If the scrambly porn from my adolescence was any indication (remember that? Scrambly, pre-internet porn?) the sexy schoolgirl is a pretty popular trope. Having been a Catholic schoolgirl for 5 years, though, I’ve never really understood the fantasy. That might be because high school was not exactly the most sensual time for me. My 7th grade sex ed teacher was an old Irish woman who reeked of B.O. The Miracle of Life, a 1983 video we were forced to watch in biology class made orgasms look about as exhilarating as having the mucus of a dozen people dumped on you (though maybe some people are into that. No judgment.) Desiring titillation and autodidactism, I often resorted to sitting on the john in my parents’ bathroom, pretending to go #2 so I could read the copy of Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) they kept hidden under back issues of Catholic Digest. Are things happening in your undies yet? Didn’t think so.
But it’s really the fascination with the schoolgirl uniform I don’t understand since I donned one every day to my coed high school and trust me, from initial acquisition to eventual accessorization, that thing couldn’t get you laid.
Let’s start with the obvious, feminist/common-sense reason, and then go with the funny, light-hearted ones, shall we?
1. Can we all agree to stop sexualizing teenage girls any more than society already does?
This requires no further explanation. It’s gross. Come on, now.
2. Parents ARE invited to the party.
My uniform was pretty standard; you might even call it “progressive” given that it wasn’t the typical blazer, tie, Oxford shirt, slacks combination. This was probably for the best since the Dead Poets Society boys had already made that look about as perfect as it was going to get. The school knew we couldn’t compete with that. Instead, we had the choice of different tops including Oxford shirts, sure, but also turtlenecks, long and short-sleeved polos, sweaters, sweater-vests, and probably other standard Gap-fare I’ve blocked out. You couldn’t buy your uniform just anywhere at anytime, though. Nope, your uniform was special and so you and your parents had to go to a special store at a special time to get your clothes. (THE MOST EXPENSIVE STORE IN THE WORLD – Ed.) Your special someone would then overhear your mom expressing shock over the fact you’d gone up two dress sizes and were in need of new pants, virtually eliminating any possibility Special Someone would try to get into yours.
3. I’m sorry, it’s the pleats.
Girls had the option of wearing navy blue slacks or a kilt. The jury would’ve decided which one was worse by now if they weren’t too busy still laughing at how hopelessly awkward we all looked (and not in a cool Annie Hall way). The kilt put the “ugg” in “suggestive,” often falling inches below the knee, pre-massive-hem-job. And I don’t know who designed our pants, but they bulged at the hips, which was great since no teenager in the history of the world has ever been body conscious. It’s amazing anyone in my school ever dated, really, since every last one of us looked bad in them. My mom eventually became a co-conspirator in my efforts to appear halfway decent at school, buying me nearly identical pants at Zellers. How unflattering is a pair of pants when ones from ZELLERS (RIP) looked better? I should also mention that they were made of some synthetic fiber that offered no protection against Canadian winters, yet somehow made us extra sweaty when the June heat rolled into town. Summer lovin’ is pretty hard when your crotch smells like wet dog dreams.
4. Black-bra-listed.
Refusing to be outdone by our pants, the fabric for our shirts was so thin it was practically sheer, forcing the school to ban dark-coloured bras for modesty’s sake. Mordecai Richler once wrote “A broad in a black brassiere meant business.” In my school, it meant the principal’s office. Only practical, white bras were accepted. Beige was tolerated. You know, the racy stuff you always wear when you’re trying to seduce someone. There was also a weird correlation between our choice of uniform shirts and our romantic lives – this related to the hickey. Ah yes, the result of school dances laced with wine coolers, the hickey could be a bruise of shame for some, a badge of honour for others. But hiding it was impossible, no matter what you wore. A buttoned-down Oxford revealed your love burn, but so did wearing a turtleneck more than two days in a row. (Yes, I did notice, and no, I didn’t have anything better to do.) My uniform didn’t allow for any discretion – we knew what you were up to, and frankly, we were pretty jealous.
5. Detention for Dummies
I should’ve gotten detention way more times than I did, which was zero (Catholic schoolgirls who never got detention, unite – Ed.) I was often late for class and was kind of a smart ass with my teachers and would sometimes fall asleep at my desk before I discovered coffee. I was always able to charm my way out of it, but to be fair, getting detention at our school didn’t necessarily mean you were a badass. It might just mean that you were parading around like a heathen with your shirt only half-tucked in. Or that your socks were the wrong shade of blue (i.e. not navy.) Or that you’d forgotten to bring white socks to change into for gym class and had tried to convince your teacher that this wasn’t a big deal because you planned on putting so little effort into gym class that there was no way you were going to break a sweat (man, gym teachers are touchy.) Such offenses were enough to send you to the after-school slammer as opposed to making your parentless house your den of love (until they came home).
6. Layers Make Players
Making the uniform one’s own took some doing. For some reason, I was convinced that flashy, often ugly ties were the pinnacle of cool. I used to shop church bazaars to get my hands on those bad boys. I don’t know if I thought they were sexy, but I did like the attention I got from one guy who stopped me by grabbing by shoulders in the hallway, telling me I wasn’t allowed to wear a red and white polka dot tie with a short-sleeved polo. I hoped he was looking for an excuse to touch me; turned out he was speaking on behalf of fashion. And though many of us tried to add our own flair to our uniforms through accessories, it was tough to predict which ones would be banned from week to week as this depended largely on how gaudy, cheap, or pro-marijuana they were. Someone in my school, who no doubt works at NASA right now, figured out that unconventional layering was the answer. Put a turtleneck under a polo! Or an Oxford! Wear a v-neck sweater over any anything with white sleeves! We were young and reckless! It’s just dawning on me now that the people who layered were often the ones who got laid. Hmm…So…maybe it wasn’t all bad. And maybe I was wrong. Maybe the uniform could open the door to sexy times…provided those times involve putting on more clothes as opposed to taking them off.
Go forth and sin no more.
Tags: catholic schools are free in canada and it is totally unconstitutional, erica ruth kelly, fashion, high school, nicole wore a uniform and never managed to make it look cool, PLEATS, uniforms
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I’ve never really understood school uniform fetishisation (aside for the obvious, gross fetishisation of the young and vulnerable).
Most UK schools have uniforms, whether private or state, and mine was AWFUL. There is no sexually healthy person in the world who can be sexually attracted to a skinny, gawky girl wearing a bottle green blazer, and marron and green tie, black trousers and a white shirt. NO ONE. If I didn’t want the blazer, I could wear a maroon sweatervest, but not both at the same time, no mater how cold it was in the mobile classrooms.
In my last year I got to wear a loose black jumper that made every single person in it look shapeless and slumped, and that was an improvement.
For reference:
YOU ARE THE CUTEST
Adorable, yes! Popular and attractive – not until I left school. And school was… unpleasant.
I think I understand the fetishisation only as far as “BABIES IN TIES” because this is so damn cute, but yeah, anything past that is really weird.
It’s basically this weird ‘corrupting innocence is AWESOME’ thing which… yeah, OK, but does that have to be based on something that is typically worn by girls as young as 10? Or younger still, in some schools!
I was bullied badly about my looks in school.
girl I think you look fabulous. haters to the left.
Aw, that photo is really sweet (but as a similar looking past youngster, yes, school was hell on wheels).
D’awww look at you!
Your special someone would then overhear your mom expressing shock over the fact you’d gone up two dress sizes and were in need of new pants
Did anyone else’s Mom have a LOUD curiosity about “How does it fit in the crotch, honey? You don’t want it too tight in the crotch! Oh, this one’s far too tight in the crotch, let’s try the next size up and see if that fits YOUR CROTCH.”
I could never understand why he woman who couldn’t bring herself to discuss menstruation or sex with me would hurl the word “CROTCH” around a dozen times every time we went school shopping. And she could never understand why I’d rather go school shopping on my own, even if it meant spending my own allowance.
With my mum it was my bum. My hips dropped out long before the rest of me developed, so every pair of trousers and every skirt we bought… it was always ‘is that too tight on your bum? It’ll tear if it’s too tight on your bum. You don’t want visible underpants. How is it on your bum?’
My mother is under the firm belief that pants don’t fit unless you can pull them an inch or two out from your waist. Or was just convinced that I was going to gain weight the instant she bought me pants. This managed to both make me feel self-conscious about my weight, and ensure that in high school whenever I wore any shirt other than my giant band shirts made for men, I showed an inch of midriff whenever I moved. Probably not her intent?
Mine too! The last time my mother and I went shopping together (I think I was about 22) she kept pursing her lips at my choices because “you’re going to grow out of that so quickly.” Thanks for assuming I’m going to go through a second puberty and gain a ton of weight, Ma, I reeeaaally needed to hear that.
I asked my mom the other day how old she thinks I am when she looks at me (after she checked to make sure I was wearing gloves. Mom, it is 12F, I am wearing EVERYTHING I OWN.), and she thought about it, and then said, “Hm. About 18 months?” I’m 32.
Mine thinks I am 7. I am 40.
When I worked in the fitting room, I would hear that clarion call like clockwork every year during Back to School. It was almost always bellowed at preteen or teenaged boys, and I would die inside on their behalf behind my perkily respectful expression.
Mothers, don’t DO that to your kids in public. Just…don’t.
YOU ARE THE CUTEST
Ah, yes, the “no matter what the shirt is made of, it’s somehow magically sheer for the bras (probably because they are not made with extra room around the chest, because why would teenage girls want that?)
We were allowed nude/beige bras, presumably because the headmistress (you can’t have a principal! too common!) was always a headmistress and never a headmaster, and knew what colours bras were less see-through [edit: the bras weren’t see through. or they were, I meant to say visible when wearing a shirt]. But oh, the debates about whether scrunchies in school plaid (made after the kilts were hemmed) were allowed.
Seriously. I was boggling at the idea of white bras with white shirts. That was a frequent trauma of my middle school days until I figured out the magic of the beige/”nude” bra — for some reason it didn’t occur to my mom to explain it. Those white bras show up even more brightly under a white shirt than black does — they practically glow.
Perhaps the male principals were under the impression that white people are literally white?
I can’t imagine someone telling me what color bra I can or cannot wear. Especially if the color demanded would make my shirt look inappropriate. Damn it feels good to be an adult.
(you can’t have a principal! too common!)
Ha, we had the opposite – my school got a new headteacher who insisted on being known as the principal* because it was more businesslike/formal, or something. I don’t even know. (She also changed the school uniform, although luckily too late for it to have any effect on me, because I was going into the sixth form and able to wear what I liked – we went from black trousers/skirt, black sweatshirt, white shirt and green stripy tie to grey trousers/skirt, light blue shirt, dark blue V-neck jumped (maybe sleeveless?), dark blue blazer. Only the tie stayed the same. Going from white shirt/black trousers to blue shirt/grey trousers presumably made it harder to find cheap items, as they’re not really the standard colours places will stock. And I have a feeling there was a stupid rule about when you were allowed to take your blazer off. Infuriating.)
*although I see from the website that she’s now “headteacher”, so apparently changed her mind about the Vital Importance of being a principal.
Scrunchies were banned at my school. Had to be bottle green medium-width ribbon, and no uncovered elastics!
Ah, yes, the "no matter what the shirt is made of, it's somehow magically sheer for the bras (probably because they are not made with extra room around the chest, because why would teenage girls want that?)
We were allowed nude/beige bras, presumably because the headmistress (you can't have a principal! too common!) was always a headmistress and never a headmaster, and knew what colours bras were less see-through [edit: the bras weren't see through. or they were, I meant to say visible when wearing a shirt]. But oh, the debates about whether scrunchies in school plaid (made after the kilts were hemmed) were allowed.
Four years in a uniform polo shirt and khakis (no visible pockets, ripped hems, or adornments of any kind, please) has rendered me totally incapable of wearing polo shirts. Ever. Cannot be done. And my mom never understood how COOL it was to wear shirts with the hem fraying away (ON DISPLAY, not tucked in, oh Lord!) and the sleeves rolled up two notches. BECAUSE IT’S COOL, MOM.
The big trend in my school was to wear your tie really short and the back of your shirt untucked, and no-one over the age of 17 understood that at all.
We didn’t have uniforms, but the forbidden (by the dress code) allure of jeans with frayed hems made them SO COOL.
I was in high school during the “holes in jeans” trend, which prompted a school assembly where the hated vice principal outlawed them from our school and referred to them as “swiss cheese jeans.” Naturally, EVERY KID went out and bought a paid and wore them to school.
For us it was sweatshirts or long-sleeve polos with holes ripped into the cuff so that you could stick your thumbs through. Also, safety pins everywhere (at least, all of us who came out as gay right after high school went through a safety pins phase).
This was exactly my school dress code. On the last day of school senior year, my friend Rachel ripped her polo off (she was wearing a tanktop underneath) and RAN IT OVER WITH HER CAR. REPEATEDLY.
I wish I could say I did the same, but I was raised to be a good Catholic school girl, so I waited to go home before burying all of my polo shirts in the back of my closet next to the spiders and abandoned shoes.
The most unflattering pants in the world. Hippy like balloon pants, ankles like skinny jeans, and stiff all over.
(Happy to see this piece out! 🙂 )
And there is literally not a single shoe style you can wear them with that will look anything other than comical.
I hoped he was looking for an excuse to touch me; turned out he was speaking on behalf of fashion.
All the heartbreak of high school, in one magical sentence.
My friends who went to Catholic school were always looking for ways to subvert the dress code – rolling the kilts up, pushing the knee socks down, wearing loud t-shirts under the white oxfords. Even the mini-skirt/short socks/neon tank top combo didn’t make the uniforms any sexier or more attractive.
My uniforms skirts were polyester, scratchy on the inside and shiny-slick on the outside. Bought at the Special Uniform Store, the skirts all had hems that were about 4 inches deep so in theory they could be let out if the girl shot up rapidly but in practice it was impossible to iron them flat so the tall girls were left with oddly drooping hems… and the short girls were left with thick hems that sometimes ballooned out.
I’m a bit jealous of all you who had uniform OPTIONS. We had plaid jumpers until a certain age, worn over sheer blue blouses with a peter pan collar, short sleeve only, with option grey cardigan and grey knee cable knit knee socks. Once you hit that miracle age you graduated to a skirt with no bib, sheer blue blouse with triangular collar, grey cardigan OR sweater vest, and grey cable knit knee socks. Girls were absolutely NOT allowed to wear pants, shorts, culottes, etc, or white bobbysocks. At least the boy shirts were similarly and bizarrely sheer?
I never noticed “suggestive” had an “ugg” in it. WELL PLAYED.
Yeah, at my private school, we had (school-mascot monogrammed) polo shirts, oxford shirts, pullovers, kilts, and (theoretically) pants. All of them (with the exception of the polos) were some kind of itchy polyester (and the kilts and pants had a kind of stain-resistant Teflon coating on them?)
All shirts were to be tucked in at all times, unless you wore them under a pullover and the tails didn’t show. This was not a flattering look if you were even slightly lumpy (and tended to create some rolls where there were none). Our pants also had some kind of weird flare-y action happening around the hips (I don’t think they were pleated, just ill-fitting). The only person I knew who could really make them work was my friend the ballet dancer, who could sort of do a slightly-slouchy preppy androgynous thing with her look (and narrow hips). On everyone else they were basically mom jeans, so we stuck to kilts, even through the dead of winter.
Some people tried to roll their skirt up shorter than the regulation length (which showed more leg, but created more bulk at the waist), or snuck in designer substitutes for the pullover (showing off status by tiny polo pony monogram), but with all the layers we were wearing (especially once you factored in thick tights and the shorts we usually wore under our skirts to protect from prying eyes when climbing the stairs), it was a wonder that any of us managed to date at all.
And yes, the school uniform store was the most expensive store for the cheapest possible clothing (really, we can’t have cotton pullovers? a wool blend? just acrylic?)
The positive side of all that acrylic was that you literally NEVER had to wash the itchy teflon-coated skirts. Seriously. By my senior year of high school I had one skirt which remained wearable (probably the only one which had been purchased new for me as opposed to having been passed down from my two older sisters). I wore that skirt every single day of the week the entire year. It was washed and ironed on the weekend by my mother. If any errant spills/grossness happened upon the skirt during the week I literally WIPED IT OFF with a damp paper towel and it looked EXACTLY THE SAME. I mean of course it was gross, but still the convenience was grade A.
Whatever. You were just missing the required number of Hot Topic necklaces (seven) and black dELiA*s hoodie with the pink stars on the sleeve (sorry Sarah, my mom bought it first) that made a Catholic school uniform TRULY cutting-edge and cool.
I had a friend in high school who managed to get away with that look and I never could believe it.
I was still scarred from middle school’s jewelry limitations. (one necklace, must be a cross.)
I’m from Dublin, where most people go to Catholic schools and nearly everyone wears uniforms. My secondary school had not one but two hideous uniforms – for the first three years we had wine skirts and v-neck jumpers, matched with cream blouses and wine ties. We had to wear white socks and black shoes, and we weren’t allowed to wear Doc Martens (a terrible rule in the late 80s). For the last two years, we had a sort of greeny-blue jumper and skirt, a white shirt with blue stripes (no tie!), and grey socks. Oh, and our summer blazer was black, but the winter gaberdine was navy. God knows why they decided to mix so many elements together, but the result was not, by any stretch of the imagination, sexy. You should have seen the multi-coloured abomination that was the school scarf.
My standard trick was to wear a regular t-shirt to school under the uniform sweatshirt, then just take the sweatshirt off mid-morning. (I went to high school in a northern state, so they thoughtfully allowed us official school-approved sweatshirts so we didn’t freeze to death during the six-month winters.) Then if any of the teachers kicked up a fuss I could just put the sweatshirt back on and be magically back in uniform, HA HA.
Of course at that point I was in my goth-y stage and all my t-shirts had Bauhaus or the Cure on them, which is its own sort of anti-cool, so I guess the joke was on me in the end.
I did a year at a Catholic high school and our uniform kilts were the scratchiest, most awful unlined wool. You had the option to wear pants in the winter months, and ‘any colored Oxford shirt’ until some girl found a lavender Oxford shirt, which was apparently a bridge too far.
What I didn’t understand was that we always had to wear knee-socks (white or navy) or tights in winter (navy or gray), but could hem (or roll) the kilts to be as short as possible. Show as much thigh as you want, but cover those sinful shins! I’m betting they’ve probably instituted a hem guideline, but we used to wear the kilts as short as possible with shorts underneath, so we wouldn’t flash anyone while trudging up and down the six flights of stairs for classes. The shorts had the added benefit of not making it feel like you were sitting on kindling.
Did other schools do that awkward mass fitting where you had to stand in line with classmates you were meeting for the first time so they could take your measurements, loudly announce them, and then order you a highly flammable polyester sweater vest that was three sizes too big?
…I am just now remembering that I had the distinction of being the only kid kicked out of catholic kindergarden.
I feel there’s a story here…
I had APPARENTLY said or done something to earn admonishment by one of the head Nuns. I responded the only way I knew how, how bending down and kissing her buckle and asking for forgiveness.
She apparently thought I was being deliberately sarcastic and mocking and expelled me. I remember wondering why my SUPER AWESOME PLAN backfired.
It would become a very familiar feeling.
Every time I see Catholic schoolgirls on the subway here in Toronto I want to yank their damn skirts down (because if they are more than 5 feet off of campus it gets tucked up high enough to juuuuuuust cover their butts which like, you want your butt to be fully covered in the subway because it is gross). Apparently I am a Mom.
What was up with those pants though? All of my friends wanted to burn them after we graduated, but I’m convinced that the fabric they were made from wouldn’t burn. Water beaded up and rolled right off, but if a pen broke in your pocket, you had ink stains for eternity.
Yes, nothing draws attention away from a body like a polo shirt tucked into straight leg khakis ESPECIALLY when you’re a fat 12-year-old with DD boobs and thighs like a track cyclist. Good job, my Catholic school.
Epilogue: still fat, I wear mostly bodycon dresses, and I am *killing* it.
My mother was fashion forward in her day (before she ruined her life by getting married, {her words} she bandied about with shoe designer Peter Fox, of Fox and Fluevog fame, and enjoyed shopping at Holt Renfrew) but God almighty she dressed me in the weirdest clothing imaginable all the way to high school. If I was cool, my various clothing travesties could have been surmounted; alas, I was far from cool.
So what I’m saying is, I would have KILLED for a uniform.
It ain’t my thing. At all. But isn’t the schoolgirl uniform fetish probably more related to the target of the initial crushes by pubescent boys (and maybe girls too)? Like, all the girls they were fixated on when their hormones and boners started running amok were wearing those kinds of uniforms?
Every once in a while I think about the sheer joy I got from a no-uniform day (we called them Tag Days, we had to bring in a quarter for some charity drive) and try to appreciate that I can wear whatever I want whenever I want.
Ah yes, tag days.
I don’t think there are any schools in Australia without uniforms, like, at all. I mainly went to public institutions, but the most Christian/private place I went to (the last school I attended before unceremoniously dropping out) was a Lutheran place, and its uniform was about the same as any public school I’d been to before that, with the exception that they also had school assigned backpacks that cost about $200 you had to buy also, which is highway fucking robbery.
I went to school in Australia too! I went to two high schools, the first was a co-ed with a pretty relaxed approach to uniform, although I had to be told almost every day to roll down my skirt as I was pretty overenthusiastic about having my hemline just skimming my butt cheeks :|. Funny thing is though that when I transferred to a stricter girls’ school with blazers and backpacks with school logos I stopped caring about whether my hemline made me look cool or not. We weren’t allowed pants though, which was terrible in the winter because we also had to spend lunch outside most of the time.
My high school required us all to wear khaki pants. No black, no navy–khaki only. Because girls aged 14-18 wouldn’t have any reason to avoid wearing light-colored pants every single day for four years. There’s nothing weird going on with girls’ bodies between ages 14 and 18 that might cause us embarrassment if we’re wearing light-colored pants all the time. Nope, can’t think of anything…
My kids go to a public charter where ONLY middle school students wear uniforms (polo shirt, kid's choice of pants, skirt, shorts – no athletic shorts but whatever else they want). The elementary school kids don't have to wear uniforms, and the high school kids don't have to wear uniforms – just middle school. It actually works well – the kids are so wildly distractible as they hit puberty in middle school, that it's one less thing to tease each other about/be distracted by/be mean about. And then when they get to high school, they are grateful to be free, so they dress fairly well and don't feel the need to be too stupidly rebellious in what they wear. At least that's how it's working for my boys so far. 🙂
Ahh, Catholic school uniforms. We had winter and summer uniforms: the summer ones weren’t bad, since we could wear navy OR white socks with them (the freedom!) and didn’t have to tuck our polo shirts into our kilts (even nuns give up sometimes).
The winter uniforms, however, were thick wool plaid kilts which smelled like wet sheep whenever it rained and were constructed of thread of variable quality, so the green parts wore out first and left many girls with a swiss-cheese-esque posterior. Fortunately, this showcased the brightly colored boxers we wore underneath, over our required navy blue tights. (Later we added gray pants as an option, but these were exactly as attractive as the previous commenters have indicated.) And since we were at an all-girls school and had to wear tights from November – April, most of us wouldn’t shave until the leg hair was long enough to poke through.
Sexy.