In Uniforms, No Uniformity
For years the dress code at Vanguard Learning Center has been simple and strict: white, collared shirts and black pants or skirts. But the five middle school students chatting in the courtyard each wear something different.
Sixth-grader Hector Rodriguez favors dark blue slacks, while his friends, seventh-grader Christian Morales and eighth-grader Ben Howard, sport black jeans--each in distinctive styles. On the next bench, eighth-grader Lizette Arevalo wears a pleated skirt, while a classmate has on a “skort”--a combination skirt and shorts.
“You go to the store and there are so many choices,” Arevalo said. “You try to get as much variation as possible.”
Vanguard’s principal, Deloris Holmes, inspects students as they come in the front gate.
“We monitor more closely than ever to make sure that everyone is uniform,” she said. “We are more and more specific. We have to be.”
The lack of uniformity in Vanguard’s uniforms represents only a mild preview of a conflict in the nation’s classrooms. As mandatory-uniform policies grow more popular, it is likely to get harder to enforce such policies strictly.
Ironically, the explanation lies in the very popularity of school uniforms.
Last year, school uniform sales rose 22%, according to a survey of 9,026 households by NPD Group Inc., a New York-based market research firm. Americans spent $1.1 billion on such uniforms last year. School uniforms now represent 5% of the $20.4-billion children’s wear industry.
Chasing new revenue, more clothiers have expanded their school uniform offerings. Hundreds of small businesses have sprung up nationwide to serve this market. But how does a company distinguish its label and increase its sales with all the competitors in the uniform sea?
By being different, of course.
The results are obvious from one trip to Kmart: Uniformity is becoming the victim of its own success.
School uniforms can be purchased in a dizzying array of styles. There are basic blouses, blouses with Peter Pan collars, three-quarter-sleeve stretch blouses, crew neck tops, and blouses with every kind of trim or pattern.
Skirts are available in every color combination and style: pleated, non-pleated and somewhat pleated, with zippers or buttons, with silver trim and false buckles, or in the much-desired skort form.
New styles are tested and introduced year-round--not just during the back-to-school season.
“We’ve introduced fashion into the school uniforms,” said Harriet Cook, a consultant for New York-based Longstreet, one of the top uniform makers. The industry leader, French Toast, has added a separate fashion line within its school uniform line.
“Definitely, the variety, the mix and match, is good for the growth of the business,” said Lara Wegard, French Toast’s director of marketing. “It’s good for the kids, too, because . . . it gives them a little more freedom.”
School uniforms came to be associated with freedom through a marriage of a Southern California concept and Manhattan marketing muscle.
Eight years ago, Long Beach’s school district adopted a uniform policy. Private schools and a handful of public schools had tried uniforms, but when the idea hit California, it spread across America like a Beach Boys tune.
Fourteen percent of U.S. households now have at least one child who wears a school uniform. Studies have suggested that uniforms--to the extent they are uniform--blunt the power of peer pressure, make classrooms more disciplined and prevent campus crime.
One interested group spreading that word: the nation’s largest children’s clothing manufacturers, most of them based in New York. Launched as a niche business, school uniforms soon experienced annual sales growth in the double digits--unheard of for a mature business.
Clothiers recently have led a sophisticated campaign to entrench the school uniform in American life. Part of the new tax bill backed by President Bush allows parents to deduct the costs of school uniforms. Manufacturers are working with nonprofit groups and school districts to provide vouchers for free uniforms to poor families. Clothing companies have lobbied school boards--particularly in New York and Philadelphia--to adopt uniform policies.
The effort by French Toast, which has more than 20% of the school uniform market, may be the most involved. The company has separate merchandising and marketing teams for its uniform business. They send kits to school districts with examples of uniform policies and a video discussing the benefits. French Toast even helps schools write letters to parents about uniforms.
“We want to give communities the tools to make an informed decision,” said French Toast’s Wegard.
This campaign has been felt even at Vanguard Learning Center, which is part of the Compton Unified School District. Longstreet, which says it is second in market share, will distribute coupons for school uniforms to needy Compton-area students this fall.
If recent history is any guide, students will do all they can to fit distinctive styles into their uniforms. Already, there is a clothing hierarchy. Pleated is better than non-pleated and skorts cooler than skirts. Some students wore pedal pusher pants before Principal Holmes banned them.
All the variety has made trips to the big discount stores a much more contentious experience for students and their parents. Adranette Bragg, a seventh-grader, recently emerged from a trip to one clothing retailer with a skort and an argument with her family over some styles she didn’t buy. “They had a lot of different stuff I wanted to try,” she said after returning from the retailer, Hilda’s School Uniform.
Founded 20 years ago as a children’s clothing store, Hilda’s has for the last several years devoted itself entirely to school uniforms. The owner, Vivian Chang, has moved the store three times to accommodate more uniform stock.
“If you want to sell more, you have to add variety,” Chang said. “There’s always an interest in the new. And our customers are very hard to satisfy.”
