The Catholic school uniform of stereotype consists of a pleated plaid skirt or jumper (a sleeveless dress), Mary Jane or saddle shoes, and a blouse, for girls; for boys, a button-down shirt, a necktie, and dark pants. Actual school uniforms vary widely by location and individual school.
Nearly all Roman Catholic schools have some form of dress code, and most of them (especially those with students in the lower grade levels) have a mandatory uniform policy.
Purpose
The purpose of the uniform is to take away the distractions that can be caused by allowing students to choose their own outfits for school. There is no competition about who has the most expensive clothes when everyone is wearing the same thing. The uniforms also help with student identification, and are to foster a sense of community.
In North America
Until the early to mid 1970s, the uniform for girls almost always consisted of a skirt or jumper; but it is now common, in the United States, for female pupils to wear uniform shorts or slacks, especially in warmer weather. This is mainly the result of changing societal norms that, beginning in the late 1960s to early 1970s, resulted in a trend for women and girls in most levels of society to wear trousers and shorts, instead of skirts and dresses, for everyday life. Today, some schools require girls to wear skirts, others allow girls the choice of skirts or culottes and pants.
A kilted skirt is sometimes worn, especially in schools with predominantly Celtic student populations. In some parts of Canada, the skirt has been modified to include an attached pair of shorts beneath, for modesty called a skort. Bike shorts are often worn under girls' skirts or jumpers for modesty. Culottes are also sometimes substituted for a skirt, especially at Episcopalian or non-parochial private schools.
In the younger grades of such schools, girls are often seen wearing plaid jumpers over a blouse and bike shorts under the jumpers. Many schools require such a jumper up to the fourth, fifth, or sixth grade, presumably because the lifestyles and habits of younger girls may make blouses more likely to become untucked from skirt or culotte waistbands. After that, the jumper is often discarded in favor of a plaid skirt or culottes and blouse.
Boys typically wear a collared shirt, tie, and slacks of required colors, although polo shirts have to some extent replaced dress shirt.
Both sexes usually wear a sweater or blazer (or both) when required by regulations or weather.
Some schools have unisex uniforms--most often a distinctive shirt, and sometimes pants of a given color.
Uniforms may vary based on time of year. At many schools, students are excused from having to wear the fairly formal (and warm) uniforms described above during the hotter months of the school year in favor of lighter uniform clothing.
In popular culture
The girls' uniform has become an iconic figure in Western culture, on par with the sailor fuku of Japan; women dressed in Catholic school uniforms (or a variation thereof) is also a common sexual fetish.
The hit 1998 music video for Britney Spears' first single, "...Baby One More Time" featured Spears and a number of backup dancers wearing a modified (and somewhat more revealing) version of the Catholic school uniform, making the video somewhat controversial, especially given Spears' young age at the time. This would not be the last time the iconic costume would be used or referenced in a music video in recent years, however.
The Russian pop duo t.A.T.u. also wore clothing resembling Catholic school uniforms in a video for their song "Ya Soshla S Uma" (also known by the title of its English-language version, "All The Things She Said"), which was considered even more controversial in some areas due to the overt lesbian themes of the video (in keeping with the early marketing of the duo as a pair of young lesbians), which included a provocative rain-drenched kissing scene between the uniform-clad singers.
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