It's A Uniform Revolution
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday November 20, 1986
AUSTRALIA is in the grip of a uniform revolution. According to the designer Jill Fitzsimon, the corporate uniform has really taken off in the past five years.
But in schools, students are discarding uniforms and wearing clothes of their own choosing to express their individuality.
In the business world, uniforms are a big hit. These days they are called"wardrobes" - packages of designer-label skirts, blazers, blouses, scarves and dresses for women and trousers, shirts, jumpers, shorts and socks for men that can be mixed around to create a sort of individual uniformity.
This idea has been popular with staff at Westpac where, although a uniform is not compulsory, most people wear it, according to Tony Benner, of the bank's media and information section.
Jill Fitzsimon opened a corporate wardrobe division about five years ago. Since then she has outfitted staff at the AMP, Thomas Cook Travel, NRMA, State Building Society and Estee Lauder.
"The uniform's popularity is much stronger here than anywhere else in the world," she said. "The girls, in particular, like the wardrobes. A uniform stops them having to think 'God, What am I going to wear'. They only have to worry about that sort of decision during their evenings and on weekends."
While there are only a handful of schools that have abandoned uniforms altogether, many students are now embellishing their uniforms almost beyond recognition.
One of the few public schools with no official uniform is Crestwood High School in Baulkham Hills. Keith Isis, the principal, said this policy had succeeded in removing one of the barriers between students and teachers.
"We don't believe in harassing the kids just because they don't have certain things on," Mr Isis said. "If they get harassed over something which they can't see is important, they are going to have a turn-off about everything in the school."
He rejected the idea that no uniform meant no discipline or application, and said that students behaved in a more mature fashion when they dressed in ordinary clothes, like their teachers and the rest of society.
Karen Jeffriess, a Year 9 student at Crestwood, said she was the envy of her friends from other schools.
"I think it's great," she said. "You can be an individual, you can wear the colours that suit you. Basically everyone is wearing similar things, so there is no competition."
Shore College students have been wearing virtually the same uniform for 97 years. One of the most distinctive, and to some students embarrassing, features is the straw boater hat, which has become one of the school's immovable traditions.
The senior master, Peter Jenkins, said the uniform had been retained partly for sentimental reasons. Students didn't mind wearing it.
"Boys very rarely think about it," he said. "The only feature which from time to time is questioned is the hat, which some of the older boys feel makes them a bit conspicuous.
"The school sets some store by tradition. The uniform is a symbol of continuity. It is quite something for a father who has his son attending the school to see him wearing the same uniform he once wore - including the boater hat. There is a degree of sentiment in it."
Fifteen-year-old James Smith, a Shore College student, says a uniform is necessary.
"If everyone wore casual clothes you would end up with a competition, which might make some kids feel uncomfortable," he said. "I don't think a uniform really crushes individuality - generally a lot of things in a school tend to do that. It is only six hours a day. You can wear what you want the rest of the time."
Matthew Partridge, also in Year 9 at Shore, said he believed a uniform was an important part of the image. He hopes to see his children some day attend Shore and keep up the family tradition.
At Mosman High School, the choice is in the hands of parents. The principal, Marie Pitts, said the younger students generally wore uniforms and the number tapered off as they got older. There was not a single senior student this year in uniform.
"We have a school of individuals here and a community of individuals," she said. "We encourage students to wear the school uniform and we have great success in that during Years 7, 8 and 9. However, as the students grow older, as they begin to challenge more, they don't want to wear it.
"Some of the junior students, when they begin to emerge as beautiful butterflies, want to show that they have some colourful plumage. But by the time they reach senior school, a certain amount of maturation has taken place and they dress more plainly and sensibly."
According to Kerry Brown, a mother of three with a daughter in Year 8 at St Peter Chanel in Berala, uniforms are a sign of the school's standards.
"I would be more likely to enrol my children in a school where everyone was neatly dressed, because it would make me think that there was really good discipline in the school. If there is good discipline, there has got to be good academic achievements to follow it."
Dr Brian Crabbe, a psychologist, said that to many children, "a school uniform has links with authority. And to wear it means subservience or acceptance of authority.
"Studies have shown that most people want to be similar to other people. So what the kids are probably doing is replacing the uniform with some unofficial uniform of their own. They are conforming to their peers in rebellion against adult authority."
© 1986 Sydney Morning Herald
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