New beginnings and defiant socks.

And why school uniforms are actually a good thing.

Before I confess all my fashion failings, thank you so much for your shared stories and feedback from the last W&S. I can never fully express how grateful I am for your comments and encouragements. This W&S is a tiny one. I reckon a half cup of tea and you’ll be done!

Fall, when nature is starting to wrap things up, has always been an indicator of new beginnings for me. When I was young, autumn would often find our family transplanted to a new country. Papa being in the military meant living abroad on more than one occasion. It was always the time of new schools, new teachers, new friends, and a new start.

On average, we moved every two years until I reached my early teens and then we plunked down for a bit. That shift in our familiar seasonal routine had me floundering with the realization that new beginnings at new schools were no longer a guarantee. There would be only one chance for that all important first impression and choices made would be sticking around for a while.

The safety net of moving frequently, thus disposing neatly of a host of mistakes made, was gone. This was going to take some serious reconsideration of how I tackled life, which had been to that point, remarkably free of consequences. It also meant that school uniforms were no longer a given. At the age of ten, my fashion sense was somewhat limited to the available items in the costume box. My skills at fitting in were yet to be developed both in the clothing sense and the social sense.

self portrait blissfully unaware of my fashion gaffs

I was the quintessential shy kid, the one with the weird clothes, wacky hair, funny accent. The scrawny kid who couldn’t catch the ball. The kid who spent her time with her nose in a book and hated the “de riqueur” sandwich of the day, peanut butter and banana.

My first school experience was in England and came with the requisite school uniform. First impressions there were not so much based on individual fashion choices, rather that ties were correctly knotted and socks stayed up.

The socks never stayed up.

Luckily for me, my sister was adept at the ties and she painstakingly made sure mine was knotted tightly every morning. The socks were completely my responsibility and no matter my intentions, rarely did those grey itchy socks stay up for the duration of the school day.

We moved back to Canada for a spell and I attended a school that had a more relaxed dress code. If my six year old brain remembers correctly, as a girl you wore a blue skirt and white shirt combination from your own ‘collection’. It’s a bit blurry as a great deal of that school year I spent with my nose in the corner for behaving in ways not in keeping with the teacher’s point of view.

A return to England, another school, another uniform. That uniform fostered a steady base from which we could all be ourselves without the anxieties of being fashionably clad. I still have my school scarf and dutifully wore those school issued knickers until well into my twenties. They were indestructible!

Once again in Canada, attending a school with no obvious dress code requirements and having now reached an age where some consciousness was developing on the fashion end of things, I started to make some startling choices. There is very little pictorial evidence (thank goodness) but my wardrobe picks of the time can still cause me to pause, slap my hand to my forehead, and mutter ‘sweet jeeezussss’

I vividly remember a charming little number that my Grandmother had sent me. It was a riotously coloured pencil dress covered in peace signs and flower power symbols which I nattily paired with my old school blazer. Obviously a really good outfit for my first day in a brand new school.

‘It’s good Mom, this is what all the kids will be wearing.’

It was not. And although there was no dress code dictated by the school, there most certainly was a dress code well known to all the kids. Well, most of the kids. I didn’t get that memo. I can assure you, my confidence was severely shaken at the end of that particular day.

please note the one yellow knee sock…who knows where the other one had gone

I graced our school halls that year in another outfit thoughtfully provided by my fashionista grandma. This one was a flared pant suit of one hundred percent polyester in kelly green, white collar, white cuffs, white pockets. It was something else. You would not be incorrect in assuming I had matching socks, one up, one down.

And then finally, Grade 9 and a new school. This, I determined, was going to be my chance to shine. I can still remember agonizing over what to wear for that first day in high school. I pulled this out, that out, rejected it all, tried again, different combinations, different socks, different degrees of short in the skirt department. Absolute insanity, but I finally had the combo sorted and I was ready to go. New pencils, pens, notebooks. New me.

Pausing here to slap my forehead and mutter ‘sweet jeeesuzzzz’.

As I sat in the dark of the school auditorium on that fall day in September, 1973, I remember feeling a mixture of ‘swish’ and terror. I looked to my right and met the eyes of another new student. She became one of my best friends and to this day she has the ability to make me laugh at myself. We were both similarly attired, although her approach to fashion independence was a darn sight more classy than mine.

In common we both wore platform shoes. Hers black, mine brown. Knee socks, hers stayed up, mine did not. Narrow mini skirts. Hers a deep blue, mine pale blue corduroy. Shirts with impossibly pointy collars, buttoned up to the top save one button. Hers a soft white cotton, mine an outlandish blue, pink, yellow and violent green plaid of some synthetic material designed to go up in flames at the mere sight of a match. Her hair, straight, shiny and perfectly cut. Mine looking very much like a brillo pad on crack.

And so high school began.

‘Til the next time, kristine