Welcome to Maid Spin, the personal website of iklone. I write about about otaku culture as well as history, philosophy and mythology.
My interests range from anime & programming to mediaevalism & navigation. Hopefully something on this site will interest you.
I'm a devotee of the late '90s / early '00s era of anime, as well as a steadfast lover of maids. My favourite anime is Mahoromatic. I also love the works of Tomino and old Gainax.
To contact me see my contact page.
Like all healthy young men should be, I am an proponent and appreciator of the school uniform. They're emblems of youthful spirit, hope for the future and acceptance of youngsters into society. And for those of us who grew up in civilised parts of the world, they also evoke nostalgia for our own school days. My own uniform was quite standard for England: a navy blazer adorned with the school emblem (a golden Maltese Cross), with a matching blue and yellow striped tie. The tie was a bit special though, since you would have the colour of your house including in the pattern: for me a sky-blue for "Fitzmaurice House". And such is the school uniform culture in England: rather conservative and uninnovative. Apart from a few I will mention later, you'd do well to find any school child really "proud" of their uniform, they're just standard and uncontroversial (by design). Meanwhile in Japan, the school uniform has become an subject of fashion. The iconic sailor suits for girls and black "gakuran" for boys are constantly innovated on with new designs in an attempt to attract students to respective schools. In fact some schools seem to employ entire teams of fashion designers to develop new cutting edge uniforms. Most uniform-wearing countries of the world fall somewhere between these two attitudes, and for the sake of all of us keen yet clueless school-uniform appreciators, I'd like to take you on a whistle-stop tour of the world of uniformity.
1) Britain
Like many of the greatest inventions of mankind, the school uniform had its oh-so humble beginnings on the island of Great Britain, particularly within the splendid walls of Christ's Hospital Public School in Sussex, 1552. Several decades prior King Henry VIII had dissolved the monasteries of England, and with them basically most of the schools as well, for they were all attached to a priory or the like. And so it came down to his son and heir King Edward VI to find a solution to this education gap: and thus the English Public School was born (for non-Brits a "public" school is actually a privately owned institution, not a state school). Most of these new schools were highly prestigious, such as Eton, Rugby or Winchester, but Christ's Hospital was a new egalitarian school of the renaissance, one where the lower classes would also have a shot at a decent education. And so, in order to make the poorer students stand out less and to equalise the playing field, standardised dress was introduced. This archo-school-uniform consisted of a blue great-coat, white necktie, and horrendously yellow knee-length woollen socks. And the amazing part is that this exact uniform is still worn at the school to this day!
^Christ's Hospital Public School
Eventually the idea caught on with the other schools, and uniforms such as the iconic black tailcoat and pinstriped trousers of the Etonian schoolboy came into being. Today the vast majority of schools from age 4-18 have compulsory uniforms, with the standard set being a tie and blazer for both genders, with boys in standard suit trousers and girls in monotone or tartan pleated knee-length skirts. Younger boys will wear shorts in the summer, and girls a pinafore.
2) France
Unsurprisingly, school uniforms in France are entangled with the La Republique and her ideals. They were introduced by Napoleon under the Consulate in 1802, made compulsory and standardised across France with a design heavily based on military uniform. This persisted until the Belle Epoque of the late 1800s, when the art-nouveau stylists of Paris were let loose on the school uniforms of the metropole. Many designs came out of this, with most of the more extravagant being girls uniforms with bright colours, massive bows and silly hats. But this too came to a very French end during the student riots of 1968, when a mass of students demanded liberty from the bondage of the uniform (amongst other things I assume), bringing the cogs of the republic to a halt for weeks and forcing Charles De-Gaulle to actually flee the country. Since then school uniforms are almost extinct in France, and the children are finally free from their hated dress code...
^Stylish uniforms from a French MV in 1964 (pre-1968 riots)
3) Germany
As with everything German, school uniforms were abolished after WWII, and can in fact only legally be referred to as "school clothing" instead of "uniform" nowadays due to the association with the military. Before the fascists, German schools had vastly differing uniforms depending on the region, mostly rather relaxed (except of course for the Prussians who adopted a full military uniform). The most identifiable feature of German school uniform heritage is the "Schuelermuetze" cap, banned by the Nazi Party for being "incubators of class consciousness", and replaced by the ubiquitous brown of the Hitler Youth.
4) Russia
Not much in the way of school uniforms (or schools in general) existed in Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution, but as the communist party came into power they introduced a standard set of uniforms for schools throughout the empire, of course provided by the state to all school children. Over the Soviet years the style shifted to and fro, but essentially kept its original character. Boys wear a sensible shirt and trousers, with a grey Russian-style blazer. Girls however wear what can only be described from my perspective as a maid outfit, with above-knee black dress, white apron and large white pom-poms holding up their hair.
[YT video of a school dance in central Russia]
After the fall of the USSR, the laws were slackened, although as far as I can tell most schools still require a uniform following a style similar to the Soviet-era one. The female uniform in particular has become somewhat of a sexual icon, which is a pattern very much in line with our next stop.
5) Japan
School uniforms in Japan have become a cultural sensation, and the "sailor suit" is an important icon of Japanese culture. Uniforms for school pupils were introduced over the Edo Period, with boys wearing the "hakama" and girls the "kimono" or "yukata". This period of cultural isolation from the West ended as the Meiji Restoration introduced a flood of Western technology and culture into the burgeoning country. By the Taisho era many schools had switched over to uniform designs based on Western fashion. For boys the "gakuran" came in, a black suit with stiff collar and golden buttons. This was a Japanese take on the military uniforms of the Prussian Army, on which the new reformed imperial army was taking great inspiration as they perceived it as the strongest land power in the world. The imperial navy, however, were looking more to the great navies of Britain and America, and thus they brought over the "sailor suit" worn by (and still worn by) the sailors of these countries. Why this male outfit was adopted for female students remains a mystery, but they quickly became highly popular across the country, as documented in the anime Taisho Yakyuu Musume. The Japanese sailor suit, or "serafuku" consists of a blouse and pleated skirt, with a large naval collar and coloured ribbon. The colouration varies wildly: blue being the most common, but green, grey, black, red and white are not rare.
In the last several decades there has been a slow move away from these traditional bases, especially in the Tokyo basin. These are continuing to go through massive changes, with schools competing with one another for the most stylish uniform. Shirt, tie and blazer are common, but so are a wide variety of other clothing. These uniforms are of importance to Japanese culture that idolises "seishun" (youth), and students will often wear their uniform even when they are not at school, a sense of pride is attached to them that doesn't really exist elsewhere. With their connection to youth and fashion, they have also become sexual icons, worn by adult models and featuring in the whole spectrum of adult media from VNs to JAVs.
Annex I) The Rest of the World
Across much of the world, a stylish "school uniform" is really out of the reach for most of the population due to money, industry or lack of structured society. Many schools across the third-world sport simple coloured shirts for their pupils that let them at least feel some belonging, these being common across Africa, China, India and South America. Those with a more codified type of uniform generally follow the sphere under which they broadly belong: Commonwealth dominions and states follow the British style, Eastern Europeans the Russian, and several East Asian countries have adopted the Japanese style such as in Taiwan and Korea. The odd one out here is clearly America. Here the idea of a school uniform is rejected as un-American, un-libertarian and un-democratic, thus making school uniforms very rare to find. The exception lies with rich private schools, particularly with Roman Catholic institutions. When American uniforms do arise they are generally a more relaxed version of the British style, with coloured tie and white shirt. Things do seem to be on the up for Yanks however, with the percentage of schools requiring uniform rising over the last decade. This has been fuelled primarily by Democrat-leaning urban schools for the sake of egalitarianism and equality amongst students, much as was the original intent of the uniform back in 1552.
