You Are What You Dress, Some Teen-Agers Discover at School

There was a time when schoolchildren were envied if their clothes came out of a Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalogue rather than mother’s sewing machine. Handmade meant mom toiled late with her needle and thread and dad couldn’t afford store-bought.

Nowadays, teen-agers are assessed by different standards. At some schools, the kind of car one drives is nearly as important as the labels in one’s clothes or the charge cards in one’s wallet.

The county’s high schools are as diverse as its demographics, with different schools representing different styles. But the majority of teens asked recently to describe peer pressure at their school say there is a subtle code that dictates everything from hair styles to behavior, with most of the scrutiny applied to clothing and cars. Break the code and you’re labeled “uncool.”

Most adults remember that it wasn’t much different when they were in school. Except that 10, 20 or more years ago the country was not as obsessed with brand-name clothing, nor was junior learning how to drive in his own BMW.

Tranpasorey Orey, 13, a seventh-grader at Orangeview Junior High in Anaheim, says boys at his school are expected to wear surf-style clothing with the labels of Rude Dog, Vision and Street Wear.

“Those are considered pretty cool and everybody kind of adapts to that style,” he says. “People call them nerds if they don’t or call them retarded. But it’s your choice--you’re either called a nerd or you wear what they want you to wear.”

For girls, Esprit, the Limited, the Gap and Benetton are popular store labels, although many say wearing these labels is more important in the younger grades than the older grades.

According to Joanie Carleone, a sophomore at Rosary High School in Fullerton and a member of the Teen Board at MainPlace/Santa Ana, the most popular clothing labels for the past couple of years have been Guess and Body Glove. The places to shop for Joanie and her friends are Contempo, Wet Seal, Nordstrom and Miller’s Outpost.

But, she adds, junior high students seem more concerned with clothing labels and store names than high school students.

“What’s important now is more the way you look rather than the brand names,” she says. “Older kids have their own style.”

Bryan Howland, a sophomore at Saddleback High School in Santa Ana and also a member of MainPlace’s Teen Board, agrees.

“I think peer pressure is less when you get older because people are more concerned with you as an individual,” he says.

By the junior and senior year, many say they have switched their focus to graduation, college and their futures rather than what their classmates are wearing.

“The peer pressure I’ve felt has been surrounding college,” says Joanna Brookes, a senior at Foothill High School in Tustin. “Where you’ve applied and where you got in are important. And there is some pressure still with clothes and with cars, but things have become more acceptable lately. As long as you don’t wear bell bottoms, you’re OK.

“In junior high everyone thinks everyone else is looking at them, but at high school . . . no one cares what one lowly freshman is wearing.”

Andrea Higuera, a junior at El Toro High School, says the kind of car one drives is very important at her school.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of pressure, especially at our school (where) a lot of people have a lot of money, so cars are a big deal. Everyone’s competing as to who has the best car. Honda Preludes and Nissan Pulsars are very popular.”

Rebecca Leung of University High School in Irvine says the motivation to display status symbols--by driving BMWs or wearing Benetton clothing--is a fact of life in Southern California, not just at high school.

“I see my parents and their social circle and it’s very similar (to high school pressures). It seems to be an inevitable part of life if you’re going to be successful. I look at my life in the future, and it’s similar to (my parents). I just think it all starts in high school--the pressure to have certain things.”

Heather Orey, a sophomore at Western High School in Anaheim, says she thinks peer pressure to wear certain styles has increased in the last few years.

“It seems like a lot more people are putting pressure on a lot more people,” she says. “There is more pressure to really belong and to dress a certain way. And certain groups only want you to wear certain clothes. If they don’t like the way you’re dressed, they’ll make a comment like, ‘Oh, that’s gross.’ ”

“Basically I wear what I want to wear,” she adds. “I don’t give in to peer pressure because I can’t afford to. . . . I wear whatever I’m comfortable in.”

Barbara Yeager, a guidance counselor at University High School in Irvine, says peer pressure among teen-agers might not be any worse than it’s ever been, although she sees added pressure at her school because of its socio-economic standing.

“University High is unique in that it’s a very affluent school,” she says. “I think the kids that are not so affluent feel the pressure to fit in, wear certain clothes and drive certain cars and that’s hard. There are also the great pressures to succeed and achieve and get into a first-rate college.

“But the first thing I tell kids when I recognize a problem with peer pressure is that it is very normal and that there’s nothing wrong with it. I think kids really have to work through those challenges on their own.”

Yeager says she is a firm believer in peer counseling for teen-agers who are having trouble adjusting.

“Getting kids together and talking things through really helps,” she adds. “I’ve seen a lot of positive results” from the peer counseling available at University.

Another way to deal with negative pressures is to get involved in plenty of activities, so the petty concerns become less important, suggests a guidance counselor at El Toro High School, who requested that his name not be used.

“Keep them busy,” says the counselor. “I tell parents if they have to make a mistake, keep the kids too busy. There is a down side to that but it’s better than the alternatives.”

He says that clubs and extracurricular activities also help students build the confidence to create their own styles and not be dictated by others.

“The students with the least amount of confidence are affected by peer pressure the most,” he adds. “In fact, the two are in direct correlation.”