>Dress Blues

This column originally appeared in the Nashville Scene.

In summers past, my family could be found frolicking on the white sands of Destin, deep-sea fishing off the panhandle, or swatting no-see-ums at some beachside seafood buffet. This summer, however, we were forced to forsake Florida for Forever 21, spending our vacation money not on airfare, but on Aéropostale. Frittering away my Scene paychecks on cheap polo shirts and tacky khaki is a miserable way to spend a summer, and that’s why I have a picture of the Metro school board tacked up over my dartboard right now. Thanks to the rubes who voted in favor of standard school attire, my teen stepdaughters have brand new wardrobes that make them look like poster children for casual Friday. Yes, I think the new dress code bites, and I’m not the only one.

“I hate the standard school attire,” another Metro mom emailed me last week. “I think it’s a Band-Aid that does not accomplish anything other than wasting the breath (and instructional time) of the teacher…not to mention if your teen is like mine, she wanted to have name-brand crap. It’s stupid.”

What’s also stupid is that, despite the new dress code’s fussiness—no suspenders without a belt? No cargo pockets?—it makes little mention of accessories, and you’d better believe my girls are making the most of that omission. My oldest can be found in glaring red tights one day, yellow- and black-striped kneesocks the next. My younger stepdaughter wears enough garish plastic beads and gold chains over her prim collared shirts to give Madonna, circa 1985, a run for her money. And they’re not the only ones who’ve found a way to thumb their noses at the GAPization of Metro schools.

“Two sophomore boys are protesting the dress code by wearing the same outfits every day,” my stepdaughter informed me on the first week of school.

“Awesome,” I said. “And…eeew. Anything else?”

“Well, a lot more people have dyed their hair crazy colors. And some of the guys are buying extra-long shirts and tucking them into their pants down around their knees,” she said. I snorted, imagining hallways full of fashion rejects, focused solely on flouting Metro’s newest dumb policy. I couldn’t wait to see things for myself the next week, when Hubs and I picked up the girls after school.

At first, the students pouring through the front doors that afternoon looked eerily similar. The boys wore collared shirts with loose khaki shorts, and the girls sported fitted polos and tan or black hip-huggers. It was definitely harder to separate the druggies from the preps and the jocks from the thespians. One group, however, still managed to stick out like Vic Lineweaver at Juvenile Court. They huddled together with overfilled backpacks tethered snugly to their shoulders and peered at each other through bottle-glass spectacles, their khakis belted just below concave ribcages.

“Look,” I snickered, pointing. “Nerds.”

Hubs laughed and said he’d noticed them, too.

I watched more kids come outside. “I hate to admit it, Hubs, I really do,” I said. “But everyone looks, well….” I couldn’t say it.

“Great,” Hubs supplied. I nodded quietly.

It was true. Gone were the plunging, tight T-shirts and micro-minis on girls barely past the Barbie doll stage, the shapeless black hoodies hiding the faces of furtive-eyed loners, and the supersized blue jeans that looked like they’d been donated by a gastric bypass center to the alternateens wearing them. It was nice to not find myself muttering, “Pull your pants up, dude!” or “What kind of parents let you leave the house like that?” as I watched the acne brigade file by my car. Realizing this, I could almost support the new dress code— at least until I thought of the credit card bill that’s come with it.

Adding insult to injury, most of my stepdaughters’ clothing that was supposed to take them through high school now merely collects dust in their closets, at least until football Fridays, when they spend hours after school pilfering through it for just the right game night get-up. Last weekend, my oldest eventually left the house in a retro-looking dress, artfully decorated with a few oversized polka dots. Once upon a time, she would have worn it to school and gotten hardly a second glance, but in the new world of standard school attire, the dress was bold and daring, attracting the attention of a cheering squad of boys with bare, painted chests, who seem to populate the stands of every high school football game in America.

“Give me a D! Give me an R! Give me an E! Give me an S! Give me an S!” they shouted as she walked past their section of bleachers. She paused and glanced over at them.

“Ferrier’s dress!” they yelled. “Go-o-o-o, dress!”

Already, no doubt thanks to the new dress code, these boys seemed smarter, discerning colors and patterns and even spelling words correctly. The school board must be so proud.