Figure 1.-- The color most associated with English schoolwear is grey. I'm not sure when this convention became stanfard, but it was well established by the mid-20th century. School garments including shirts, jumpers (sweaters), pants, and hosiery have traditionally been grey. At this school the uniform was all grey, except for the blue tie. This image is kind of funny in that the boys have matched light-colored shorts with light-colored knee socks and dark shorts with dark-colored knee socks. We suspect that this is accidental.

The color most associated with English schoolwear is grey. School garments including shirts, jumpers (sweaters), pants, and socks have traditionally been grey. Caps, ties, scarves, and blazers on the other hand have often been done it colors, especially at private schools. These colors are often repeted as trim on the grey jumpers and kneesocks. A wide range of colors have been used, especially by the prep schools. The most common are black, blue, and red. These bright colors are not as common as they once were when school chikldren in colorful uniforms were once a common sight on the high street after school. Black in particular has become a common color, especially at state secondary schools. We have, however, noted quite a range of other colors, including: brown, green, pink, and yellow. Some sxhools had stripped blazers in various colors. White is not a color commonly used except at cricket matches and for girls knee socks.

Colors

Grey is the dominnt color in English school wear. Children were often dressed from head to toe (except the sgoes) in grey. Color was commonlu used to ooffset all that grey. In some cases the ti was the only flash of olor, but most schools used various color in other ways. Sometimes it was just trim on the sweaters and knee socks. Commony the caps and blazers were also done in color. Here we see a white range of color. The most common color was black blzrs used in secondary schools. Junior schools, especially private schools. Blue is by far the most common colors used, but virtaly every shade on the color platte has been used for school uniform except the really luminesent bright colors. Adding color items was common in the private sector, especially preparatory schools. This was the primary way schools had of creating distinctive uniforms.

Garments

These colors are often repeted as trim on the grey jumpers and knee socks. A wide range of colors have been used, especially by the prep schools. The most common are black, blue, and red. These bright colors are not as common as they once were when school children in colorful uniforms were once a common sight on the high street after school. Black in particular has become a common color, especially at state secondary schools. We have, however, noted quite a range of other colors, including: brown, green, pink, and yellow. Some schools had stripped blazers in various colors. White is not a color commonly used for boy's hosiery except at cricket matches and for girls knee socks.

Gender

We note both boys and girls in England wearing grey-colored school uniform garments. Grey was clearly the dominant color for both boys and girls. This was true of virtually every school uniform garment. We see grey headwear, shirts, suit jackets but less commonly blazers, pants and hosiery. Headwear (usually caps), ties, and blazers were commonly done in color to add color to all this grey. The boys here with their blye ties and all grey garments are a good example (figure 1). The only garment not done in grey is the tie and of course shoes. This was the case for both boys and girls. We are not entirely sure why, but surely the fact that grey does not show dirt like other colors. The only major difference that separates boys and girls in terms of color was hosiery. English boys generally wore grey knee socks and ankle socks, often with tops done in the school colors. Girls also wore grey hosiery, but also white hosiery. In the 20th century we semany girls wearing white hosiery (tight, knee socks, and ankle socks). We see a fw younger boys with white hosiery, usually ankle socks, but not very many. And we virtually nevr see boys wearing white knee socks. The oblt exception to this was younger boys wearing cricket whites.

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Created: September 13, 1998
Last updated: 6:48 PM 11/29/2017