Look at their shoes

Luckily, from where I'm from, they were.

In elementary school i thought there would coordinated dances at high-school events.

American here.

Every single one of those girls would have been sent home for "inappropriate clothing" at my school.

If that concept existed here kids would probably go to school half-naked just to be sent home

Yeah, after a few times of that your parents get a visit from the truancy department and get threatened with prison time.

For some reason it's perfectly legal to home school your kids (and teach them nothing during that time) , but if you register them to a public school and they don't attend, straight to jail.

There was always that one kid, though. The hype beast on a budget that could turn 20 lewks on no money.

I think 3 of the dozen or so public schools around where I grew up had uniforms (lucky me, I went to one of them, ugh), while every private school (90% of which were some flavor of christian) had them. Most were more along the lines of 'dress code' than uniform though. I'm remembering khaki pants and bland colored polos more so than the blazer/tie/coat thing. It's probably because it's hot as balls on leather in the sun around here, so anything more than that would be killing kids or the AC budget.

I'm jealous that you can put your hair up like that. Mine would tie itself in about 20 interesting knots and stay that way

Went to HS in the late 90s. I didn't "dress up" but I didn't want to look grundge or a homeless person. My classmates used to call me Metro or a yuppie.

Every girl wore sweats, and every guy dressed like a hobo in the 90s.

Looking Metro means you got style

Every time I go to my kid's school, I am amazed at the difference between my day and now.

That time I went, there were kids just in pajamas and slippers. Not just one or two, dozens, and it wasn't some special day.

Then there's the dressier kids in lounge pants and whatever giant tshirt they pulled out of a drawer (or laundry basket) that were obviously their version of pajamas. Shit, one girl had very obviously rolled out of bed, thrown some leggings under her nightgown, slipped into crocs and jumped on the bus.

It's pretty cool tbh. Just no fucks given for meaningless frippery unless the individual kid/family wants it. Most of the kids were relaxed, nobody giving them shit for the way they're dressed, staff not even noticing at all. That's the way it should be imo. Whatever gets the kids in their seats and keeps everyone relatively engaged.

Yeah, there were still plenty of jeans and t-shirt sorts, a few of the button up shirt variants, and a handful of clothes hounds. But nobody was giving anyone shit about the clothes. From what my kid says, that wasn't just the case for the hour or so i was there that day.

We insist on clothes that are weather appropriate and acceptable for an emergency, but beyond that after seeing the norms there, we stopped giving a fuck.

They are literally back right now

..oh god

I'm American, I had a uniform, and idk, I kinda liked it. Didn't have to think about what to wear in the morning.

Never trust an IT guy in full suit and tie.

Meangirls feels kinda accurate?
I remember the popular girls often dressed the way Lindsay Lohan did in that movie.

Then again, I graduated shortly before that movie came out, so it's been a while and my memory may have failed me

American who has been out of HS for a year now. I feel like unless you're a girl who seriously cares about her image/aesthetic and/or had a special event that day, most girls didn't dress like that at my HS. Not saying never at all, just not very often.

Also would've probably got dress coded in those anyway, especially the "spaghetti straps" dresses (distinctly remember a faculty member telling a student body kid that their dress straps were too small and to cover up before a ceremony ), the skirts are toeing the line.

Lots of us were in pajamas, sweatpants, Crocs & slides, hoodies, shorts, and some brought little plushies or small blankets. I mean seriously my old HS and current college have hordes of people who look ready to drop the moment they hit a chair.

I'm pretty average, I didn't wanna look too lazy so I never wore pajamas unless it was a spirit day. But I was usually in sweatpants on the nice days, and jeans in the cold seasons (although some freaks still wore shorts and Crocs in 40 degree weather). Hoodies all the time, unless it was literally boiling hot. Did my best to not wear shorts sometimes because of body hair fear, but stopped giving a fuck by college.

Some people definitely dressed up, but only those who were doing an aesthetic/style of some sort (neon, goth, punk, clean girl, etc). The rest of us were lazy bums lol.

I feel like anyone would freak out in the most incredible way if they had their freedom of choice and autonomy suddenly stripped away.

Uniforms aren't part of the culture in US public education. There's also conflicting studies on whether uniforms even make a difference so it's not like there's a clear argument for them.

Also, while uniforms aren't standard in public schools there is typically a dress code students are expected to follow.