I wore a uniform

#Sundaybeforeworkdaysads Photo by: kidnappedbysuburbia.com

uniformedproject — Sun, 27 May 2012 12:42:37 -0400

#Sundaybeforeworkdaysads

Photo by: kidnappedbysuburbia.com

#Condi’sbada**

uniformedproject — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 14:02:33 -0400

#Condi’sbada**

#sowhatIhaveissues

uniformedproject — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:52:00 -0400

#sowhatIhaveissues

#Goopdegoop Photos by: Steve Granitz/WireImage.com; Dominique...

uniformedproject — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:27:00 -0400

#Goopdegoop

Photos by: Steve Granitz/WireImage.com; Dominique Charriau/WireImage.com

She wore a uniform: Nikki Olaya, Chicago

uniformedproject — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:03:00 -0400

Bennet Academy

St. Josephs School

1986-1997

So what did your uniform look like? In high school, we had a plaid, grey pleated skirt. And we could wear button-down shirts.

Did you like wearing it? I liked it, I was indecisive. I could just wake up and I knew what to wear. I guess I was pretty preppy. I didn’t really express myself in school, so I was an accessories person—I always did my nails, loved rings and bracelets.

Do you think that’s why you’re into jewelry now? Yeah, probably. They told us what to wear, and the only way to be unique was to accessorize or wear jewelry, or change up our socks and shoes.

Did you ever have days at school where you got to wear your own clothes? Well, we had mass. It was a fundraiser once a month.

Like a church mass/fundraiser? Explain. It was an all school mass—$5 at the door. You didn’t have to dress up if you didn’t want to, but most kids did. And we could wear Sunday best.

Sunday Best? Like fancy dresses and skirts. So basically once a month, everyone bought a new outfit to go to mass.

That’s hilarious! It was VERY serious. Most people would go out and buy new clothes for that day.

So did people really pay attention in mass? The best part of mass was Communion. It was like a fashion show. People would sit next to their friends and stare at everybody and whisper, “where’d she get that, why does he think he can pull that off?”

#marytylermoorehelzyeah

uniformedproject — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 17:33:00 -0400

#marytylermoorehelzyeah

#bonethugz

uniformedproject — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 11:23:00 -0400

#bonethugz

#LadyGaga

uniformedproject — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:43:28 -0400

#LadyGaga

She wore a uniform: Lisa Romeo - Syracuse, New York

uniformedproject — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:59:00 -0400

Christian Brothers Academy (CBA)

1999-2005

What did your uniform look like? We didn’t have a uniform where you had to buy it from a catalog. We had a dress code—it didn’t sound as harsh.

Did you like your uniform, or dress code, rather? Not so much. I went to a public school for elementary school before going to CBA for high school, and a lot of the other kids had gone to Catholic school before, so they were used to it.

So how did you adjust - going from wearing whatever you wanted in public school to having a dress code in high school? It was a lot of trouble because I was a tomboy—I didn’t like the girls’ flared dress-code khakis.

Did the school have a few days were you could wear whatever you wanted? Yeah, you could pay like 1 or 2 bucks to wear anything and the money would go to a big cause, like the tsunami.

That’s nice. And you must have been super excited to wear whatever you wanted, right? It was nice, but it was more of a novelty for kids that had been wearing the dress code clothes since kindergarten and had like 20 chances in their entire life to wear jeans to school.

But what about finally getting to wear your tomboy clothes? Well, I wanted to wear gym shorts, but Abercrombie and American Eagle were the look. And some kids set the tone for what everyone else was wearing. So even on a dress-down day when we could wear whatever we wanted, everyone dressed really similarly.

So it was like your class was still in uniform?
Yeah—you’d think they’d want to change it up a little.

#ponytailholla

uniformedproject — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:46:00 -0400

#ponytailholla

She wore a uniform: Ishita Srivastava, NYC

uniformedproject — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:00:00 -0500

The Shri Ram School, New Delhi, India

1990-2001

What was your school uniform? The school asked us “how would you feel about denim?” It was a new age-y place.

Jeans? Right. Girls wore denim skirts and the guys wore denim shorts. And the winter, because it gets cold, everybody wore jeans. But you couldn’t just wear any jeans. The school designed them and sold school regulation jeans.

Did you like them? I was very happy in my uniform; I kind of appreciated the idea and never understood why people didn’t. But as we got into middle school and high school, students would say: “I’m too cool to wear these jeans, they don’t flatter my figure.” So the guys would buy jeans that would too big for them, they would be falling off, and that wasn’t acceptable. And the girls wanted stuff that would fit them tighter. The jeans were trouser-y and they really weren’t flattering.

When did you stop wearing your uniform? 12^th grade. I was 17.

How’d that go? I hated it. I had no idea what to wear.

So how’d you figure it out? Well, after Delhi University I moved to London for college. I didn’t know anybody and I was starting completely clean. I was just trying out stuff that I didn’t have access to and I was exploring clothes for the first time. All these things to play with, it was exciting. By the end of my time in London, I dress like I dress now.

How’s that? Often a dress, tights, and a skirt, basically not casual like shorts and a t-shirt. I don’t just pull stuff together, I think about what I’m going to wear pretty much every single day, quite seriously. Which is not something I ever would have done back home and I still get confused when I go back to Delhi.

So how do you dress when you’re in Delhi? People don’t wear dresses in India during the day, it’s not common to go out in a dress in the afternoon, say to go to the market. So I just end up wearing jeans every day.