July 14, 2005

A pictorial survey of uniforms worn by British schoolboys over the years
  • Now I'm expecting a pictorial of Zoroastrians in British schoolboy uniforms.
  • I wore the traditional outfit, the scout uniform and the cadet one. Nametapes on everything, too. And indoor shoes and outdoor shoes. Prefect tie. The whole lot. I am officially the whitest man alive. Damn.
  • Having to wear shorts and kneesocks in icy weather sounds a bit cruel.
  • I'd just like to say, I was the only Prefect at my school who didn't wear one of the special Prefect Ties. What, did they think I was going to let my newly-elevated status mark me out from the everyday kids? Did they think I'd let it divide us? I don't think they realised quite what sort of a character they were dealing with, oh no. Yeah, I was a rebel. I don't mind admitting it now.
  • Gah!
  • Some of those outfits are quite fetching. *snicker*
  • This one is my favourite.
  • Anything about the blue boys?
  • Ah, right there. Next time I'll click the link before opening my huge gob.
  • I used to have to wear the fucking blazer, tie and shirt, although I refused to wear shorts. Christ I hated it.
  • I wore long trousers, just before someone makes a crack joke.
  • This one is my favourite. Clicking on that brings up http://www.cathedralstone.net/Pages/music.htm for me...
  • I went to public schools in the US. The social and instructional standards ranged from appalling to nonexistent, and I hated every minute of twelve years of what we somehow straightfacedly call 'education' with such intensity and sincerity that it is only now, twenty-odd years later, that I am finally beginning to cheer up. That said, at least I got through it without having to wear any silly outfits. (...any school-mandated silly outfits, I mean.)
  • Didn't, thankfully, have to wear silly uniforms at school but I recall being quite pleased with my 13 year-old self in my Sea Cadet uniform. The whole schoolgirl uniform thing seems to have quite a less-than-wholesome following, according to Google. Makes one wonder about the wisdom of dressing up actual schoolgirls in such outfits.
  • Try copying and pasting the URL, techsmith, instead of clicking. It worked for me anyway.
  • koko, I dont' know about you, but this is dinging my mrs. robinson bell HARD!!!
  • You sick fucks. I went to a bluecoat school (well, that was its name), and I didn't get dressed up like those freaks, let me tell ya! *pauses for a moment to imagine dinging a Mrs Robinson bell...hard*
  • We had those very small caps that sit on the back of your head like a skullcap. If you couldn't swim, you were supposed to wear a white button on it as a mark of shame. There was a sort of additional lining inside which other boys would attempt to pull out - very few caps survived intact. They had the advantage of rolling up to fit in your pocket, or, if tightly rolled, serve as a reasonably effective cosh. Shorts in the junior school, grey flannel in the senior school with lovatt tweed jacket (blazer in summer, and straw hats if you were that way inclined. If you had your full colours, you got a superlative blazer with red edging and a huge embroidered eagle). There was a kind of caste system of ties (house, colours, monitorial/library status) so complex it was relatively unusual to see two identical ties. When I was in the sixth form it was discovered that silk squares were still official uniform and that the local outfitters still had a stock of them. There was a brief flurry of wearing them either in the correct cravat-style manner or in a sort of loose sixties way (you had to be favoured to get away with this, or with long hair - luckily, I was).
  • Holy moly, Pleggers! Where did you go to school? Brideshead Revisited?!!
  • Pictures! Pictures, Plegmund!
  • What about the time-honoured public school tradition of pushing the limits of your school uniform as far as it will go ... Taking in trousers until they were skin-tight, tieing your tie with as fat a knot as possible if you were a metaller or upside-down so the skinny end hung down if you were punk/mod/new wave inclined. DMs instead of school shoes. etc etc etc Girls' skirts became shorter and tighter than they were intended. The school I went to abandoned the practice of having swimming lessons in the nude the year before I went there. Suppresses inward shudder ... perhaps because we shared the pool with the girls school over the road.
  • Kitfisto: you never wore this? shame!
  • well, I'm wearing it now, but only cos it feels so good...
  • I think a man needs to show a little leg now and then, if he wants to get ahead in life.
  • *flashes knee / tips mcs the wink*
  • god i love brits! you guys are so... so very... british. thank god.
  • Ding-a-ling!
  • *flashes knee-length grey sock at koko*
  • Mr. Jones, are you trying to seduce me?
  • *DING!*
  • The only uniform I ever wore to school was the ripped, grease-slick jeans and Ozzy shirt of a devout, metal-driven burner! *double Dio devil sign on your azz, Prep!*
  • *flips up collar of Izod shirt, glares at Fes*
  • I think you cracked the bell.
  • And not for the first time.
  • That "Mrs. Robinson bell" is calling me to dinner.
  • *prepares for the inevitable rumble*
  • *puts on jeans and 3/4-sleeve AC/DC concert t-shirt, stands by Fes*
  • *puts on jeans and 3/4-sleeve AC/DC concert t-shirt, stands by Fes*
  • Some schools in the US had & have them - at my daughter's public school in Baltimore they had to wear maroon plaid jumpers, yellow shirts, blue kneesocks & brown closed toe shoes. My friend and I got in trouble for dressing our girls in yellow turtlenecks instead of the horrible flimsy polyester shirts and letting them wear tights or leggings under their jumpers in the winter. Stupid damn school. I had to wear a uniform in 7th grade - had to go to the headmistress' office too for putting psychedelic laces on my "sensible brown shoes." The tough Catholic girls from the Baltimore school down the street used to leave school every afternoon & immediately begin hiking up their skirts, unbuttoning their blouses & putting on lipstick. Meanwhile the boys would jump on every bumper of every parked car on the street to set off all the alarms - good times!
  • *pulls out gigantic cell phone, calls Rob & Emilio*
  • I only wore the metal-driven burner uniform after school (I had a denim cut-off, so up yours, mod)
  • *slouches in the corner wearing all black, staring at everyone sullenly*
  • *pushes up his too large glasses, tugs on his acid washed jeans and wonders what all the fuss is about*
  • Don't fret about those glasses, lad -- you'll soon grow into 'em.