Fashions when you were at school

My girls’ grammar school had the most hideous uniform whose only virtue was that nobody looked nice in it. Depending on which of the two school outfitters you went to it was either cinnamon brown or diarrhoea coloured so we did not even all look alike. Tunics for the lower school, skirts for the sixth form, felt or straw pudding basin hats and of course ties. I still can’t wear anything any shade of brown. A new head changed the uniform to brown tweed skirts and brown blazers which was an improvement but a bit late for me.

We didn’t have a lot of money, and my mum got her cousin to run me up a couple of blue striped shirtwaisters for my first summer term. On the first day, I tore a big jagged rip on a sharp piece of metal on my desk, I was in so much trouble!

Straw boaters in the summer and felt hats in the winter. My school was very strict on the uniform and you daren’t flaunt the rules! Couldn’t leave the school premises until home time and then strictly monitored by staff. No popping into town at lunchtime to go to Greg’s (other bakers are available!!!!) and eating walking through the town as they do these days.

We all rolled our skirts up, wore wedge shoes, and if we could get away with it earings. In our School it was against the rules to wear earings, so we wore studs or sleepers.

Ifind it quite funny that school skirts are tucked up to make them shorter. When I went to Grammar School back in the early1950's, it was the total opposite. Fashion decreed longer and longer skirts (after the war years), so at the beginning of each term we all had to kneel on the floor and a Mistress went along measuring that our skirts were AT LEAST 3 inches above the knee!!!! We HAD to wear them short!!!

When I say skirts - it should be in inverted commas, as until we 6th form they were those horrible, shapeless pinafore type dresses. Box pleated from just above the bust area to hang down and then tied in the middle like a sack!!!

When I went into the sixth form we didn't need to wear the uniform but we didn't have much money in my family so I had 2 pinafore dresses and 2 blouses so I had a total of 4 outfits and had just to wear them for a whole year.

nanna8

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!

Same here with rolling the skirts over. If we were appearing at a school function in the choir for instance, the deputy head (female) would come and line us up and inspect the length of our skirts - as soon as she had gone, skirts rolled up again! I don't recall ever getting into trouble for doing it.
We had berets that were worn on the first day in the first year and then never again.
At least my uniform was a dark blue, my sister's at the grammar school was green, with green knickers (ugh).

The nuns that ran my alma mater designed the uniform with purity in mind.
Even the hockey shorts were a short/skirt thing that went down to your knees.

We had a girl in the 6th form that was drop dead gorgeous....until she put on the uniform.

There was nothing that could be done to make it look remotely
fashionable.
I’m sure my mother chose the school for uniform,

Fawn socks, big navy knickers a pinafore dress that made Jane Eyres look like Vivienne Westwood had designed it and a revolting shapeless camel coat.

There were strict guidelines on hairstyles too.
The only way we could rebel was by plucking our eyebrows.

Some of your schools sound very posh indeed.
I went to a secondary school with a grammar stream ( now called comprehensive ) in the sixties.
We could buy our uniform anywear except for the tie badge beret and scarf. Which meant some like me wore really cheap things which didn't wear well.
We only had to wear our beret on special occasions like a trip to the theatre and I loved wearing it.
I remember being told off for wearing shoes that had a zip and a ringpull instead of laces.
We had a phase when we wore our tie just folded over instead of knotted - a mod style.
We could wear duffle coats instead of gaberdines and granny shoes - broad higher heels and semi pointed toes. I had neither of these things - too poor.
I hated non uniform days.

Just had a sudden flash of memory of some low waisted bright orange corduroy flares I used to wear. I loved them. It would have been around 1966 probably. Good grief, wish I had that figure now, must have been a size 8.

In Summer we would wear a loose fitting navy and white Ditsy print dress, with just a Bra and pants undernieth, and we were supposed to make it ourselves in Needlework. I cheated and my Mum made mine for me, but it was all baggy and was like a Maternity dress, and really chilly on a cool spring morning!

I rolled my skirt over to make it shorter too, but one mistress stopped me in a corridor and told me I didn't have the legs for it!
School uniform in the Summer was particularly unflattering. Seersucker gingham shirt waister dresses with full skirt and puffed sleeves- Straw hat and ugly regulation sandals

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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!