Teacher Dressing Tips

Video Transcript

"My name is Rachel and I'm the owner of austinstylewatch.com and I'm also a freelance fashion reporter and today I want to talk about how to dress for a teacher. Now to start off with there is a lot of varying dress codes professionally for teachers depending on what district you are in, how conservative they are if it is a public versus a private school. In some schools you can wear jeans and a polo or jeans and a T-shirt and that is o'kay and in a lot of school districts things are being outlawed or looked down upon as a little too casual so khakis and skirts are becoming more of the norm but if you a teacher is a hard job, you are balancing bending down to childrens' levels, doing activities, painting, coloring and being professional with parents all in one job so you need to have an outfit that goes a long way and can last a full day of crazy activity so I have my own three little rules that Iike to apply to just the general judgment that we have for clothes, three laws that as a teacher are very important. Now I want you to think back to when you were sitting in the classroom when you were a kid looking up at the teacher and the type of things that you would critique on her. One of the number ones that I always think of and warn people about is chalkboard butt. As a teacher you are going to spend a lot of time with your back to the chalkboard working with chalk and if not chalk you are going to be working with Expo markers so just be aware on the day you wear your clothing if you are wearing a black skirt try not to lean up against the chalkboard because you are going to have that nice white line across your butt and if you think you'll be doing that then opt for the white skirt instead of the black skirt. If you have Expo dry erase markers it is even worse because they are kind of staining so just be aware of the color of your wardrobe up against the environment you are on and don't get the chalk all over the clothes and if that is a problem you may want to keep a lint brush or a tie cleaning wipe in your desk and clean that kind of stuff off. The second rule I want to think of is you don't want to look like the students. Even if you are a young woman you can still be a young woman or a young man and not be confused for a student. Try to keep your colors somewhat not somber but no bright pink, no bright colors and make sure if a principal or an elder sees you in the hallway you are not being confused for a student. The third thing I want to talk about and this is another one thinking back to the teachers that you used to have. A teacher's outfit needs to not speak louder than the lesson she is teaching so you really need to make sure that your underwear isn't showing whether it is through the clothes or bra strap showing or anything like that. You definitely don't want students going like oh Ms. Smith has pink panties or oh Ms. Smith has a Victoria's Secret bra on so another thing I was going to warn about is make sure that your pants ride at a good level on your hips. Make sure that if you have cleavage you use something like an under shirt under white shirts to make sure that your bust isn't hanging too much over your shirt. Then just make sure that your underwear isn't popping out over your pants that if you have very white clothes on that underwear can show through that you wear a slip underneath it, some sort of cover up. So avoiding the chalkboard butt, not dressing like a student and not dressing too skimpy. These are my three basic rules for dressing for a teacher."