Sequins and beads

[exlurker]

Some Panhellenic what-to-wear-for-recruitment pages are taking pains to say DON’T wear sequined or beaded dresses (sometimes just sequined are mentioned).

Is this a southern thing, or is it pretty general?
Are they trying to keep PNMs from showing up in things that may be too high school prom-y?
Has sad experience taught them that unless they say this, housekeeping staff will be complaining for weeks about finding stray sequins and beads in cushions, under furniture, and caught in the carpeting?

Just a few examples:

Florida State U:
http://greeklife.fsu.edu/PH/commonqs.html#0

U. of Alabama:
http://bama.ua.edu/~npc/WhatToWear.htm

U. of Kentucky:
http://www.uky.edu/StudentAffairs/Greek/recruitbook.pdf

Tulane U:
http://www.greek.tulane.edu/document...Manual2007.pdf

[UGAalum94]

Some of it maybe to communicate that you should be dressing for day rather than evening wear because weirdly sometimes girls this age don't discriminate in outfits.

(I'll see stuff sometimes at the school where I work and wonder if they thought they were going to a night club.)

The other aspect I can think of is that even in later rounds, with the exception of prefs, you might sit either on the floor or on a metal folding chair. In either case, beads might be really uncomfortable and impractical.

[cuteASAbug]

Or that sequins are tacky?

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by cuteASAbug

Or that sequins are tacky?

Oh, they'd have to mention more than sequins if that were what they were working at.

I did notice the number of times one said 'anything revealing" under what not to wear.

[alum]

The no-sparkles might be the same for the actives' side of it as well.

My D brought home 10 pages of instructions regarding her GLO's required outfits for their Panhel's recruitment. They have the parties in the evening once classes are done for the day but still are to avoid "beading, sparkles, sequins or anything that screams look at me."

[beachlover]

I just bought that first sun dress on the alabama page in blue

[UGAalum94]

Alum's comment reminded me of something I've been wanting to ask. Can I highjack here?

How much direction does your group give in regard to what actives should wear?

I know we've had threads about why groups wore, but I friend of mine who wasn't greek whose daughter is at UGA now showed me a list of what her daughter was supposed to wear as a member to do recruitment. It seemed about like the directions we were given years ago, but struck the mom as dictatorial.

[SWTXBelle]

Back in the day all the actives wore the same outfits - every round.

[alum]

I went to a school with a much more relaxed formal rush and it's been decades but I don't even vaguely recall being told what to wear.

Personally, I think The Outfit Document is a little bit O-C . However, if it works for the chapter, then so be it.

[UGAalum94]

We only wore identical dresses to prefs, but even then we were given direction on color and brand of pantyhose.

In other rounds, I remember general directions, maybe colors to wear, and we did have dress check.

I think the overall impression is probably better if the group has every member putting thought into what to wear, but my friend found it imposing.

Let me be clear: this list of my friend's wasn't even a full page when printed from email. It wasn't anything like 10 pages.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

Alum's comment reminded me of something I've been wanting to ask. Can I highjack here?

How much direction does your group give in regard to what actives should wear?

We were a "medium frills" recruitment. Our Panhellenic didn't allow us to have EXACT matching outfits. We also couldn't bulk order anything (other than philathropy day shirts). What this meant was our recruitment director could require us to buy (for example) a blue sundress, but she couldn't say "go get the blue sundress from Ann Taylor."That was considered matching by Panhellenic if we all had the same dress from the same store.

So since we had those rules, we all had to go out and buy our own clothes. The recruitment team had to be very specific about the color/style of items that we had to have. I'd say that they gave a great deal of direction. For each piece of recruitment clothing (every top, bottom, shoes, dresses for pref) there was a written list of specifications.

For example, our 2nd day outfits in 2005 required a khaki skirt. From what I remember, the skirt had to be above the knee, brown or olive colored dark khaki, not polyester or any other cheap material, and no pleats or ruffles.

You were instructed to leave the tags on all of your clothes for recruitment because if they didn't pass dress check (which was about a month before recruitment), you would have to return them and get something else.

[AOIIalum]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

Back in the day all the actives wore the same outfits - every round.

Yep, either the exact same outfit or the same styles in specific, harmonious and sometimes assigned color variations (think polo shirts, sundresses, etc.) Outfits were specific to the last detail--shoe type, hair style, accessories (including color, type size and number of rings/earrings when it came to jewelry). Dress checks were held at least twice prior to formal recruitment to ensure both compliance and consistency and fines were assessed if you weren't prepared by the final check. Preference dresses were made (and altered if needed) by a single dressmaker...thankfully total was only 40-45 way back when in the mid 80s!

[KSUViolet06]

Here's a thread about what different sororities wore:

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ar+recruitment

[UGAalum94]

I remember reading that thread, but I didn't think at the time what each of those description probably mean in terms of directions about what to buy.

It's just kind of strange perspective to have: talking to the mom about what her kid needs to buy. And of course the kid probably just presented it to her that way: look at this list, mom, you need to buy me all this stuff. (The kid is a great kid; I don't mean anything critical. I just think that is probably the way it went down. I probably would have done the same thing at her age.)

[alum]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

I remember reading that thread, but I didn't think at the time what each of those description probably mean in terms of directions about what to buy.

It's just kind of strange perspective to have: talking to the mom about what her kid needs to buy. And of course the kid probably just presented it to her that way: look at this list, mom, you need to buy me all this stuff. (The kid is a great kid; I don't mean anything critical. I just think that is probably the way it went down. I probably would have done the same thing at her age.)

I bet if you ask any of the moms of college-age girls, they will tell you their D's said exactly that! "I NEED ___!" When my D went throught recruitment, the recommended dress for the rushees was Day 1: "really good (not stated but most definitely implied) jeans and polo; Day 2 dress slacks and top; Day 3 skirt and top OR dress; Day 4 Cocktail dress that didn't show too much skin IYKWIM. Every single one of the rushees in D's group (including my D because thank goodness we took the GC advice about kicking it up a notch) revved up the dressiness factor by a bit.

So I guess we have another round of shopping to do.....