them old school ones...SP91 and b4...

i've seen pics b4 of a few bglo members that did that, and i just smh. i know their founders are spinning in their graves...or in the iotas case, bout to put someone back in the cut.

i would NEVER put my letters in any other color but ROYAL BLUE & PURE WHITE...if i ever did, i deserve to get thrown back in the cut for that shit, and have my para ripped off me...

i always wondered why the non-NPHC orgs do that tho. i was at the March of Dimes Walk America a couple of weeks ago, and i seen a bunch of non-nphc orgs and they had their letters in different colors...i was shocked & dumbfounded...all i could do was smh...

shit, even this is a no no...i never understood why you spend money on para to rock some other orgs colors...thats just not smart...

Stop:p

When I saw it, I was confused also, because I am so use to NPHC only wearing their colors so when I saw non-NPHC GLOs doind such I was :confused:

Question for the NPHC then (if you can even say):

Is wearing your colors MORE about branding (everyone knows that AKA is Pink & Green and APhiA is Black & Gold) or about the meaning behind your colors?

I unearthed my letter shirts about a year ago. In addition to permutations of shirts and letters being Sky and Sea Blue and white, I have a daffodil yellow top with a Black Watch plaid, kelly green with pink plaid, kelly green with pink floral. This was not unusual at my college. My sister was in the same GLO at a different campus and it was the same for her.

Last time I checked, I never knew of any NPC sororities that had rules that you could only wear letters in the sorority colors.

If there were those rules, then all kinds of people would be getting into trouble at my old school :p

I also don't consider it disrespectful to have your letters in some other sorority's colors... the groups don't own the colors, and some groups might even have the same colors.

Our letters are only worn on our colors, black, or white.