Vera Bradley and Greek Life

[PhiLove83]

VB is also sold in our bookstore, Delta Chi was colonizing on campus and they had a VB pitch to get all of the sorority buttons on our bags (thats how popular it is)

[Leslie Anne]

Wow! I had no idea Vera Bradley was so popular. My grad school is pretty small and not really a VB type of place.

There's always a boutique at Kappa Delta Conventions and the Vera Bradley table is huge; just mountains of the stuff. I'm not sure if it's discontinued items or what.

Those KD NM bags might have been gotten at a pretty nice discount since Patricia Miller has stayed close to her KD roots. I probably works out nicely for the company as far as free publicity goes.

[LouisaMay]

Vera's huge here in western PA...on and off campus. Unfortunately, the campus bookstore sells only yucky knock-offs.

Why is it that knock-offs of other styles look fairly decent, but VB look-alikes are so awful???? Some of the colors and patterns are...um...strange...

[twinkle555]

its big here in FL too...back in the day, i used to think that vera bradley bags WERE sorority bags since I have never heard of VB and i only saw sorority girls with them. Now i know otherwise and I am obsessed!!

[PhiGam]

Vera Bradley: Sororities
Croakies: Fraternities

[IlliniMeg]

I'm a grad student at Ball State and as a non-native Indiana person, for the first few months of school i was convinced Vera Bradley was the state mascot.

It's not just greek students, it's 90% of all females. It looks like her totes threw up on campus.

But I found out that VB HQ is just up the road in Fort Wayne, IN so that might have something to do with it.

And I won't knock it, in fact I'm buying a ticket to their warehouse sale in May!!

[sass n klass]

Originally Posted by Thetagirl218

Just out of curiosity, how big is Vera Bradley at your campuses? Is Vera just something indigenous to South, or do those in the North love it too? I know at my college campus, Vera was big across campus, but huge with the Greeks.


If you think I am crazy, and have no idea what I am talking about please check out Vera's website

WOW! Vera Bradley! I just moved from North Carolina to Illinois and I forgot all about those. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen any here. When I was in NC I would see them everywhere I went. I promise there were VB bags EVERYWHERE. Personally, I can't stand them (maybe because my NC experience was overkill) but to each her own. I did an internship in Smithfield, NC and there was an outlet there. The ratio of VB bags to people was just crazy. If I had five bucks for every three I saw, my student loans will be paid in full right now.

I do think it is a regional thing. They are really big in the south and not so much in the northern states in which I have lived or visited recently. Northern women might like them but southern girls have definately cornered the market on them.

[fantASTic]

Eh. I know a few girls that have them, but not sorority girls necessarily. Personally, I think they're ugly...grandma-type bags.

[sass n klass]

Originally Posted by fantASTic

Eh. I know a few girls that have them, but not sorority girls necessarily. Personally, I think they're ugly...grandma-type bags.

ditto

[nittanyalum]

Originally Posted by fantASTic

Eh. I know a few girls that have them, but not sorority girls necessarily. Personally, I think they're ugly...grandma-type bags.

Originally Posted by sass n klass

ditto

double ditto

[Benzgirl]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

double ditto

Ditto her ditto. I think Vera Bradley are Fugly.

[NUBlue&Blue]

It's funny to see the different levels of popularity in different pockets of the country. They've been big here for a long time, but were much more exclusive before everybody and their brother carried them. Only small gift retailers or boutiques could get them (hence the Hallmark stores, although here no Hallmark stores carried them it was higher end boutiques). They were all the rage among my Longaberger lady friends back in the late '90's.

I think here they were waning in popularity amongst the collegiate crowd about the time my oldest daughter graduated from HS in 2005, because I only saw a few people carrying them at her orientation. I know more girls probably used the luggage at that time than as a purse. My daughters had a few in high school and they have the duffle bags for luggage, but they told me they are "over" Vera Bradley.

In our area now, when I'm sitting in the carpool line, every middle schooler I see walking down the sidewalk is carrying one, which we all know is the end of any trend. I think it cycled through here earlier than some places.

[dukemama]

The only people I know personally who carry Vera Bradley bags are my mom and my mother-in-law, who are 74 and 65, respectively.

'Nuff said.

[TriDPrincess]

I know of two girls in my chapter that have VB bags. However, they don't seem so popular in my area (surburban NY) otherwise. I liked the patterns but not the bags (too quilty), now they're kind of growing on me.

[Munchkin03]

I see VB fairly regularly here in NYC, but I know that's a function of who I'm hanging out with--a lot of Greeks (AXO and others), and a lot of people from the Midwest and South, as well as from Virginia and Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Normally, I just see duffles and larger bags, and the occasional wallet or change purse. We're a pretty preppy group, so we have a lot of VB/Vineyard Vines/LL Bean Boat and Totes in our cabs, especially when we're going on vacation! For every day purses, most of us rock something a little more professional.

My niece, who's 12, says she and her friends love Vera. The not-so-little-anymore munchkin likes Java Blue.