Back to school!

It's September first, you know what that means: it's back to school! Now, I graduated high school 10 years ago (yikes, it makes me old!) but from the WalMart flyer, I seem to gather that uniforms are becoming more and more popular. That's how it used to be in old times and that is how it is in other countries, so why not here too!

"What does that have to do with costumes?" you might wonder (don't you know by now I always find a way to link things together?). Let us go back in time, to as far back as the 1920's, and talk about the Gymslip, also known as a pinafore or jumper dress. That is what our grandmother's wore to school (my grandmother used to bring back the cafeteria food she disliked in her dress pockets, but that's a whole other story).

Girls wearing Gymslips

For years, I've been amassing data on this type of dress in order to eventually reproduce it. "Why would she want to do that for?" I hear you think. Simple. I'm a Costumeholic, AND I'm a fan of the TV show The Worst Witch.

Kate Duchêne as Miss Hardbroom, Emma Brown as Maud Moonshine, Georgina Sherrington as Mildred Hubble and Joanna Dyce as Ruby Cherrytree; The Worst Witch (1998)

Emma Brown as Maud Moonshine and Georgina Sherrington as Mildred Hubble, The Worst Witch (1998)

So obviously, I want to make a Cackle's Academy uniform, which includes a black gymslip, a light grey shirt, a black and grey tie, black Inverness cape and black witch's hat. I've even redrawn the school's coat of arms to eventually embroider as a patch!

Cackle's Academy Coat of Arms

So far as my research goes, imagine how thrilled I was to see a gymslip dress up close at my favorite museum last year!

School uniform (front), Manhattan Childrenswear, About 1960, 20th century, 79 cm, Gift of Mrs. Douglas T. Bourke, M988.68.1.1-2© McCord Museum

School uniform (back), Manhattan Childrenswear, About 1960, 20th century, 79 cm, Gift of Mrs. Douglas T. Bourke, M988.68.1.1-2© McCord Museum

More recently, a pinafore dress was seen in a Box Office movie, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008).

The Pevensies: Edmund, Peter, Susan and Lucy; The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)

That's right folks, Lucy's school dress is a pinafore!

So, plenty of reasons to like your grandmother's school uniform. Why not try to convince your school to pick it up instead of the plaid skirts? (Too much? Yeah, I do get carried away.)