It’s a Sunday but Subha Unnikrishnan is hard at work at her tailoring unit at Gowreesapattom. With schools set to reopen, her tailors are racing against time to finish tailoring uniforms and she is around to ensure that they are on schedule. Having dispatched a batch of uniforms for a girls’ school in the city, she is on the go to finish the work on the uniforms of a few other schools.
The market for school uniforms comes alive by April-May with most of the textile shops stocking running material of uniforms of prominent city schools or readymade uniforms for the same.
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Even though there is a Government directive banning more than one type of uniform in a school, that instruction is followed only in institutions following the state syllabus. Currently schools in the different streams such as CBSE, ICSE and ICGSE have more than one set of uniform, with each stream having its own uniform.
New trends
With schools experimenting with colour combinations, designs and patterns, the market has changed from what it used to be, says a staff member at Richmond, a readymade centre at East Fort. “Earlier, we had just the white shirt and navy blue or green skirts for girls and white shirt and black, grey or navy blue shorts and trousers for boys. Now a student has at least four different sets of uniforms for a particular year,” he says. In addition to the regular uniform, there is a PT uniform and another set to be worn on certain days. Some schools insist on T-shirts in different colours. Now shirts come with mandarin collar, placket collar or princess-peter pan collar while girls’ uniforms vary from pinafores with a sash, to salwar-kameez-dupatta and salwar-kameez-overcoat!
Most of the shops and tailors take the order in bulk. “Once I get the number of students who need the uniform, we take measurements in February. By the last week of May, we supply the finished sets,” says Subha.
Meanwhile, it is no secret that there exists a nexus among certain schools, textile shops and tailoring units. The textile shops open counters at the schools so that parents can conveniently place the order for uniforms. A tailor, who doesn’t want to be named, says that parents prefer buying the material from schools because that is the easy way out. “Schools insist that they get it tailored from the persons they suggest. This, they say, is to ensure uniformity in the pattern,” he adds. In the case of girls’ uniform, care is given to the number and width of the pleats on the pinafores and skirts, adds P.Sivanandan, who runs a textile shop at General Hospital Junction.
In the market
With readymade uniforms of all schools available in many shops, the tailoring units are facing stiff competition. Richmond, for instance, has uniforms of schools such as Christ Nagar Schools, Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Loyola School and St Thomas. Styles at General Hospital Junction has been catering exclusively to schools of Holy Angels’ Convent. Readymade uniforms are also available in stores such as Novelty, Ramachandra Textiles and Pothys among others.
The challenge is when the schools decide to change the uniforms. Unless that’s informed in advance, bundles of unsold uniforms remain at the shops. “A co-ed school decided to introduce divided skirts for girls. But none of our tailors could cut it properly. Finally, when we managed to stock enough skirts, the design was discontinued following protests from teachers and parents. So we ended up having bundles of unsold skirts in our shop,” says a distraught shopkeeper.
While many schools have moved away from shirts and blouses for girls to salwar-kameez sets with dupatta, the latter is too going out of fashion. In place of that, some schools have opted for shirts with overcoats and pants. In some schools, the coats are stitched to the shirts.
Obviously, there is nothing uniform about uniforms!
A close encounter with people and places in the city