So yesterday, I went back to basics, and today, school is the word. In the Telegraph, British designer Margaret Howell recommended John Lewis boys’ school shirts as one of her top 5 picks for shirts which reminded me what a great resource we have in school uniform shops! I gather that the UK is one of the few countries in the EU that take school uniform very seriously. Most primary schools and secondary (elementary, middle and high school) require pupils to wear a school uniform of some sort. Back in the days, my uniform consisted of a forest green pinafore with a mint green shirt, white knee socks, a forest green wool blazer and a straw hat with a forest green grosgrain ribbon and oh, gingham ribbons tying my hair in bunches. I loathed it at the time, but now, I would wear elements of that uniform with relish.
The main advantage of shopping in school uniform shops is the price. Most items will be under £20 and they’re not bad quality either. They’re cheap because kids grow and parents frequently need to do school uniform shopping every year. If you’re not buying items that are specialist/crested (like at posher schools), then you can save a fair bit of money buying up some basics.
If you’re worried about sizing, you can be assured that because kids don’t wear things at such a tight fit like us adults, they’re all very generous. I can fit into dresses sized at 11-12yrs old (uniform sizing usually goes by age) or jumpers sized at 32" chest.
A pack of these two John Lewis grey front pocketed shirts costs £11….. I’d cut one up to customise a t-shirt and then wear the other one. Then we have some slightly more fashionable puff sleeve shirts and polos that I’d be buying at full price from Topshop at £30 but can buy from good old Marks & Spencer for £7 and £6 respectively.
School knitwear is rather good these days as they’re not made of scratchy acrylic anymore but a comfy cotton/wool mix or 100% cotton. What’s good is that school uniform colours usually consist of nice shades of grey and navy which is basic enough to go with everything. The sweater and cardigan is from John Lewis priced at £10 (or £5 if you’re really teensy and can buy smaller sizes) and the pullover, which I would wear over longsleeved floor length dresses for fall is from Debenhams at a small sum of £8.
If you’re feeling even more nostalgic, you could get these ‘summer dresses’ and wear them under a big fur coat for that Margot Tenenbaum look (jeez…just can’t get that inspiration out of my head!). We call them summer dresses because around May, we used to switch from a shirt tie and skirt to the summer check dresses which was always a relief for me since I hated doing my own ties. These dresses tend to be ankle length when you’re a kid so on the taller grown-ups, they’d probably hit the knees perfectly. Again, the dresses are from Marks & Spencers costing £9 for the gingham and £10 for the teflon A-line dress (stain-resistant and non-iron!). I also love the grey crossover tunic and am seriously considering a trip to John Lewis to try it on for size . I’m thinking it might be a great mini-dress over opaque cream wooly tights with a polo neck underneath, or if it’s shorter, you could wear it asa sort of tunic top over jeans.
When we add the prefix ‘boy’ onto items like ‘boy-shorts’ and ‘school boys-blazers’, we could be buying ACTUAL school boys things. I actually have a pair of school boys shorts that fit closer to the hips than womens’ shorts which is good for the narrow-hipped. School boy blazers are excellent if you like your jackets cropped and like wearing them undone. Can’t really complain with M&S £10 boy shorts and John Lewis £21 boy blazers (go smaller when buying by chest size as they come up a little big).
If the uniform is a little too full-on, at least benefit from sturdy comfy cotton tights and cute little frilly socks. Or some boy braces to go with the boy shorts or finally my favourite school accessory of them all – purse belts! How I used to love taking my shiny one pound coin from my purse belt and spending it at the school tuck shop! (a snack food shop in school).
I absolutely love the gray crossover dress! It’s fantastic.
Ha! I love this. I’d never thought of school uniform as wearable casual clothing but it’s actually a great idea.
Think I’d feel a bit self-conscious trying the clothes on in the childrens section though.
do you have a British accent..I can just see you saying all the descriptions in a British accent
anyway good day to you!
I love this look, but I’d love it even more if I didn’t actually have to wear a uniform for school. :/
Great idea, though.
Why is it that part of me thinks this ‘trend’ is just plain wrong,wrong,wrong?!
Perhaps it’s because as someone about to hit 40 who’s still a hip mamma (she hopes), and one who’s already buying this gear for her cute six year old, It seems disturbing and hysterical at the same time.
Ok, why disturbing?
Well, there’s recently been a lot of discussion over at Danielle’s Final Fashion blog about trends and their meaning and relevance to our lives. Trend forecasters believe that trends are a social and cultural barometer that express and reflect our psychological state and lifestyle. Therefore, to a large degree they are pointed insights into our current psyche.
Ok, women dressing up as schoolgirls,is this where modern women are at? A literal interpretation would be the rejection of womanhood and the fetishisation of childhood.
As this trend would be ridiculous on any woman with more than a prepubescent physique and frankly perverse on someone my age it will largely be adopted by teens or early twenty somethings.
Why reject inevitable womanliness, and why would any girl want to look like they are jailbait?. Maybe there’s a shift towards rejecting ‘raunch culture’, with the emergence of shows like ‘girls gone wild’ it was perhaps inevitable that the overt sexualisation of women became tiresome.
The problem with this trend is it’s literalisation of the change in mood, creating an ironically sexually perverse notion of femininity. At least Britney Spears literal representation of sexy schoolgirl was being a little more honest and to the point.
I’ve been buying fruits magazine from Japan for years now and the ‘schoolgirl’ thing has been a cultural phenomana for many years which has deeply disturbing undertones. There is a very large schoolgirl porn magazine industry in Japan and anyone who’s either lived or worked in Japan will tell you that Japanese women are not completely emancipated and many young Japanese women are now rejecting the role of ‘office flower’.
As a teen of the 80’s, I wanted to be like madonna, Toyah Wilcox or Blondie. how funny that today’s teens want to mimic a child’s comic book /animation character ‘Madeline’!
Perhaps we took our sexual emancipation too far and now our kids are rejecting our liberalness in favour of primness!
So my six year old is a hip cat hey, who’d have thought it!
How funny! Today I am wearing a navy crossover pinafore-style dress with a cream shirt and a cream ribbon belt. I thought it looked a little ‘school uniform’ when I put it on this morning but I added very high navy heels to try make it more grown up. Can’t help feeling I’m missing a navy hairband though…
Wow, what was really a dumbass post about saving money on some cardis has illicited such an intellectual response. Lol B, you stun me with your eloquence!
In my defense, I’m not condoning school uniform as an entire ‘look’ or ‘style’. The post was really about taking items from school uniform out of context and working it in with normal attire (to save a buck or two…and to take advantage of good quality cotton cardigans!). Even with the dresses I posted, I would never wear them in a way that would conjure up school girl images and I certainly don’t recommend doing so unless you’re going to a fancy dress party! It’s really more about how buying kids’ clothes can be economical and unknowingly stylish. Boy school blazers do have a surprisingly flattering cropped fit. The cardigans and shirts in the correct aged sizing, on their own are pretty much the same as adult clothing except cheaper and often it’s these simple things that allude us when buying in adult departments.
I do think you have brought up many valid points though about the reverse reaction towards sexual emancipation. In one respect, I think it’s a good thing that girls don’t feel the need to expose a lot of flesh and aren’t compelled to express their sexuality in that way. But at the same time, I do think it’s perverse to go into the other extreme and play up on that innocent girl look especially when grown women do so. This calls into question the issue of age appropriateness. A person in their teens and early twenties can get away with incorporating the school girl look if they reference it SUBTLY. But yes, anyone over that age bracket should be embracing womanhood gladly and perhaps I don’t condone the literal realisation of a school girl image dress on women because a) it’s hokey and contrived and b) it does turn the girl in question into a different kind of sexual object for the male. I’m not against the essence of wanting to look more prim though – just depends on how you interpret that essence.
Fi: As illustrated, I think you have interpreted that essence perfectly with your outfit! It sounds really darling. Perhaps a cream grosgrain hair band would be a nice touch?
Thankyou! But now I’m beginning to wonder if I just look like a nun!!
I can’t honestly say I’ve ever thought that deeply about fashion trends! Who knew my old baubbly gray school tights could possibly be causing a stir with passers-by or fashion observers – and all the while I was just thinking that by shopping in Debenhams school department I’d just saved me a bunch of money on a pair of tights that would have cost alot more in the adult department! Well, you live and learn as the saying goes.
I really like the grey crossover tunic thing, I like the pleats and it would look great with a turtleneck under it too. I think adding some of these pieces into an outfit would be great, but a whole outfit would be overkill (not that I think you are implying that), and I agree that adult women emulating young school girls’ style definitely has a perverse undertone.