Fall draining of the wallet

It feels like summer just got here and already we are fast approaching back to school. I know this not because I have children, but because we've been inundated for almost two weeks now with back to school sales fliers and commercials. Every retail store, from big-box to department stores, grocery stores to dollar stores, even some hardware stores, are vying for the big dollars of the back-to-school business. Apparently students now NEED new clothes, fancy school supplies, brand-name backpacks, new desks, laptops, coordinating dorm room asscessories from well-known interior designer, mini-appliances in the hot new colors... not too long ago, we purchased $.15 notebooks, a pack of pens and pencils, and a box of Kleenex and off we went. We got new shoes and backpacks about every-other-year, and we rarely even got new clothes...

Yes, you read that right, we didn't get new clothes every year. No trendy Z-Cavaricci pants and Girbaud tops (blessing in disguise if you ask me..). We had school uniforms. My brother and I went to a very poor inner-city school that instituted school uniforms when I was in fourth grade, my brother in first, in order to minimize the expense of school clothing and make the economic status of our classmates less apparent. At first we hated it, all the students did. My best friend transferred schools because if it. We all whined and rebelled, parents complained about the initial cost, students complained because we would all look the same (the irony was lost on us that we all tried, to the best of our abilities, to dress the same anyway). I had one jumper, a couple pairs of navy and black pants, five or six white tops, and two sweaters. No labels or logos allowed. The first month was rough, it was weird seeing my classmates in the same clothes everyday. Teachers had a hard time learning names when everyone was dressed the same.

It was amazing how quickly everyone adapted. I loved getting dressed in the mornings now, it was so easy to pick out my clothes. My brother got ready a lot quicker, since him and my mom didn't have to go around and around on what clothes were school appropriate, now he just put his uniform clothes on. My class no longer broke off into groups of the "haves" and the "have-nots" in terms of clothing and trendy items. We still complained, but we complained less about the uniforms than we did about the lax dress code we had previously.

Our clothes lasted longer, we didn't get bored with them and uniform clothes were often better quality than their trendy counterparts. We had clothing swaps several times a year at school for parents to bring their kid's outgrown clothing, and to trade for new used clothing. No one knew if you were wearing new or used, since all your clothes, and everyone else's, looked the same. I had one uniform skirt that lasted from 6th-8th grade, the fabric was so durable we used to write on our skirts on the bus and the ink always came out in the wash.

We got to know each other better because we weren't making assumptions about others based on their clothing. Some people argue that uniforms stifle creativity, but I think it's the opposite, they encouraged us to be ourselves, since our clothing was no longer speaking for us.