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School uniforms: what did you wear?

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10:29 / 01.10.03

Okay, so I'm sitting at my computer and I realise that I am wearing one of my primary school uniforms - completely unintentionally.

Pastel yellow polo-t, brown cords.

Not the best outfit in my collection, but the rest of my clothes are in the wash - well most of the items I wear, anyway.

Brown and yellow, you know, like diarrhoea.
Always thought my headmaster was a funny bloke.

12:45 / 01.10.03

I lucked out. Navy blue pants, with white dress shirts that had little crusaders on the pocket... the girls in kilts. Only the losers wore the yellow shirts

12:51 / 01.10.03

When I started it was blue shirts, grey skirts, grey jumpers, grey socks and maroon blazers. They changed it half-way through my time there - we had a very lucky escape from custard yellow shirts, but we ended up with grey skirts with box pleats, grey and white striped shirts with puffy sleeves, maroon jumpers and maroon blazers (not quite the same shade of maroon either). Looked hideous, but not as hideous as it would have done with the yellow shirts.

I didn't mind wearing it too much - at least it made everyone look uniformly awful (ho ho). Also, blazers are useful items for holding conkers, pens, boiled sweets, keys etc.

Gym knickers on the other hand were an abomination, as were netball skirts. We didn't have any showers either so the changing rooms really used to whiff.

Horrible place, school.

12:55 / 01.10.03

I had to wear a white blouse with the top four buttons undone and untidily tucked into a pleated grey miniskirt. Fishnet stockings with a gaping hole above the right knee were compulsory, as was a lacy red bra peeping above the blouse. A straw boater completed the ensemble.

12:58 / 01.10.03

Primary school - grey pinafore, white shirt, blue, grey and white tie, black blazer, then high school was grey skirt, white shirt, blue and white tie, royal blue blazer. All fairly dull, but thank heavens there were no polo shirts. Pole shirts are vile.

I think we stopped wearing uniform after 4th year, though. God, it's frightening that I can't remember! But I have strong memories of wearing some 'fashion' stuff to school (a black ra-ra skirt with t-bag top doesn't quite fit the uniform, for instance). Apparently I used to wear high heels, too; not something I consciously remember doing, but someone I met recently said she remembered me as 'the one in high heels'. My squashed little toes probably prove that she's right.

13:01 / 01.10.03

When I first got to New Zealand I found a funky wee tartan mini dress in a second hand shop. I honestly, honestly didn't know that was a schooldress - I'd never seen anything like it. I'd worn it quite a few times before someone enlightened me. The shame. I'm sure it would have suited you too, Sax.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

13:04 / 01.10.03

I bet that looked unfeasibly cute, tho'.

13:05 / 01.10.03

When I first got to New Zealand I found a funky wee tartan mini dress in a second hand shop. I honestly, honestly didn't know that was a schooldress - I'd never seen anything like it. I'd worn it quite a few times before someone enlightened me.

They'd print that in the letters page of Knave, you know. Possibly for money.

13:11 / 01.10.03

She'd have to preface it with some sort of spurious "I have always fantasised about..." though, wouldn't she?

13:13 / 01.10.03

'... Sax in a gymslip...'

13:29 / 01.10.03

*blush* I was very embarrassed when I found out, like I'd been trying to do a Britney (except that Britney was, em, about seven at the time).

The worst thing was, noone believed me that I didn't know, as they were all convinced that's what Scottish schoolgirls wear. There'd have been all out war at my school if they'd even suggested tartan dresses.

13:31 / 01.10.03

Mmmmmmmm... Gym knickers and netball skirts... mmmmmmmm.

D'Oh!

Ours were really boring, for the boys anyway. Gray trousers or shorts, white shirt, brown with yellow and blue striped tie and a V-neck jumper, brown, with a yellow and blue stripe along the neckline. Basically nobody cared and we just wore jeans, t-shirts and the jumper and that was cool with everybody involved. I DO remember the girls though taking particular care with their gym slips, making sure they had ripped the up the side seams just far enough to expose their panties which were usually white and tiny.

God I miss school.

13:33 / 01.10.03

(We've done the letters to Knave bit, you know)

13:49 / 01.10.03

grey slacks, blue v-neck. i'm wearing an old school uniform too today, but fuck do i look lush

14:28 / 01.10.03

Thank you Sax, will never be able to watch another St. Trinian's movie again without thinking of you.

School uniform for me was black or grey trousers, white shirt, green jumper, green tie with school crest printed small and in gold/yellow, and a blazer. Yes I was one of only two if memory serves who wore a blazer from first to fifth year.

Sad I know, but I liked it. It was part of my general disguise, and a way to un-conform in a unusual way, if you see what I mean...

14:40 / 01.10.03

The young Ariadne got rather annoyed at the strange looks people gave her new dress.

14:48 / 01.10.03

For three years, I was compelled to wear one of two choices of polyester -- 100% polyester -- slacks.

The two choices: bottle green or a blue and white "plaid" (more of a series of houndstooth checks). Old man's golf pants.

My last year, actually, someone sane breezed through, and suddenly we could wear navy blue and khaki pants like real human beings. They were actual cotton-poly blends.

I had nightmare visions of a fire breaking out and the pants fusing to my legs, so that I would have bottle green legs from that point onward.

In HTML colors, it was close to 009900.

Other regs:
First and last quarter, collared shirts (like golf shirts) solid color, no logo were OK, second and third quarter (the cooler months) ties mandatory. Some of the more forgetful students were capable of creating rather nice ones out of staples and paper towels.
Girls always had to wear solid color button down short sleeve shirts. And bras. And sometimes, the (male) dean would *check*.

So, that was Catholic school.

14:55 / 01.10.03

*splutter*
Who the heck is she? Someone tell her, quick!

(In fact, is it a she?)

And how long did you spend on Google searching "wee tartan dresses", Mr Sax? I'm telling your boss.

15:13 / 01.10.03

never mind who she is, what's that she's holding, and more importantly why didn't xoc invite any of us to this soiree of his.

15:40 / 01.10.03

White shirt and black trews for high school, with a silver and red diagonal striped tie.

At primary we were allowed blue shirts as an option. And the tie was red and yellow with thin stripes of either white or blue. The other primary in my town had light blue (shirts) and brown (trousers) as their motif. Their tie was striped in said colours. Oh, we used to laugh at them.

15:54 / 01.10.03

A male mate of mine who went to a bizarre private school run by a sinister Freemason-like brotherhood was forced to wear a straw boater and white stockings. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, stockings. Lucky bastard.

16:25 / 01.10.03

...was forced to wear a straw boater and white stockings.

What the fuck? I must hear more.

Another kinky aside: we were forced to do games in our pants if we forgot our kit. Teachers=pervs.

Now then, what about blazers? At my secondary school they were optional but frowned upon by the pupils - basically like a badge that read "punch me in the face, I'm a dork". Unfortunately for the Runce and I, our mother loved the idea of her little boys all dressed up in special little jackets bearing the school emblem. I distinctly remember my eleven year self having a - excuse the pun - blazing argument on the subject whilst picking out our new school uniform. In the end we used to shove the bloody things in our bags the second we walked out the front door.
Bloody amazing how even the most reasonable parents are willing to sacrifice their children's happiness in order to fulfill some bizzare fantasy.

I'm sure if caps were an option she'd have insisted I wear one.

16:46 / 01.10.03

Now then, what about blazers?

As I mentioned if memory serves, there was only the two of us still in blazers by the time of fifth year (15-16 years old). He was overly camp and I was tall and wierd so the punches weren't heading my way at least.

And as for caps I blame any fiction set in schoold from 1945 to 1959.

Goodness Gracious Meme

16:58 / 01.10.03

secondary: relatively neutral: blue tie, white shirt. grey skirt for girls, trousers for boys.

Trousers were apparently not ladylike enough. Blazers,tho' were classic feminine attire in our neck of the woods.

This ridiculousness reached its height with our head going around *pulling at girls' skirts* to check that they weren't (gasp) culottes. God, school is weird.

not bad, aside from the fact that it was a church school so everything was festooned in churches. and that there was a non-U school 10mins away.

but it could have been alot worse, this lot were down the road,(scroll down to the Christs' Hospital pix).

Frock coats and *orange* stockings attracted kickings from miles around....

Goodness Gracious Meme

17:03 / 01.10.03

Kat,that sounds ludicrous. but cheer yourself with rhe CH pics.

"At my secondary school they were optional but frowned upon by the pupils - basically like a badge that read "punch me in the face, I'm a dork". "

ditto in our school, for girls,who got a choice of blazer or polyester navy v-neck with church emblazoned on it.

(there was lots of getting changed into the churchy element at school, as being seen in these by the non-U lot guaranteed a punching...)

17:08 / 01.10.03

You know this is all terribly arousing to a perv like me, right?

17:13 / 01.10.03

Yes, I remember the whole cullotes issue. They were very popular for a time. Later the girls won the battle to wear trousers, however.

A sad day for the boys - they were very unsexy.

17:13 / 01.10.03

Black or brown shoes, charcoal-black slacks, shirt (it used to be "white or predominantly white, ie, more white than stripes", but basically became "long sleeved shirt with collar" so people went to town on colours), any of the ties you were allowed to wear, navy unmarked blazer. Had the useful effect of, if you were in town, it being hard to tell you were in uniform if you weren't wearing one of the obvious/garish College ties. Before half term in the winter term and all summer, you can ditch the blazer and roll your sleeves up.

17:14 / 01.10.03

You know this is all terribly arousing to a perv like me, right?

Sir, I forgot my kit. Do you want me to take my trousers off?

17:20 / 01.10.03

Now then, what about blazers? At my secondary school they were optional but frowned upon by the pupils - basically like a badge that read "punch me in the face, I'm a dork".

Oddly enough it was the other way round at my school.. basically we had a bright red blazer and/or a fucking hideous synthetic-wool kind of maroon jumper..

All the cool kids who ran around getting up to daring-do (such as hitting each other with sticks and breaking stuff) wore the more flamboyant shirtsleeves & blazer combo, while the boring, sniffley nosed teacher-obeying kids wore the horrible jumpers. Quite a tribal division.

Aside from that we had all the usual stupid rules - no long hair for boys, no short hair for girls, no pierced ears or make-up for anybody etc.

17:44 / 01.10.03

Shit school but good uniform(we were all schemies with no money for clothes anyway): black blazer with red piping, red and black striped tie, fairly plain and good perv colours. The biggest issue for me was that, until second year (about age 14) we had to wear short trousers, summer and winter. Brrrrrrrr.

We had caps (red and black slices) but I don't remember anyone ever wearing one. Balaclavas were preferred.

5th and 6th years had more leeway and I wore a purple dinner jacket with some podgy teenage panache (it was the 70's). By then I had some part-time jobs under way and so could buy clothes for myself, and purple dye. Not an ounce of nostalgia stirring within me for those bleak and confused days.

Goodness Gracious Meme

17:57 / 01.10.03

"The biggest issue for me was that, until second year (about age 14) we had to wear short trousers, summer and winter.brrrr"

Excellent perv/discomfort training tho.

The 'no stigma' aspect of uniform was completely pointless at our school, as it was still v.obvious whose grey skirt -frumpy,kneelength,boxpleats -came from Littlewoods and whose-dragging the floor/arse-skimming- were from TopShop...

We're The Great Old Ones Now

18:25 / 01.10.03

Blazer: maroon and black vertical stripes. Very fetching, except, of course, that they styled the thing like a barrel. The girls at our 'sister' school always looked much nicer in them than we did - but , of course, their uniform was an entirely acceptabe blue.

There were special regulations about kids who lived in rougher areas being allowed to go hom in civvies, but otherwise you were expected to wear the whole ghastly, uncomfortable mess from the moment you left home to the moment you got back.

Having said that, I owe the smooth and sexy appearance of my right shoulder to the stiff wool which absorbed a blast of glass and flame from an exploding chemistry lab, so go figure. My labcoat vanished under this flood of educational high-ex like personal accountability from Tony Blair's Weltanschauung, but the blazer barely noticed.

Reminds me of the Hillary Expedition interviews - "Harris tweed, take you anywhere. Gore-tex? Bloody silly-looking stuff, isn't it?"

18:40 / 01.10.03

We never had blazers. After catching "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" on public TV, I wanted one like Ford Prefect... thought it was the most stylish thing out. Then, traveled to South Africa, and noticed that in some neighborhoods ALL the kids were ones JUST LIKE THAT. Oh. Right. Uniforms.

Cultural note: the majority of American schools, public (free) and private (costly), don't have uniforms. It used to be that just some private schools, usually parochial, had a uniform. Now, there's a growing trend towards uniforms in public schools, especially (oddly) in poorer districts and junior high schools.

None of the new uniforms have bottle green pure polyester pants.

22:11 / 01.10.03

We had a dress code, not a uniform.

The code went thus: Black. White.
The severity of inforcement depended on who taught you, which teachers you bumped into in the corridor, and who you were. I got away, to the most extent, with nearly everything, other than jeans and wearing my hats indoors. Purple curtains, bright blue and white face-patterned trousers, rainbow coloured shoes, and pretty much everything else under the sun was fine for me, it seemed. Perhaps this was because Friday was casual-day, and on fridays, I seemed to get a little more ridiculous. Perhaps they thought it was the best they could do with me; to calm me down a bit. My friend Jane on the other hand, got told off for having a white polo short with a dark navy stripe on the collar.

One of my prouder moments, however, was when Casual-fridays were banned (due to lack of co-operation throughout the week). Which was also after leisure-time on fridays had ended. I wore dungarees, and was subsequently taken into the rectors office.

He asked why I was wearing it, and i said I heavily objected to school uniform. He told me I'd have my priveledges taken away. I asked him what priviledges I still had.

He told me I made his life hell.

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