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Fashions when you were at school

(163 Posts)
nanna8 Wed 21-Apr-21 02:29:33

We used to roll our skirts over and over at the waist to make them shorter, shape our velour school hats so they looked a bit like what the Anzacs wore and wear wedge points in our school shoes. Era of miniskirts of course. I used to wear crop tops showing my stomach - gawd, wouldn’t do that these days unless you want to see a flabby roll!

Kate1949 Wed 21-Apr-21 09:55:13

We used to roll our skirts over too. If we didn't wear our berets we used to get detention. So we backcombed our hair the way we wanted it and gripped the beret on the back of our heads. The backcombed hair was stiff with lacquer which we bought in tubes and poured into a squeezy bottle.
Out of school I tried the lot and loved it all. Cheesecloth shirts, as short as possible skirts, Afghan coats. Happy days.

trisher Wed 21-Apr-21 10:04:03

I'm so much older. No mini skirts. Some tried to wear as many underskirts as they could to make the skirts of summer dresses stick out. my mum wasn't having that! We had berets which were sometimes hairpinned precariously to back-combed and lacquered hair.

annodomini Wed 21-Apr-21 10:24:17

Fashion in the 50s! Circular skirts and stiff petticoats were de rigeur in our leisure hours. Our school was permissive about uniform, but most of us found it convenient to wear our royal blue blazers and dark skirts. One year we were knitting ourselves balaclavas (it was windy on the west coast!) in 'poodle wool' - bouclé as it would now be called - in our house colours. Mine was red, my friend's was green. I don't think that 'craze' lasted into the next winter. Mini skirts were as yet unknown and even the raciest girls wore knee length. My first 'heels' at 14, were little stumpy red ones but I was the bees knees! By 17, I had talked my mum into buying me cream kitten heels - very bees knees!

GrannyGravy13 Wed 21-Apr-21 10:25:43

I went to an all girl Grammar School in London, no rolling up of skirts allowed, regulation school underwear, beret in the winter, boater in the summer. No deviations/customised attire tolerated!

If we were reported eating in the street or on public transport whilst wearing uniform, the consequences were felt...

Alexa Wed 21-Apr-21 10:30:22

My chums and I wanted lambswool Pringle twinsets. Landgirl breeches that we wore for riding were must haves.

Ellianne Wed 21-Apr-21 10:41:18

Platform soles were the order of the day too.

Beswitched Wed 21-Apr-21 13:24:48

We used to wear French polos under our shirts to keep warm. Closing the top button of your shirt was deeply uncool, as was belting your gaberdine. Absolutely no make up was allowed although you could get away with a bit of lip gloss.

This was the 70s.

Gajahgran Wed 21-Apr-21 13:24:48

I went to a convent school the uniform rules were very strict. We were hauled up in front of Rev Mother if our boaters were not on straight. Nobody would have dared to shorten a skirt. The worst item of uniform was a terrible itchy wool divided skirt we wore for gym, it reached our knees!

Fennel Wed 21-Apr-21 19:31:07

+The only thing I can remember about this (mixed GS late 40s early 50s) was the baggy navy bloomers. Which we had to wear for PE and 'Games'. Often watched by the boys.
They had a little pocket at the side for your hanky.

Nanna58 Wed 21-Apr-21 19:47:27

Oh lord ; Afgan coats!! They were smelly, my Dad made me keep mine in the shed!!!!? I also had a plastic maxi coat that was supposed to look like leather, but cracked and shed flakes everywhere!

BlueSky Wed 21-Apr-21 19:57:53

We used to do the same with our skirts when miniskirts were in, folding the waist band to make them shorter and shorter!

Sara1954 Wed 21-Apr-21 19:59:55

Nanna58
I really, really longed for an Afghan, but couldn’t afford one. I did have a plastic red midi coat, and bits kept peeling off it! I looked fab with my white boots, also peeling, but we are going on a few years from school, I was at college by then.

H1954 Wed 21-Apr-21 20:10:30

Our grey pleated skirts had to be worn no higher than one inch above the knee. We always had to wear ties and berets too.
I spotted three teenage girls on their way to school this morning, all wore figure hugging miniskirts that were hardly visible below their blazers, out headmistress would have had a hissy-fit!

Casdon Wed 21-Apr-21 20:12:02

I was a teenager in the seventies, and our school uniform was hideous, maroon Barathea blazer, skirt to the knee, and gold and maroon tie. The must have shoes were pork pies, and the really rebellious wore white socks instead of regulation grey woolly ones- but we got told off regularly. No jewellery including earrings, no nail varnish, no short skirts. We went into black tights at 14, which was a big rite of passage. I still hate maroon.

Kate1949 Wed 21-Apr-21 20:13:06

Mine wasn't a real Afghan coat. It was a lookalike grin

blossom14 Wed 21-Apr-21 20:17:38

Sar53 Same as the Grammar School I attended which had previously been a Public Boarding School.
The main aim was to win a 'yellow girdle' for deportment in the lower School.

BBbevan Wed 21-Apr-21 20:52:33

We wore blue gingham shirtwaisters in the summer. Underneath as many stiff net petticoats you could get away with. The Senior Mistress was always on the lookout for excess. The petticoat were dunked in sugar water and left to dry. Also Panama hats.

Grandmabatty Wed 21-Apr-21 21:09:58

Wet look knee high boots. Platform clogs. Bell bottom trousers. Midi skirts. Afghan coats. Drindle skirts. Then the punk era in mid/late 70s of ripped clothes artfully joined by safety pins

Sara1954 Wed 21-Apr-21 21:13:56

There was a shop in Bristol called Sasha, which sold platform shoes to die for.

Redhead56 Wed 21-Apr-21 21:19:07

I wore dark green and grey uniform blazer and tie just comprehensive school but strict no mini skirt or make-up. I made brown cord bib brace hot pants wore them with wedge heels thought it was a good look that was 1972. Loved pop socks and maxi dresses when going out in my early twenties.

nexus63 Wed 21-Apr-21 21:24:10

i had to wear full school uniform and no short skirts or trousers, i left in 1979 at 16 and started wearing pencil skirts with the split at the side and my high heels, my favourite item was a beautiful gypsy skirt, there was a shop next to the place i worked called miss virgo and everything was 99p, i would buy 2 items every friday.

Deedaa Wed 21-Apr-21 21:30:32

We all turned our skirts over several times. We had to wear hideous berets. When we got to the sixth form we were allowed to wear pleated skirts, open necked shirts (no ties!) and a boater instead of the beret. We wore nylons or white ankle socks. White knee length socks were fashionable but for some reason were strictly forbidden. My friends and I started a campaign to let us wear black stockings but it cut no ice with the headmistress.

Jaxjacky Wed 21-Apr-21 22:00:58

Skirt turned up, indoor and outdoor shoes, haphazard beret, but we didn’t have a ties, open necked blouse instead. I was a late hippy, just when it was fading, lurching into glam rock.

GagaJo Wed 21-Apr-21 22:06:29

Long maxi skirts, leather coats, big silver leather bags. It was quite a regional fashion I think.

I only ever got the maxi skirt. Couldn't afford the other bits.

Sara1954 Wed 21-Apr-21 22:17:07

Loved early Laura Ashley, I kept a lot of my dresses, and my eldest daughter dyed them all black or purple and wore them through her teenage years.