Trousers for schoolgirls

Madam, - With reference to Finola Meredith's feature of April 3rd, is it any wonder that girls hoist up the skirts of their …

Madam, - With reference to Finola Meredith's feature of April 3rd, is it any wonder that girls hoist up the skirts of their school uniforms? One only has to glance at the accompanying photograph of the frumpy, ugly garments that schoolgirls are forced to wear every day.

Uniforms don't have to be unattractive - see the garb of almost any Italian public official - but it astounds me that my two young nieces have to wear the same green, scratchy-wool, dry-clean-only, shapeless sack that I and my classmates had to wear back in the 1960s - with a shirt and tie! The only sensible item they get to wear is a tracksuit, and then only for PE.

Given half a chance, most young women will wear trousers. They are warmer, more comfortable, easier to run in and safer. Travelling to work by train this morning, I noticed only one young woman wearing a skirt, and she faced a long walk in the cold with those stupid tights, and those ridiculous high heels that cripple you when you run, but which are necessary to balance out the bulk of a skirt.

So please, schools, trousers (well cut), and tracksuits for the under-12s.

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It may seem like a trivial matter, but how is a student to develop aesthetic sensibilities while being enveloped in dreary clothing? - Yours, etc,

ROSEMARIE O'MAHONY, Bán na Gréine, Carrigtohill, Co Cork.