Take it from me, because I have personal experience. I went to a private high school and our school administrators had so much difficulty enforcing the dress code we had freshman year (casual clothing but no logos–not even Ralph Lauren–plus a lot of other rules). The previous dress code was so restrictive that you basically couldn’t wear anything special anyway (and I must thank them because I don’t miss my MUDD jeans anyway, wherever they are). 

Gianna, Iman, me, Simone, Sharifa, and Dominique. It was the very, very last day of high school ever (and finals), so they gave us a break from the uniforms.

Then, they instituted a school uniform beginning with my sophomore year, which was of course controversial because teens (and pre-teens because we also had a middle school) are just so anti everything. I was pro uniform, but I didn’t discuss that very much because that was an unpopular stance (though ironically, I was very “vocal” with some of my other unpopular ideas).The uniform alleviated the pressure of dressing for school. Don’t get me wrong–I love getting dressed up but there’s a lot of pressure regarding those kinds of things in high school. Our uniform was very expensive, and all the uniformity shifted to “unique” handbags, i.e. Coach.

I bring this up because a school in Newark, New Jersey just instituted a new school uniform. I think it’s a good idea. It’s kind of like that episode of “The Simpsons”–uniforms calm you down. I acted totally different in my uniform! The only downside is that our school gave us so many options, and my parents really couldn’t afford to buy me a polo in every color and a pleated shirt and khakis (and much, much more!) that I would never wear again. Between the pressure to be fly in the uniform and have a Coach wristlet and Tiffany’s charm bracelet, maybe the uniform didn’t make things completely easier. But comparatively, it was one less thing to think about. I had to think about Julius Caesar and “The Great Gatsby”!

One last annoying thing–whenever we went out after school, our uniform was so casual looking that people just thought we dressed like that (in khakis and polos).

Sears, JC Penney, Kohl’s: Please forgive me for all of this.