Wear What You Want

“We’re not coming in, like, naked,” said Andreas Petrossiants, 17, who marched forth in a tank top and shorts. “This is acceptable to wear by society’s standards.”

One sophomore, Sweyn Venderbush, 16, said at lunchtime that he had mixed feelings about the protest.

“I don’t know if what we’re doing today is the right message to send,” he said, questioning whether the protest’s name furthered the cause, even if it was intended to be tongue in cheek.

Nonetheless, Sweyn, dressed in a preppy jacket and knee-length shorts, had joined in.

Students at Stuyvesant High School, a prestigious school in New York City, are protesting the school’s dress code by participating in “Slutty Wednesday” — because sometimes real life mirrors a TV show where the writers run out of ideas, so they make the characters book two dates in one night, or make the irresponsible brother babysit the kids.

Didn’t you also protest your school’s dress code at some time during your adolescent years? Of course, I was one of those dumb boys who didn’t really know what to wear, so I just wore whatever the Gap told me to wear in their famous commercials. I also secretly wished we had a school uniform so that I wouldn’t have to worry about what to wear every day and shopping for clothes to wear to school would be easy. I went through a grunge phase for a second, as a lot of kids did in the ’90s, but that didn’t last very long because my Tiger Mom said I looked dirty. The best thing about the grunge phase was that the look was cheap — you could basically walk into any thrift store, spend $40, and walk out with clothes to wear that were considered “in” for the entire school year. Also, this was Southern California, so all the boys wore skate shoes, and those were actually not cheap.

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