On British Airways last week I noticed that the uniform is now, well, less than uniform. The hemlines vary enormously in length, the shoes in height and the tights seem to be any shade and thickness. It's obviously a change from the very strict dress code they and many airlines seem to have had in the past with everything coming from specific designer(s) and sources. My T-dar is constantly alert to changing styles (even though I often wear the same boring old stuff myself!) Frankly, airline hostess is not a job I'd ever want to do myself. Love the look, hate the job.
The other uniform style that was more uniform but in a way that worried me was all the schoolgirls in London seeming to have tiny microskirts as regulation school uniform. I cannot possibly criticise others for wearing impossibly short skirts in public without being a monster hypocrite as I have myself been seen in public in items that hardly suit women of my age (see below)! But I do worry about underage girls getting the wrong kind of attention given the troubles in that regard at my own school. Maybe that's just my bad experience talking. But I hope today's teenagers are safe. Yes, I firmly believe anyone should wear what they want and be left in peace to do so but, sadly, realities are what they are.
As I waited for a bus on a typical June morning in London, where a cold thin wind blew the drizzle about, the schoolgirl on the hard slanting seat next to mine at the shelter shivered in her regulation microskirt, goosebumps at attention. Personally, I've never once worn a skirt without tights but, anyway, this bare-leg microskirt look seems to be the norm among the uniformed young in the UK whatever the weather. Good luck.
My final observation is that UK female police and nurse uniforms are pretty universally geared to trousers. Practical, no doubt, but maybe my British friends can now enlighten me, since I haven't seen British TV for years, as to what British comedy is doing now without emergency service staff in short uniforms and stockings? That was once a staple of British comedy.
A dip in the archives
I go short in public (or: nice legs, shame about the face):
 |
| Crazy hair and crazy tights |
Sue x
"... girls getting the wrong kind of attention given the troubles..."
ReplyDeleteWhich is, as you rightly allude to, not an issue caused by the wearer of said skirt, but by those who should not be leering and certainly not commenting or touching.
It's a problem, isn't it? The freedom to dress as one prefers but not to be pestered about it. Sue x
Delete