Friday 29 August 2008

School uniform

Well now Daisy is starting her life as a sixth former she is no longer required to wear a school uniform, or is she? Had she enrolled at the boy's grammar she would be required to wear a jacket with smart clothes. The girls grammar is less draconian and allows 'smart dress' with a relaxed dressed down Friday. So I faced the dreaded shopping frenzy that was required to attire my daughter, giving her enough scope to look smart but yet have enough variety to enable her to look unique each and every day. That would be the Holy Grail then.
I did ask weather she would consider wearing her uniform for another 2 years, after all, that would be unique, sadly the idea was dismissed. So off we went to shop, oh lucky, lucky me. After half an hour in Next we realised that maybe H&M would give us more choice, an hour and a half later with NO air conditioning we left with 5 outfits, and nearly £150 poorer. Ouch.
Kitty, fired up by years of watching What Not to Wear and 10 Years Younger set herself the challenge of dressing Daisy, in what, let's face it, is another uniform, all be it less rigid in colour. The outfit Daisy put together was more appropriate for a school prom, so I introduced the idea of wearing one weird and wonderful piece together with something more sober, such as a plain cardie. Daisy likes to mix up a LOT of patterns and prints with beads and bangles so we have tamed her a little bit and if she plans the night before she should be good to go. If she wings it in the morning she will be lucky to make it to school by lunch time, trust me I know the pain.
One item of clothing that remains very elusive for Daisy are trousers, she is 5'3 and very curvy, the papers are full of various styles non of which really work except skinny jeans which are not smart enough. Why is it so hard to find a well fitting pair of trousers?

3 comments:

materfamilias said...

You don't mention any shopping meltdowns, and it sounds as if you were pretty productive together. One of mine would always get to a point where she thought everything made her look fat, and another tended to choose impulsively and then return things the next day.
I like the formula you've suggested -- the one weird and wonderful and one more classic piece per outfit. It will be interesting to see how the year progresses -- seems like a sane system, actually, rather than staying in uniform 'til the end of school then having to go out and do "civvies" with little or no experience.

La Belette Rouge said...

Clearly Daisy has her mothers creativity. I mean you are an art professor. She was bound to either rebel and become a banker or want to express her creative spirit through her appearance.

I think the good news is that kids who do that at her age are less likely to need to continue to express themselves in wild rebellion in their twenties, thirties and beyond.

Like Materfamilias, I like your balancing system of the one wild and one weird.

5 outfits for 150 Euros sounds pretty good to me. I might have to go into H&M, I have never been.

indigo16 said...

Materfamilias, yes it was productive, Daisy will defer to me as she knows I am obsessed with clothes more so than she so she will defer. In stark contrast to my relationship with my mother!
I am hoping that she will swap her uniform for a white coat, but thats another story.
LBR yes I am glad she has an opinion, she never ever reads any fashion mags yet has somehow evloved a style which is good news. H&M is amazing if you are very patient and you compromise on size. Daisy bought clothes in sizes 10 - 14 and she is a standard 12. But the value is amazing for the range and quality. If you are ever in Europe check out COS their more upmarket sister.