Frank Tok What are belts for?

One would have thought they were largely functional i.e. to hold up trousers and skirts and keep them firmly in place; also to give dresses a neat, smart waist line. However, to see our secondary school pupils on the street is to watch a pathetic display of ignorance of such functional attributes. They seem to have lost all sense of smartness, not to mention decorum, and the teachers must be having a hard time insisting on the use of belts as part of a tidy uniform.
Of course, Sierra Leoneans are notorious for copying whatever rubbish comes from abroad – not just Sierra Leoneans, but to a large extent young people the world over. They go crazy in their urge to follow fashion, however ridiculous. If the teenagers in the USA are wearing their ‘shorts’ below their knees with the crotches swinging loosely between their thighs, instead of giving support to their lower organs, then the copycat Sierra Leonean youths adopt this, however ungainly or slovenly it looks. They imagine the sloppy, untidy look is the height of fashion. You wonder how uncomfortable they must feel with their belts half way down their hips. It is as if they want to be ready to slip their trousers down at a moment’s notice! It looks unbecoming and sad. They shuffle along, unable to walk properly, with dignity and pride in their fine male stature. I personally cannot wait to see another fashion change which takes belts up to the waist line where they belong.
Many of the girls are no better. With a dress cut at the waist, you cannot wear a belt along your hips. So the current fashion is to wear belts loose, hanging down in front with the buckle under the stomach. What I consider one of the smartest, if not the smartest of local uniforms, has been ruined in this way in spite of the school’s effort at modifying the style to include loops to hold the belt in place. Some girls defiantly pass the belts through all the loops and still let the front hang loosely over their tummies.
How frustrating for the school authorities! These girls have little idea of style or taste. A few silly ones lead the others to follow a ridiculous mode of dress that is neither attractive nor respectable. Sadly, they do not understand how stupid they look; and their poor teachers can only rely on constant correction and threats, but to no avail. If I were they, I would ban belts altogether for a term, at least for the offenders, since they do not know how to wear them, and they can go to school in their ‘shift’ dress which will make them stand out even more, if their idea is to attract notice. What a regrettable situation in one of our oldest and most valued secondary schools!
To make matters worse, even girls who wear broad canvas belts with large buckles try to follow this ‘loose belt’ fashion, and they really look unsightly. Another school which wears the 1920s-30s English school tunic and blouse style with box  pleats that always used to look very smart, also has its loose ladies who think the belt is something to be ‘hung’ just over the hips.
Yet another school with a trim waist line marked by gathers, also has its models with belts not knowing where they belong. Some of the fat wearers look particularly disgusting. How I wish the schools would make a concerted effort to stop the practice of misusing belts.
A word about the uniforms that do not require belts. Again one of the best known schools, the inventor of the A-line uniform with the 4 contrasting coloured loops just over the hips, has its detractors. Where originally the uniform dress hung elegantly with pleats that did not accentuate the hips, we now see tight versions badly cut and designed, as if the girls want to feel their hips rolling as they walk. One wonders how some of them get into their uniforms with no zips allowed. It is such a pity that the huge numbers of government-generated pupils make it virtually impossible for all uniforms to be made in the school by the same tailors, to standard measurements and style, as before.
To crown it all, that style has been copied and replicated in every describable combination of colour schemes and hues by 100 other girls and primary and infant schools. It has really caught the imagination of the populace and finally made complete nonsense of a style that started life at St. Whatever’s Secondary School as the choicest girls school uniform in town.