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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsWhat did you wear in high school? What years?
High school class of '58
I remember more about the guys.
We were fairly conformist.
The standard 'uni' was a blue oxford button down shirt, jeans with a narrow black leather belt, white cotton athletic socks, and black 'Italian' loafers.
'Italian' as opposed to penny loafers.
The 'rich' guys wore Levis and the shirts were Gants with the little hanger loop thingy on the back yoke. Shirt colors of white and pale yellow (except on Thursdays*) were also acceptable. Later light pink, but that's another story.
(*If a guy wore yellow on Thursdays it meant he was queer. How THAT got started I will never know. )
Eventually penny loafers came into vogue.
Oxblood Bass Weejuns were preferred, but with no socks.
In my junior year the Pink and Black fad came along.
Pink shirt, black slacks.
With a very skinny pink suede belt.
The preferred slacks were 'Skeets'.
No pleats and extremely 'pegged' (narrow) cuffs.
"Skeets are neat, little momma" the radio commercial sang.
In winter we'd add a heather gray crew neck sweater and maybe a wind breaker.
Red was popular after 'Rebel Without a Cause' came out.
How about you?
Broken_Hero
(59,305 posts)and a Raiders zebra stripped pants, with a lot of Mariner/Seahawk tshirts. During my senior year I was a walking billboard for Carhart(I lost a lot of weight and could finally fit into clothes).
oh, school years 80's/90's.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... which was pretty standard for SW Wisconsin. Everything got to us about eight years later.
OK, chinos ("wheat jeans" instead of blue. but otherwise pretty much the same.
trof
(54,256 posts)A cool California surfer dude in my USAF pilot training class in Oklahoma was wearing a pair.
I went out and bought some.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Mighta had a pair of cords in there.
Aristus
(66,275 posts)I remember the trendy stuff like neon colors, Vaurnet sunglasses, etc. But I wore fairly standard stuff.
Levi's shrink-to-fit 501's. Argyle sweaters & socks were popular. On dress-up days, I'd wear a sweater vest and one of those knit ties. Penny loafers, black or cordovan, without socks. Stuff like that.
cyberswede
(26,117 posts)I think my husband still has one in his closet.
applegrove
(118,462 posts)Last edited Mon Apr 8, 2013, 08:29 PM - Edit history (1)
1980s. I also wore Laura Ashley. Striped ribbons on my ponytail. Later in highschool, as I started to hate it, I wore lots of black. Patterned black stockings were big.
trof
(54,256 posts)Plaid 'bleeding' Madras shirts and shorts were big.
OriginalGeek
(12,132 posts)I went to a private christian school but the one good thing they did was not have a uniform. We had a dress code but we could wear pretty much what we were gonna wear everywhere else anyway - which was skin-tight, boot cut Levis and some manner of western style shirt (I mentioned this was in Texas right?). I don't remember if we weren't allowed to wear t-shirts - I think we always had to have a collared shirt - mainly because our hair had to be cut short enough to not touch the collar.
Probably why even to this day my main non-work wardrobe is jeans (no longer tight though - no longer built for that lol) and a death-metal band t-shirt and a pony-tail getting close to my butt.
I also had a good pair of Tony Lama boots and various sneakers.
The girls had to wear dresses which had to be at least an inch below the knees. I felt really bad for them at PE - no gym shorts for them - they had to wear culottes that also followed the dress guidelines. Must have sucked for the girls basketball team.
Some of that stuck with me though - I now have a pretty cool pair of Lucchese Ostrich skin for fancy meetins.
trof
(54,256 posts)I did.
OriginalGeek
(12,132 posts)Last edited Mon Apr 8, 2013, 08:54 PM - Edit history (1)
Of course, all my friends had big cowboy hats. Hats was serious business for teenage boys in Texas. They were kinda spendy too so I begged my mom and step-father to get me one for christmas. And in 10th grade they relented and got me a hat.
Except my mom and step-father were cheap bastards and instead of getting me a real hat from a real hat place they went who knows where and got me a smokey the bear hat - I mean that style he wears - not a cowboy hat at all. Dumbest effin thing I ever saw. I had to wear it at least once though since I been begging for a hat for like 2 years so first day of school back from Christmas vacation I wear the hat and, as I suspected would happen, got teased mercilessly all day so I came home, put it back in the box and hid it in the deepest closet corner I could find.
Thankfully my mom never asked why I didn't wear that hat because I was trained (literally had it beaten into me) that you don't complain about nothing in Step-father's house and you ESPECIALLY don't complain about a gift. IF she had asked there's no way I could have lied convincingly enough and telling the truth would have gotten my ass beat so hard I'd still be standing.
By the time I got sick enough of his shit to move out, I was no longer in a hat-havin' mood so I never did get that cowboy hat.
Oddly enough, though, just this morning I was looking online at bolo ties. I think I might get me a bolo tie for special occasions.
This:
is not even the same universe of cool as this:
edited to fix picture
trof
(54,256 posts)How could they, in TEXAS fahgodsake, be that much tone/fashion deaf on hats?
So you went to school looking like a Marine drill sergeant?
You poor guy.
On edit: No wonder you left. I would have too.
OriginalGeek
(12,132 posts)My mom had an excuse I guess as she was from Florida but my step-father should have known better. I imagine he did but just didn't care.
trof
(54,256 posts)That was big in Alabama after desegregation.
Still is.
OriginalGeek
(12,132 posts)Our school was K-12 and I don't think we had a black student until I was a senior...he was in Jr high....I didn't see the lower grades much so maybe there were more.
But I hope they never had to hear what the teachers and pastors and other students said when they weren't around.
The church made it pretty easy for me leave. Luckily, my real dad's parents had enough access to me to counteract the indoctrination and helped me see how messed up that church was. Grandpa is the one I talk about a lot here at DU - retired Air Force, WWII and Korea and my personal hero. He and grandma never lectured or tried to teach me anything. They just lived and let me watch and see how it should be instead of the way I had been taught at home.
Wait Wut
(8,492 posts)I was in HS during the late 70s early 80s (would have been class of '82). Instead of the crappy pastel plastic shit I was goth before anyone knew what it was. Wore all black, black nail polish and dyed my hair black.
noamnety
(20,234 posts)My favorite outfits were blue jeans with various untucked oversized uniform shirts I found at the thrift shop. I had a marine sgt one that I liked, but my favorite was from a gas station - dark blue with "Jim" embroidered above the pocket. (not my name, I'm female). And construction boots, I still like those.
mrmpa
(4,033 posts)Uniform (catholic all girls school). Brown skirt (either A-line or pleated) vest (bolero style or button down or camel tan sweater), white blouse (short sleeve or long sleeve).
The only funky things we could add to the uniform was knee-highs, any style any color. I would wear argyle, red, white, navy. I'm still a sock person, I have a drawer full.
For shoes, it was loafers or saddle shoes (black & white, navy blue & white or tan).
I don't wear much brown these days.
Boomerproud
(7,938 posts)During the day I looked like Mary Katherine Gallagher (Saturday Night Live) and at night and on weekends I looked like Marcia Brady.
olddots
(10,237 posts)very strict dress codes in New England everyone wanted to look like West Side Story so the code was the reverse of the movie's fashions .
some of us went for the beatnik look until the authorities decided that was taboo ....It seemed like anything we wanted the schools were against . The year I finally graduated the whole code went out the window slowly but surely but many of us were thrown out of school for things that were absurd .
trof
(54,256 posts)When did they ease into 'hippies'?
In_The_Wind
(72,300 posts)texanwitch
(18,705 posts)Junior and senior years girls could wear pants.
So I wore blue jeans and shirts.
kiva
(4,373 posts)First mini skirts, then Levi's 501 bellbottoms and garmish boots with whatever blouse or sweater - Colorado.
texanwitch
(18,705 posts)The school officals were so upset over mini skirts.
I didn't wear bells or flare jeans.
Just straight leg.
tblue
(16,350 posts)Remember those skirts made out of Levi's with a triangle of fabric front and back?
I also wore my boyfriend's patched Levi's with a 28 waist. Parents did not like.
trof
(54,256 posts)With penny loafers.
Or saddle oxfords.
Matching sweater sets.
Skirts; full, pleated, a-line, or sheaths with a kick-pleat in the back for the more adventurous.
Absolutely NO shorts or slacks.
Maybe culottes, mainly for the 'lady jocks'.
Or so it seemed.
The gym outfit was laughably short 'oneseys' with puffy 'bloomer' bottoms.
Gold circle pins, which meant you were a virgin.
White Peter Pan collar dickies.
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)Otherwise known as a Navy Pea Coat. In the winter I usually wore one with a crew cut sweater underneath, jeans, and hush puppy shoes. Sometimes I wore a pair of Rolling Stones type side zip booties I bought in Europe. On a trip to Spain and France, I picked up a beautiful black shiny long leather jacket made of soft African antelope hide that I wore when it got warmer. I also wore a French Foreign Legionnaire khaki military jacket that I picked up at a flea market in France with epaulettes and silver buttons. Sometimes I wore long sleeve lumberjack shirts in the winter but I usually wore tie-dyed t-shirts or t-shirts I dyed solid black with jeans. Sometimes, I wore a pair of bell bottom Navy issued deck work jeans.
trof
(54,256 posts)According to Sven Raphael Schneider of the Gentleman's Gazette: The term pea coat originated from the Dutch or West Frisian word pijjekker, in which pij referred to the type of cloth used, a coarse kind of twilled blue cloth with a nap on one side.[6]
According to the US Navy: The heavy topcoat worn in cold, miserable weather by seafaring men was once tailored from pilot cloth -- a heavy, coarse, stout kind of twilled blue cloth with the nap on one side. This was sometimes called P-cloth from the initial letter of pilot, and the garment made from it was called a p-jacket -- later a pea coat. The term has been used since 1723 to denote coats made from that cloth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pea_coat
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)Mostly black jeans and various Slayer, Venom, Metallica etc.. shirts.
Jean jacket with a Slayer backpatch or Hard leather jacket with the big silver zippers...
rmax
(93 posts)We also all had 2" leather belts with a buck knife hanging off of them and HUGE belt buckles. HUGE! Sometimes we wore sneakers instead of boots, but we always had the knives. Nobody ever used one in fighting. They were for cutting rope, twine, duct tape, or whatever else needed a knife.
trof
(54,256 posts)rmax
(93 posts)Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)Stretch skl pants in every color imaginable....really big sweaters, down to below the hips....colors were cranberry and pink, navy and pink... pleated skirts with blazers... Weejuns...and boots.
trof
(54,256 posts)They still around?
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)but everyone wore them when I was in HS...and ski jackets as well. The rich kids had ski jackets to match all of their different colored ski pants!
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)trof
(54,256 posts)Interesting to see how styles and fads changed over the years.
tabbycat31
(6,336 posts)I think I had about 50% of the shoes on this list. http://www.buzzfeed.com/leonoraepstein/the-22-ugliest-examples-of-90s-footwear-to-ever-meet-your-ey
I mostly wore jeans and sweaters. Pretty much the same as what I wear now, but I wear a lot more hoodies now.
trof
(54,256 posts)a la izquierda
(11,791 posts)I wore jeans, t-shirts, and Vans or Airwalks. I was a total tomboy and Kurt Cobain was the living end. I had Claire Danes-esque hair (as in My So-called Life). I hated high school.
MineralMan
(146,248 posts)I cannot remember. I was a band geek, so i wore band geek clothes. I just do not remember what they were. I do remember living in Converse high top Chucks, though.
Archae
(46,299 posts)Button-down shirts and pants that went "zhoop zhoop" while I walked. Yup, cords.
Forgot, Earth Shoes! I had 'em.
Remember those?
trof
(54,256 posts)LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)Last edited Tue Apr 9, 2013, 08:58 AM - Edit history (1)
I only know about female clothes.
No pants were allowed - the dress code changed the year after I graduated.
We generally wore skirts, pleated or A-line, as short as we dared. Miniskirts were banned; wearing one got you sent home. Same with the maxi skirt one of my friends wore the day after getting sent home for wearing a miniskirt.
We also wore jumpers - sleeveless dresses that you wore a shirt or turtleneck under.
We usually wore plain mens' type shirts that buttoned down the front. Sweaters, particularly v-necked ones with a shirt or turtleneck underneath.
Knee socks or nylon stockings, penny loafers or other low-heeled shoes, sandals in hot weather (although we had to wear socks or nylons with sandals - no bare feet).
Not only were the boys not allowed to wear jeans, but they were also barred from wearing any pants with seams on the outside. Even to dances, unless the dance was specifically billed as a "hobo hop."
MiddleFingerMom
(25,163 posts).
.
.
... Brownsville Station ("Smokin' in the Boys' Room" ... their original bass player -- a young
Black man (Tony Driggins) who looked a LOT like Hendrix (played bass behind his back and
with his mouth). He had the COOLEST bright psychedelic paisley sportcoats that he had
custom-made in Ann Arbor.
.
.
.
triguy46
(6,028 posts)Levi 501s, either Jack Purcell white tennis shoes or penny loafers with no socks, tshirts or oxford cloth button downs. And of course, my letter jacket.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)I wore mainly skirts and blouses the first two years. Dress codes and all, and especially since I went to a business school.
Dark colors. I didn't want to be noticed. Long blonde hair with long shaggy bangs. Hiding...
Last year of HS they changed the dress codes so we could wear jeans and whatever. I think I still wore skirts and blouses. On the long side, but even then the tops of my nylon stockings showed (I think pantyhose came out a year later or something...anyway, I wore regular stockings and loafers) but my legs were so long that the tops of my stockings were visible, and I got called out by the Asst. Principal, a woman who was feared by all, who told me I needed to wear my skirts longer even though they were already knee length as it was.
I was one of those goober-y type kids. Very uncool. Dad had taken off, mom worked trying to support us (two other sisters) and our clothing was NOT fashionable at all.
One would think that after growing up that way I would try to make up for it by being a real clothes junkie, but I don't give a rat's ass about clothes. Refuse to buy any until Mr Pipi reminds me that what I'm wearing is turning into embarrassing rags.
cyberswede
(26,117 posts)I dressed like a hippie in 10th grade, but "evolved" to a goofy punk-ish thing for later high school.
I had my hair dyed a couple colors simultaneously, wore peg-leg pants tucked in ankle boots, an Army surplus trench coat with weird stuff pinned all over it. I wore a safety pin in my ear, and black gloves with the fingers cut off. I got in trouble in PE for wearing a hand-lettered "nuke Reagan" t-shirt with ripped off sleeves. Good times! LOL
Fun thread - I haven't thought about that stuff in a long time.
bluedigger
(17,085 posts)Mid 70's in Maine. Winter jackets were the fashion statement. You needed a CB Sports ski parka to be cool. Never did have one.
greatauntoftriplets
(175,728 posts)In junior and senior years, it was a dark gray box-pleated skirt with a blazer and white blouse. Class of 1967.
Spike89
(1,569 posts)paisley shirt with a wide tie and a knit vest. Well, that was my "game day" outfit...the football team wore ties on game days. I looked pretty goofy in all those pastels with huge shoes. The rest of the time it was early Nike's (it was Eugene), or desert boots, levi's and lots of denim shirts with embroidery on the back.
It was a catholic high school, but other than strict no stubble on the chin or lip, they let us wear our hair (mine was to the middle of my back) and clothes mostly anyway we wanted. They were a bit more strict with the girls, they could wear pants, but not real short skirts.
Painted senior cords. Wore them every day. The dean took them home in March washed them and brought them back the next day. It was the only time they were washed. I guess some of the teachers complained, none of the kids did.
union_maid
(3,502 posts)Until the British Invasion took hold it was all about teased up hair for girls, pompadours for the guys and as much black as we were allowed, as tight and short as we could get away with. At one point the school made a rule against wearing all black. They were easily unnerved. Then later the surfer and mod looks came into style and we all started to look a little better.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)Picture basically Hank Hill ( from 'King of the Hill' ) with long-ish hair.
Mostly Lee or Levi's jeans, rumpled checked flannel shirts w/down vests, Timberland boots or "Lil Abner" shoes. White tube socks.
During warmer weather, below the belt, the same. Above the belt T-shirt or rumpled polo shirts.
Wore the same thing away from school as well.
Never wore sneakers and short pants except when I had to for phys ed.
struggle4progress
(118,214 posts)I thought they wuz one uptight buncha mofos
Still Blue in PDX
(1,999 posts)Mini-skirts or mini-dresses with boots that laced up the front.
Bell-bottom pants.
Jeans and desert boots with a fringed leather coat and a leather floppy hat.
Of course I had straight hair parted down the middle. Sometimes I would braid it the night before while it was wet to change my look from Morticia Addams to more of a Janis Joplin look.