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I was so excited to see this article. (I never actually knew that Cecile was from Assumption til this.)

“Jazzing up the Assumption Uniform” from Cecile Van Straten‘s column in The Philippine Star, Chuvaness.

I remember seeing a similar article when I was probably still in high school. If I remember it right, the likes of Pitoy Moreno, Pepito Albert, and Inno Sotto were asked to redesign the traditional plaid uniform. I particularly liked the culottes and bolero that one of them sketched.

Anyhow, reading this article made me think of the silly uniform-related antics and mishaps my friends and I went through while in high school.

The school handbook states that the pleated skirt should be two inches below the knee and the necktie, four inches from the knot. However, as was the fashion in possibly majority of the all-girls schools at the time, we preferred to wear our skirts down to our ankles, blouses loose and long, and neckties barely-there. When the administration started becoming stricter about following the handbook in my junior year, funny things happened.

A classmate was close to tears after Sewing class one day because our teacher decided to make an example out of her–cutting and hemming her lovely long skirt to the “appropriate” length. Teehee!

One day, they had all of us assemble at the Assumpta Court to spot check our uniforms. My entire class rolled our skirts up from the waist to bring the hem to knee-length. We lengthened our neckties to the waist and pulled up our slouchy Marks & Spencers knit socks up to our knees. It was hilarious. Though we didn’t really get much of a reaction from our teachers.

On a different note, our gala uniform was this traditional white cotton gown that we wore with white stockings and kitten-heeled pumps. Unfortunately for one of my classmates, she accidentally wore the wrong skivvies beneath her gala one morning. It was bright pink and you could see the entire thing through the skirt. Boy did she get an earful. Lesson learned, one must be mindful of wearing the appropriate underwear at all time, ladies!

I did miss that uniform when I moved on to college. Never again did I have the luxury of not having to think about what I would have to wear in the morning. Plus that lovely deep skirt pocket that could hold everything from a hairbrush, to the fat wallets that were uso at the time, and the pagers we were technically not allowed to bring to school.

I wonder if Cecile will go traditional when she heads to SanLo for her Velada or if she’ll try one of these. I’d love to see photos.

Cheers Cecile! At the very least, it doesn’t look as though you’ve been out of high school that long

Isha.