I love fashion as a means of self-expression. Getting creative with pieces found in thrift stores and flea markets was a big part of my 20s. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about fashion in a school context and its effects on children.

My daughters are in their early years of school. Even in preschool here in Singapore, kids wear a school uniform. It’s usually simple - a polo shirt and shorts, with embroidered school logos. Everybody buys them from the same uniform supplier, and you buy a PE uniform too. State schools, international schools, religious schools. They all have uniforms. My daughters have very different tastes in their own wardrobes, but at school they’re essentially equal.

I grew up wearing school uniforms, because I went to Catholic schools. For one year after we moved, in fourth grade, I attended a public school. I needed to build a “school wardrobe” quickly, going from wearing street clothes 2 days a week to 7. Having sidestepped American class-conscious fashion for my first 10 years, I was suddenly in a world where my shoes were the wrong brand, and my odd taste in t-shirts was ridiculed. Regularly. How much of the bullying is attributable to fourth graders being fourth graders - casually cruel and newly obsessed with internal hierarchy - and what of the bullying about my clothes was actually down to the clothes is hard to untangle. But it’s hard for me to see fashion in schools as anything but a distraction.

Most prestigious private schools have uniforms. Many public charter schools, especially those branded as “academies” in lower-income neighborhoods, wear uniforms. Why? They help build a school identity and culture. They raise the poor and lower the rich a tiny bit. They save families money - uniforms are often inexpensive compared to street clothes.

So what does “free dress” buy us in a school environment? A means of self-expression surely. Another opportunity for money to create a hierarchy.