School dress ruined at school!

[DianaMitford]

As the title says. New dress, bought at the beginning of the summer term. 9yo DD, doing art today and black ink has soaked through her apron onto her dress. I washed it immediately she came home with Vanish and it's faded but it's ruined. I mean, she can still wear it but it's got black ink all down the front

My dilemma is that a new dress is £40 and there are no secondhand ones. Do I say anything to the school?? If so, what?!

If she has grown out of it by next summer, I expect it will have held much of its value when you sell it second hand, having only been worn for these last few weeks at school.

Incidentally we could well afford private and choose not to so no bitterness here or reverse snobbery

Just plain old fashioned nastiness then.

"people who live in the real world yes £40 for a school dress, absolutely obscene."

I don't want to be moralising as I also buy cheap supermarket school dresses but it's worth remembering just why they are so cheap. The garments are made by people living in slums earning a pittance and having absolutely no workers rights. Sometimes the 'workers' are children.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tesco-sainsbury-school-uniforms-made-6432539

www.thejournal.ie/uniform-child-labour-1514276-Jun2014/

Of course the £ 48.00 dress may have been made at the same sweatshops.

This year's dress was meant to last two years (would easily have done so, size wise) so getting the next size up wouldn't work. May as well just buy the same size!

She's gone off to school in her stained dress Even more annoyed this morning because it's important to me that she looks neat and tidy, not covered in ink spots.

I shall be trawling the shops today for stain removing options.

Thanks again, everyone

10tinycrabs sadly that isnt really why there is such a price difference between a £3 dress and a £48. The workers usually get paid the same in the same factory. Nowhere is there a worker getting £45 per factory made school dress. It is probably not even materials. Just profit for the school.

(See your link for example. The factory was making 'designer' tops for russell brand rrp £60 and tesco dresses £3. Workers wages? No difference)
It is greedy companies chasing profit not consumers at fault here (also governments with crappy labour law they dont enforce, probably bribes)

I didn't have a chance to read all of the responses, so please forgive me if this has already been mentioned.

There has been a lot of good stain removal advice (and some entirely non-constructive judgy cattiness from posters who clearly have nothing better to do with their lives) but one important thing to remember is that heat is your enemy. Wash it in cool to cold water, and do not tumble dry or iron it as that can further encourage the stain to set.

Hopefully it'll fade quite a bit with the next couple of washes.

In the interim, does the school have a FB page or other means of communication where you could ask if anyone has a dress they would consider selling?

Shtop - I have only washed it on a cold setting and line dried it so I'm safe there!

I'm up at the school later for a swimming competition so I'll nip into the uniform shop then and check for secondhand ones on the off chance.

No, no FB page. But they do have their own app!

BombadierFritz I know, which is why I said that the £ 48.00 dress is most likely made in the same sweatshop. £48.00 is ridiculously expensive, absolutely! The school shop can set the price as they are kind of a monopoly.

I just wanted to comment on the fact that the reason we can buy affordable products is because of the horrific working conditions of the people producing most of our garments. In our "real world" we get to choose as consumers whether we buy the cheap or luxury items, in their real world they get treated inhumanely to produce goods for others to enjoy.

I wonder if the school offered to change the uniform to supermarket/M&S dresses if most parents would jump at the chance or want to stay with the obviously private school looking dresses?

My daughter's school has a grey cardigan that costs £30 in the summer uniform... My daughter is wearing a grey cardigan from Next boys collection that cost me £7 or something... doesn't have a blue stripe, but no one has complained to me...

They just complained about the flashing light shoes she insisted on wearing yesterday... I didn't know they bloody flashed when she put them on the trolley at sainsbury's
wahhhh i hate flashing light shoes

PS her dress is £12 at the uniform shop and she has one with spag bol stains that never came out and one with market pen stains... i still send her in in them... they are clean, just stained,

I watched a program bombadier on that. They were making bras for a posh bra shop and a supermaket. Same material , same workers, huge price difference.

Op Are you my friend??!! she was moaning that her dds £38 dress had been ruined during an art class.

And yet she also bangs on about how she loves the ridiculous droopy sailor dress that they have to wear.

Just buy her a new one. You can afford it.

Just for the record, DD's £40-ish prep school dresses were made at a factory in Yorkshire, not a third world sweatshop. The rest of the uniform was made in England too. She is now at secondary school and the uniforms are also made at a factory in England - Derby I think as it is not here to check.

I don't think that those of you who are happy with the £3 dresses which were almost certainly made in a sweatshop should be knocking those of us who are supporting British companies by buying our private school uniforms.

Children get pen and ink on their school uniforms. They're children, it happens.

But they shouldn't be crying about it afterwards. It's an accident and it shouldn't be their problem if their uniform cost £50 or £5. They don't choose which school they get sent to

Agree 100% Lynda

But it's indicative of the burden that's placed on children when their parents spend a fortune on their education. It doesn't come without a lot of expectations and pressure. Poor kid.

Is there any way you can cut out the stain and make good on a repair with a dart or a pleat or something?

Plenty of issues with uk sweatshops too
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/retail-giants-shamed-by-uk-sweatshops-2128022.html
The industry has always been v exploitative
Its very sad also to see the increasing scandals of uk slavery and forced work of immigrants, legal and illegal, now coming to light

Sorry for the derail

Go to the second hand shop. Ask around. Buy 2 dresses the next time.
All this talk about sweatshops and snobbery over one dress. [eye roll]

I miss buying lots of lovely new uniform and sewing on name tapes

I used to always use StainDevils but they seem to have changed, less options and less effective. I wish they would go back to the original formulas.

Also, get the dress hanging out in the sun as much as possible over the holidays to see if that helps bleach the stain out any.

Derxa however old and nostalgic I get, I can guarantee I'll never get sentimental over sewing in name tags.

Some of the stains! They spread up the dress

Ach it'll be fine for the rest of the term

Oh I think that is fine OP - you can hardly see them!

Might be a good time to suggst setting up a second hand uniform sale - parents from my private junior school used to run them at the start of every term. Otherwise the uniform was crazy expensive for growing children!