So when did we all start rolling our skirts up?

[BluesandClues]

Inspired by the recent skirt length issues reported in the paper.

I remember rolling my skirt up, mainly because it was below the knee and I hated it. I remember others at school rolling it up far shorter. Tried it once, and it like I had a towel wrapped round my waist.

So when did we all start the whole skirt rolling thing?

1980's Comp kid here. No trousers allowed for girls so I wore a longish skirt.
A few wore 'ra ra skirts' but nothing very short. My Dd is now 15. Quite a few of the skirt lengths at her Scottish High School reveal arse cheeks. Dd wears cargo trousers (ASD, allowed to do so: School is v sensible with uniform enforcement imo except the skirt thing is somewhat crazy as they must be SO COLD!)

I would have loved to go on strike! Unfortunately I was incredibly shy back then and there's no way I would have been able to organise one, and I'm not sure if anyone else felt the same as me anyway. Good on you lot though - power to the people women ✊!

You could try telling her how generic and retro it is and ask if she would also like you to make her a mix tape of 70s/80s/90s music. Teens hate to be mocked. And reminisce about how you/ her Nan rolled her skirt decades ago.

You could also point out that sitting on a chair that some sweaty gross unclean teenager has sat on before you, should logically want her to have more skirt between flesh and chair, not less. But her choice if she wants someone else’s grime on her.

There were the ones who did Nd the one who didn't. I didn't.

1920s with those dreadfully modern flapper gals 🤣

My mum was sent home from school in 1968 for rolling her skirt up

Certainly did in the 80's and we got detentions for it

Ours was a pinafore to prevent rolling (convent).

Always wore trousers (late 80s/ early 90s). But the uniform rules were lax - skirt or trousers in grey, navy or black so girls who wanted to wear short skirts just bought them short. Majority of girls wore trousers though

Ha pinafore is genius

I was at school in the 90’s so it was more of a question of how low a waistband did your black bootcut hipster trousers have?

My daughter wears a short skirt to school but never with bare legs, her school isn’t strict though. She wears makeup, nail polish, jewellery, all stuff I’d have been put in detention for!

@Mamette I suggested that on one of the other threads - bring back 'gymslip' dresses.
I actually know a few girls who wear disappointed they couldn't wear pinafores at secondary like they could at primary.

Tbf it was the 4th and 5th years who organised it the junior years just followed on, I was in second year. Felt great though and warm legs.

I was doing it in the early - mid 70s.

DD used to get grief for the length of her skirts, after the second time of me explaining that it was the longest length available from the only approved supplier of skirts for the school and she is just tall and has long legs they gave up.

We didn't roll ours up, but with our uniform we could wear any black skirt, so I wore little tube things that just covered my arse, late 80s, early 90s

Same, at 12/13 my school skirt was probably the shortest I've ever worn. I had a long skirt with a chiffon layer and sequin embroidery in the lower sixth which the school liked even less.

Long skirts were the fashion at my late 80s goths school. It was more a question of how long a skirt you could get away with, coupled with DMs, a denim shirt disguised as a pale blue blouse and an oversize, preferably home knitted, navy jumper.

80s and 90s, lots of girls did it - but I never did. I was cool and more bothered about reading, playing basketball and going to day-timers!

I started a girls secondary in the early 90s, and we all rolled our skirts up.

Mind you, the school uniform had been designed in the 70s and the school skirt was a horrific below-the-knee a-line design.

I never did - I was at school in the early 80s, our uniform wasn't strictly enforced (you could get away with any navy, dark grey or black skirt) and calf-length pencil skirts with splits were the thing to wear. DD did in y10/11. her school got a lot less strict after covid, but opaque tights were enforced and the rolled up skirts did look better than knee length when the tights were worn.

Late 60s. Headteacher ( woman) had a yardstick and would order us to stop while she measured skirt. She plonked the yardstick next to you, declared skirt too short and used to say take your skirt down until one girl dropped hers to the floor and stepped out of it. It was one of our few rebellions, we were very tame really.

I don't remember what age i started rolling it up, 14 or 15 maybe; we had an awful, long aline type of skirt and in senior cycle I replaced it with an above the knee tight pencil skirt. I was shuffling running to class one day and my year head noticed and told me off that my skirt was too tight and too short, I didn't feel humiliated, or that he was sexualizing me, I knew it was a fair cop. My dd's school has a similar skirt and the school are very strict about it, they have had the option to wear trousers for the last year or so and no one wears them. They are horrible though tbf.

It was happening in my school in the late 1980s. And my mother said once she and her friends used to do it when they were at school in the 1960s.

There was a girl in my year who was a whizz at sewing and she used to do something marvellous with zips or press-studs or something. Cross her palm with a fiver and she'd 'modify' your skirt so that it wore shorter, but could be lengthened at a flick of the wrist when needed.

It was a constant war of attrition with the school. They used to send the school's sole female PE teacher into hastily assembled year groups to 'measure' skirts.

The boys had something similar going on with the school tie. There was a trend for wearing the skinny side of the tie showing (and if you didn't you were a 'poof' or similar) and the shirt hanging out.

I would guess the 1960s when mini skirts first became fashionable.