There’s one word archivist Evan Lewis won’t use to describe sorting through decades of old school tunics, hats and blazers in the leadup to Diocesan School’s Old Girls League Centenary next month.
 
And that’s uniform.
 
Mr Lewis has the challenging task of trying collect and catalogue 10 decades of Diocesan uniforms for a parade of the uniforms that will be part of the centenary celebrations at the school between April 26 and 28.
 
He’s asking anyone with old uniform items like hats, tunics, blazers, shoes and stockings, particularly from before the 1960s, to bring them into the school in Clyde Rd, Epsom.
 
The school archive already holds about 240 items with 20-30 “key gaps” to fill, if possible before the parade on April 28 which Old Girls Jane Latimer and Deborah Nelson are organising.
 
Diocesan introduced uniforms in 1912, nine years after the all-girls independent Anglican-based school was founded in 1903, and it has had five main summer and four winter uniform designs since.
 
“But it gets complicated by the fact that individual garments were also phased in and out separately depending on their popularity and the availability of fabric which often had to come from overseas,” says Mr Lewis.
 
He is using old school photos, prospectuses and rule books to establish a uniform time line build up a comprehensive collection for the school’s archives.
 
One of the most popular Diocesan uniforms was a pretty blue and white floral print summer tunic that was greeted enthusiastically when it replaced a more conservative checked fabric after the Second World War.
 
“The floral print was so popular it lasted until the 1960s and was reintroduced in the 1980s – once again to replace the checks.”
 
Mr Lewis says one of the rarest items found so far is a battered and moth-eaten 1920s cloche hat which was found behind a fireplace in the Ridings Rd house of one of Jane Latimer’s neighbours.
 
“We’d love to locate another one of these in a better state of preservation.”
 
Other outfits likely to raise a laugh at the parade are black woollen bathing suits complete with modesty skirts from the 1950s and what Mr Lewis describes as the “infamous tartan rompers”.
 
“They were an economy measure introduced in the 1960s because they could also be worn at  inter-school sports competitions. But the girls hated them because they couldn’t run in them unless they hitched the leg holes right up.
 
Collecting more old uniform items will enable the school to make replicas that can be used for special school events and commemorations.
 

You can contact Evan Lewis on 09 550-2911 to lend or donate uniform items to Diocesan.

• For more information about the Old Girls League Centenary, contact Brana or Bex on 09 520-0221.