If the pnms all dressed the same, it would be really hard to tell them apart!!!!! it's not a matter of judging them on their clothes, but if you're trying to remember 50 plus girls you spent 40 minutes with and all you're mind sees is an ocean of white and khaki......
I think one of the main reasons such detailed guides are given is because the pnms want them. They're told to wear "dressy casual" to a round and then ask "But what about this, or this", so we try to clarify. Rush is a pressureful time and a guide cuts a closet of 10 outfits down to five (and that's a load off for a stressed out girl, there's nothing worse than that nothing to wear feeling). Also, nobody wants the pnms to be uniform, and the girls don't have to follow the guide if they don't want to. Soroities are trying to present our collected individualism, clothes are one way to express that. Having uniforms pulls in that cookie-cutter image nobody wants to be associated with. It's like getting an invitation to a party in the mail that says "black-tie", that doesn't mean that every girl their will wear the same formal dress; it's a catagory for appropriatness. We want the girls to feel comfortable and special, dressing nicely and individualy perpetuates that. I would feel weird and uncomforatable if I had to wear the same thing as everyone around. There are also a whole lot of other social traditions that exist within dressing for any occasion, including rush. It would be kind of like saying: "the dress for any first date must be a blue dress", what if I don't like blue?, what if I don't look good in it? I won't feel comfortable or confident. It gets complicated far beyond the realm of rush. Maybe it's silly or weird, but alot of societal norms are when you analyze them this way. I understand the question, but I think it would be more complicating than simplifying.
