Ah Aro, you and me, the norn irish mafia of the boards!
(Friends…bleurgh!, but not as bad as St Louisa’s…brown and yellow :eek:)
damn smilies
that’s meant to be :eek:
Co-Ed Catholic High School:
Summer:
Short-sleeved white polo shirt
Blue plaid skirt
White or blue knee socks
Dress shoes (read: not sneakers)
Winter:
White button down blouse
Bulky blue sweater with insignia
Blue plaid skirt
Blue pantyhose (we absolutely could not wear anything on our legs but the pantyhose, even in 20 degree weather. Pure hell.)
The aforementioned dress shoes
The summer uniform was rather cute, but the sweater for the winter one made everyone look 10 lbs heavier. Boys wore grey slacks year round with the same polo shirt we wore in the summer, and a white turtleneck + sweater in the winter.
I never wore a school uniform. When I was in school I felt that uniforms stifled individual expression (and I’m in favour of Freedom of Expression). Also, it occurred to me that there were families who were not as well-off as my middle-class situation. Requiring a uniform might have been a hardship on them.
But now I can see that uniforms might serve a purpose. They might (and I don’t know, since as I’ve said I haven’t had the experience) allow kids to concentrate on learning instead of how they look. And I think they might lead to a certain esprit d’corps and pride in one’s school. In a world that still requires a “uniform” of sorts in the business community, learning early how to dress properly might be an advantage. Given the chance, I’d go to work in jeans and a T-shirt instead of “busniess casual”. Eh, at least we no longer have to wear ties. Had I been indoctrinated early-on in the wearing of “work attire” I might be more comfortable in a suit.
I don’t have kids (Ha! I haven’t got a womb!), so I don’t know how I’d react to sending them off in a school uniform. On the one hand, kids should be kids; let them dress for playing. On the other hand, a jacket and tie might be good for them at school.
In my case, I think they did the opposite. My family, though middle class, was not as well off as others in the school - in a public school, we wouldn’t have been able to afford the variety of clothes. With a uniform, I got 2 skirts a year, plenty of blouses/men’s shirts from the thrift store and some socks/shoes and that was it. Uniform skirts could also be found in the local Ladies of Charity/Catholic thrift store - and that’s where they normally came from if available (almost a given after school let out in the spring). Total school clothes cost for the year was probably less than $50 for me, probably about the same for each of my brothers - their pants were purchased new, so probably a little more.
Since I wasn’t a social butterfly, I didn’t have a lot of non-school clothes either - a couple of dresses, some jeans and some t-shirts and I was set.
At my high school (Jesuit), we didn’t have a uniform exactly, but we did have a quite rigidly enforced dress code. At the time(1987-1991), they had to describe it in great detail, but these days, it’d be considered business casual.
The major points were:
- Shirt with a collar. Polos were ok.
- Slacks of some kind (in other words, no jeans)
- Shirt tucked in and belt being worn
- Leather shoes (no tennis shoes)
Supposedly we were supposed to wear dark socks, but since something like 75% of the student body was involved in athletics, they didn’t really ride us too hard about wearing white socks.
The real killer was the “Students are to avoid extremes of style” part of the dress code. This basically meant that they’d nail us for anything that was technically within the dress code, but ugly or otherwise not consistent with the administration’s vision of how the student body should look.
tlw-
Yeah, we could wear skirts, but the skirts we were required to wear were uglier than the pants, so most of us didn’t bother with them. We also had to buy a dress uniform that was about $100, which we never wear…it’s still hanging in my closet. Anybody want it?
Catholic school, grades 1-8 (in the '60s)–boy’s uniform:
Black dress shoes (great for recess…not)
Brown corduroy pants that made the voop…voop…voop noise when you walk.
White short-sleeved button-down shirt.
Green cardigan sweater.
Hideous.
Girls, as I recall, wore green plaid jumpers over white shirts, green cardigan sweaters, ankle socks and saddle oxford shoes. And green beanies when we went to church.
Secular boy’s private school (called St. Georges) in Canada in the late 70’s…
Black or brown dress shoes (or Hush Puppies).
Non athletic socks (black, grey or white).
Grey flannel pants (grey shorts allowed in June).
Light blue or white long sleeved dress shirt.
School tie (red, black and white striped in elementary school, blue with little red dragons on it in high school).
Blue or white V-neck sweater and/or a blue blazer (with a school crest)
Your hair could not be longer than half way down your ears and could not touch your collar. Strange hairstyles or colouring were, of course, frowned upon.
No stupid hats (thank god).
When I was about 16 and hitting a big growth spurt, I remember getting very upset when I realized that I actually had no clothing other that school uniforms, school gym gear and a few other school related items (t-shirts from the school play and the like). 20 something years later and I’m still pissed off.
I went to BGS too, so I have nothing to add to the OP. 
My school’s uniforms were the prettiest in the whole city! Well, we always thought so. Grades k-6 wore a lovely blue and grey plaid pleated skirt with whatever you call those little over-all-like tops, with crests over our hearts. White, short-sleeved blouse and a little scarf sort of thing called a corbata, worn sort of like a tie. Navy knee-socks and black dress shoes. It all still fits, well sort of. 
Grades 7-12 had blue plaid skirts with white blouses and the cutest navy blue ties.
Our P.E. uniform was navy blue warm up suits. NO elastic at the wrists and ankles, two white stripes down the sides, exactly one inch in width. Lord help ya if your tennies weren’t spotlessly white.
Regarding cost–we found we spent a lot more on clothes once I started attending public schools. A couple of uniforms plus five or six blouses doesn’t add up to that much. Oh and individuality wasn’t a problem. Instead of relying on our clothes to do it for us, we developed actual personalities. And when that failed, hair styles!
I went to an all-girls Catholic high school (Mercy High School, 1993 to 1997), and they did this thing where each class had a different uniform, so that you could tell them apart or something. So you wore one uniform for your first two years, and then voted on the color of the one you’d wear for the next two.
Grades 9-10:
green and blue (Black Watch) plaid kilt
any color oxford shirt
green sweater (cardigan, crewneck, or V-neck) or green sweatshirt with the school crest (in the same place a logo would be on a polo shirt)
solid colored socks or tights
any kind of reasonably unflashy shoes
Grades 11-12:
the same thing, except that the kilt and sweater/sweatshirt were navy blue
My sisters were two years behind me in school, and they wore burgundy the first two years and black the second two.
Our school changed its uniform partway through. From Form 1 through to Form 4 I had to wear:
Grey jersey with green and gold striped collar.
Grey shirt.
Grey shorts.
Grey socks.
Black shoes.
Ugh.
Then after that they changed the Jersey to green, and suddenly they decided all boys could wear long pants.
My last year, Form 7, I wore mufti, aka skivvies, aka regular clothes.
The girls wore green jerseys, a pale yellow blouse, a green pleated skirt, pale socks, and brown shoes. I think they had a winter uniform of a green pinafore, but I think that may have been optional, as I don’t have a strong memory of it.
My High School doesn’t even currently have a website. How pathetic is that? Must be a totally crap place to be now.
When were you there?
- Bubba.
I’ve only just left - 1997 to 2001.
Anyway, I was going to come in and rant about the grey coats, but you’ve taken care of all that. The senior uniform wasn’t as bad, but I didn’t receive any colours until it was too late to wear them.
I finished in 1994. If you played rugby in the U13c,d or e team in 1997, I may well have coached you, though.
My winter uniform was a pair of black trousers, white long-sleeved shirt, school tie and a black blazer. That blazer I hated with a passion; when the weather was chilly I felt cold, and once things started warming up again I used to bake in it. Considering the recent craze for school uniform parties however, I’m glad I resisted the temptation to burn it after I left school.
In the summer, we could ditch the blazers, ties and long-sleeved shirts, and wear a white polo shirt bearing the school logo instead. A hell of a lot more comfortable, and it looked just as smart IMHO - why they didn’t let us wear them all year round is beyond me.
As far as footwear goes, the only restriction was that we weren’t allowed to wear trainers. Anything else was OK, so I wore Dr Martens boots.