I was the 3rd child of 4, and the 2nd daughter. Therefore, I had a new dress for the first day of school, but quite often the rest of the year I intersperced my new fall plaid school dresses with hand me downs from my older sister. I seem to remember new dresses for school in the fall and for Easter in the spring. Easter dresses were often made of dotted Swiss. And poor Mother ironed all our clothes in the pre synthetic fabric days. I always had new shoes for the fall after wearing Keds sandals as play shoes all summer.

I remember in 1st grade wearing a gingham dress, full cotton slip and a white pinafore. Mother always insisted on lace up shoes except for church on Sundays when I wore Mary Janes.

Yes, indeed. And somehow, I remember it was ALWAYS inappropriate for the weather....it was an outfit well-suited for Fall, but it is still summertime the day after Labor Day when school started in Ohio.

I always had a homemade dress and new shoes....the shoes were expected to last all year but my feet didn't know that.
My mom made all of my clothes and I was so proud of them.

Yes. My birthday is the end of August and I always got new 'back to school' clothes. It always bugged the heck out of me because my brothers all got back to school clothes too and it wasn't their birthday. To me that was as bad as being born on Christmas day!

I attended public Jr High & High School in a small agricultural/Industrial city in N.E. Ohio and our school had a very strict dress code.

Boys were required to wear dress slacks and a long or short sleeve button front dress shirt and black lace up dress shoes. For gym we had either red or white gym shorts and a white Tee shirt. (Absolutely no writing on the shirts except the official school logo shirts, if you could afford one..LOL) Tennis shoes must be worn in the gym, but wearing them outside the gym for any reason, including running out to the hall to get a drink of water from the fountain would net you 5 nights detention.

Boys were required to have a conventional haircut. No hair may touch the ears or collar and absolutely no facial hair, but then the crew cut was the style of the day.

Girls were required to wear a skirt & blouse or a dress and the hem of the skirt could not be above the kneecap. In the winter girls were permitted to wear pants to and from school, but if they did so, they had to enter the bldg 15minutes before class time and go to the girls locker room where they had to change into the skirt & blouse or dress for the day. Girls were permitted a moderate amount of makeup, subdued lipstick, powder & rouge but no eye shadow and absolutely no artificial eyelashes. Girls were required to wear low dress shoes. No tennis shoes and no heels.

If any teacher noticed you in violation of the dress code he/she would stop you instantly and write you a slip for 5 nights detention.

I was sort of fortunate. My mother was a semi-professional seamstress so she made most of my dress shirts, save for the few that I actually made myself and to this day I still drag out a pattern, some material and the sewing machine once in a while and brush up on my sewing skills.

Over the years I have received a lot of criticism because I can cook, sew & keep house, but with the divorce rate in this country you can be sure I have had opportunity to use those skills a couple times, and I dearly thank my mother that I can do more than heat a hot dog, open a can of porky beans or order a pizza.

Lazypup, your comments remind me of doing laundry at the laundromat in college. Our school colors were red and white, and our school sweatshirts were red with white lettering. I loved to people watch at the laundromat close to campus, and I cannot tell you the number of times I would see a freshman boy aghast as he pulled his pink underwear out of the washing machine along with his new red sweatshit, jeans, towels and whatever else needed washing. I like to say the boys at my college all wore pink underwear.

We always had new dresses that mother made. She made each of us three except my oldest sister got a few more. That's because hers were handed down to Sis#2, and Sis#2's were handed down to me. With the next ones, the cycle started over again.

We also had new sweaters and whoever needed them got new shoes. I usually got mine the next month for my birthday. So I feel your pain, Georgysmom :-)

Wasn't that first day of school exciting? I can almost smell the newly waxed wood floors and cleaned up desks. It was fun getting "new" books and folding and putting book covers on them.

What I remember about the first days of school was new crayons, the yellow writing tablet and my Mother made us new dresses to wear. I don't recall new shoes, so maybe we didn't have new ones I don't know. I still remember some of the clothes, she made them up into junior high.

Sue

My Mom always took me to Norbans to buy back to school dresses (girls never wore pants to school). Also got a new pair of shoes in August, another pair around Easter. Always got a pair of sneakers for gym class, which would be my everyday sneakers the following summer. I remember the routine. All new underwear too.

Yes, I had new clothes for the start of school every year. Some were hand-me-downs from the girl next door, who was three years older. I was just thinking the other day that Marilyn's clothes would suit me better today because my hair color is more red-brown now. She had brown hair and eyes. I was 'black and blue'.

I remember trying on dresses that my mother had brought home as she decided which ones to keep and which to return to the store. Until she decided, they were all 'property of Marshall Field's'. That certainly sounded odd.

I'll always remember my first day at Kindergarten because within the first minute in the door a classmate punched me in the stomach. I was staring at him, and he didn't like it. I'd never seen a Japanese boy before! WWII had recently ended, and I expect he had suffered because of his race. (His mother was mortified!) A dozen years later Mike and I graduated from HS together.

Yes, I always had new school dresses and shoes. My mom had a thing about my shoes. She always had to wear her aunts' hand me down shoes when she was growing up and she had a lot of foot problems. She was always checking my shoes to make sure they still fit.
I wore shorts and jeans all summer and went barefoot because I did not like shoes. I was always stepping on thorns that we called stickers and cutting my feet on various things.

We've got 2 new pr of shoes and we agreed! lol

I had to wear uniforms from K-12 and everything from blouses to shoes had to be purchased from one store. No excitement there! The only say I had was my lunchbox. Our school supplies were purchased from a little cubby hole of a store at school. One of the things I vividly remember was the smell of my new saddle shoes, Loved it!

I usually got a new dress,I came from a family of eight kids, so hand me downs were a big part of my wardrobe, but usually got a least one brand new dress. We had a store in town that had a big shoe sale just before school was to start, I remember it being held in the basement of the store. We usually each got 2 new pair of shoes. I always wanted Mary Janes, thought they were SO cute, but Mom insisted I wear saddle shoes, as they were more practical and she felt they wore longer. "Dress shoes" were only to be worn to church on Sundays.

I went to catholic schools, from K-12th grade..so I wore uniforms.
But, in grade school, Mom and I would go to the local shoe store and pick out a new pair of Buster Browns. The new shoes were tested for size by my stopping up to a big fluoroscope machine, where we would all look at a green and white x-ray that showed my foot bones in the shoe. Amazing that my feet don't glow in the dark after probably 9 years of that.

I also would get a new uniform, and new socks and blouses.

When I got into high school, I finally won the war to wear bobby socks and cheap shoes from a store that had popular styles - like t-straps, penny loafers, etc.

I attended a county grade school. There was no dress code - peer pressure was enough. My 1st day outfit usually included a new pair of shoes that was expected to last the entire school year, but often did not because I walked 2 miles to school on graveled roads, and then at school our play time envolved a lot of running. My underwear was geared toward hot weather and that would change to long johns later in the year.