Last Friday my 14 and 15 year old daughters and myself went into Leiceser in search of school uniforms and shoes for the forthcoming school year. (Where did the summer go to!!) Their priority is fashion and style, mine is price and adhereing to school regulations. We all agree fit is important but durability and comfort do not come into the equation at their age. We generally will shop for completely new uniforms at the begining of a school year and then odd items during the year as and when they need replacing. We had already bought directly from the school at the end of last term a school logo polo shirt each at the ready. Their uniform is fairly flexible in that it must be plain black trousers/skirt, black cardigan/jumper and white collared t-shirt/ blouse. There can be no logos. We found alot of the fashion items did sport logos, and I was not going to bend the rules on this. (Lots of moaning about what other peoples mothers allow!!) We found that the large stores offering uniforms like Asda, BHS and Marks & Spencers etc. are very much geared towards younger children in their styles. (I would have bought from here when they were younger and didn't have such a strong opinion on fashion for school.) So we ventured into high street fashion stores. Here we found cardigans and jumpers abound at around £15-£25. Trousers were harder as they wanted jeans 'style' ones but the school does not allow jeans. This I think is a fine line as to what constitutes jeans. Is it the fabric or the style? As for white tops, we were looking for a plain collared t-shirt but all had a stripe on the collar or around the sleeve or a logo. The polo shirts offered as 'uniform' are very 'T' in shape and we wanted something more fitted like a a girls Fred Perry. We eventually bought a pair each of jeans style but stretch cotton trousers from H & M for £15 each and a pair each of bootleg viscose smarter black trousers from an independant store-Blue Star- for £13 each. We have bought these before and they do not last more than about a term but is my safety net in case the school do not approve of the first. We also bought a jumper & cardigan each from Primark for only £6 per item. As always by far the cheapest for the same quality and had a vast selection of styles. As for white shirts, we still need to find , but they can get by for now with ones they wore last year, as well as the school issue, until we come across new ones we like. Shoes, we bought a pair of black leather pumps each from Faith and a pair of fake 'Keds' each from River Island. I have not been aware of any specific advertising for school uniforms so can not comment on this. My only suggestion for future stock I would like to see in Asda would be a teenage school range incorporating current trends.