Big/Little week is one full of fun surprises and presents. You get food, canvases, picture frames, and the mecca of all gifts: T-Shirts. Unless you have had a lot of events where the new members can get T-Shirts, chances are the pass-downs they receive will be the first time they will have any amount of clothing with your sorority’s letters on them. Every new member dreams of getting those perfect shirts, imagining them to be clean and cute; however the initiated members know this isn’t always the case. Pass-down shirts come in all shapes and sizes, representing years past some cute, and others not so cute. We all have them tucked away until it is time to bring them out and dust them off for Big/Little week. So here is a little tribute to the T-Shirts of sorority’s past, here is to pass-downs: the good, the bad, the ugly.
Let’s start with the good:
These are the T-shirts every girl thinks they will get. These are the shirts the older girls wear on repeat—every week. They are cute and comfy and the colors haven’t started to fade yet. They are pretty much perfect. New members might get some of these; however the amount they will get is very, very small. These shirts are a favorite of the older girls for a reason, and unless they bought extras for their little(s), they will definitely not be given away. These days the style is a lot simpler. T-shirt chairs have started to really focus on making the designs represent the sorority, and making their girls look cute. I mean you are representing everyone in the chapter when you wear these after all.
Moving on to the bad:
Generally, these are the shirts that were once cute. They might have a little stain or hole here or there, but they are still wearable. These are usually the shirts you wear to the gym, around the dorm, when you have nothing else to wear, or on those particularly rough mornings. These are the shirts the older girls will bring out every once and a while, that still get to see the light of day. Chances are new members will get most of these in their baskets, because hey, we all need shirts to work out in right?
Finally the Ugly:
Now there are bad shirts, and then there are the downright ugly shirts. I like to call these the little hidden gems of sororities past. These are the shirts that when you get them you wonder, “who would ever wear this?” or rather “who would ever fit into this?” The ugly shirts are the most memorable. No one really wears them, but everyone passes them down.
T-Shirts are a staple in sorority life. We all love them no matter the shape, color or style, because at the end of the day we wouldn't want to be in any other letters.
