Saturday 18 October 2008
A Short Update
Even better is to type into Google: Too old to wear white socks to school +worsted (don't forget to select the cached page - but you won't be able to follow on to more directly from that page - you will have to find the cached follow on by clever use of keywords).
Friday 17 October 2008
Volume 2 Chapter Outline and Blog Updates
From that statement one might imagine that one of the earliest procedures that a girl might undergo upon entering the hospital psychiatric unit’s clinical trial section outlined in INSTITUTIONALISED volume 1 would be to receive the regulation institutional hairstyle. But it is because of that very effect that, as we see with Susan in volume 1, it is not imposed until a substantial amount of time has already passed in isolated incarceration and after having passed through many other stages of depersonalisation - it is kept back as the final straw to break the camel’s back as it were. Immediately afterwards and before she can regain any semblance of equilibrium she experiences the kiss of the cane for the first time; that too has been held back upon. And of course it all has the desired affect - she signs what she is given to sign, agrees to continue on with, to even restart and extend in actual fact, her tenure as a psychiatric clinical trial subject; and this despite the fact that she is already fast approaching the end of her originally agreed period of stay.
Similarly with diet and exercise; to exercise or not, to gain weight or two lose weight, these are all choices taken for granted - but that element of control too can be taken away as a certain character learns in volume 2.
Now just to go back to that uniform again: I think that the school badge is a nice addition but it should always be properly embroidered directly onto the fabric, never sewn on as a patch and definitely not attached, as here, pinned on like a brooch (it shows good styling and attention to detail – such care can only serve to underline the importance placed on discipline).
Today it's being a bit difficult to concentrate - my head is itching like mad where I have received my transplanted grafts. Nevertheless I am going to be working on a chapter of INSTITUTIONALISED volume 2 that I have provisionally entitled Police, Camera, Action (a bit cheesy I know - but I am sure it will come to be called something else by the time it is published). This chapter has been a sticking point for some time now and if I get past this (and a little part of the introductory section) the thing will be pretty much complete as a book.
Basically, the premise is this: rumours have been abounding, missing persons have been reported, ethical concerns have been raised and, worse, apparently the police have been called in and, in their wake, the dreaded ethics committee. One of our young ladies finds herself placed in a standard hospital examination gown, whisked into the hospital proper she is hurriedly shoved back into her home clothes whereupon she is handed into the protective custody of two female police officers - having first been warned to say nothing about her time in the unit. She is questioned and then taken to be interviewed, in their company, by a panel made up of three elderly male psychiatrists: obviously her ordeal is over - but first they wish to ascertain her suitability and reliability as a witness and to assess whether she has been damaged in any way by her experience.
On the surface it all seems a happy resolution to her story, but is it all as it seems? The questions are probing - and she doesn't seem to have all of the answers. She has been told to say nothing by the unit’s matron - but what hold can that woman have over at her now; surely she is free of her? Then there is that door at the back of the room, the door through which the three doctors arrived … she is not restrained in any way, she is free now, but she feels afraid, uncomfortable with all the questioning - should she just dash past them, through that door and out into the sunlight beyond and presumably the waiting arms of the press?
Thursday 16 October 2008
Still More Babblings Inspired By That Dress And Domestic Discipline Discussion Board
So, things are looking up for our discussion group here; gingham dresses are knocked-up under strict supervision and doubtless made along the lines suggesting a suitably humiliating level of immaturity and woollen and knickers are duly knitted. But surely here is the perfect opportunity to introduce all sorts of unusual features that might further make conspicuous both the garment's identity as part of a uniform and the wearer as one under discipline. And there is the point - she should feel uniformed, she should feel under discipline, but more importantly she should be kept constantly aware that all who lay eyes on her can plainly see that she is kept in a uniform and under discipline. All around her she will see her peers running in and out of all those high street fashion outlets with their gangs of giggling friends or hand-in-hand with their boyfriends and dressed in the latest clubbing styles - just as she once did, when she had been free.
But she is not free: she has no need of shopping malls - her clothing is chosen for her and besides, she is allowed no money of her own, not a penny, nor is she allowed to go out to work to earn a little independence. In any case she has nowhere to go she might need to dress up for: she has long ago lost track of all her old friends - letters, texts, e-mails, even phone calls having all gone unanswered it is hardly surprising. Her boyfriend is long gone (he had been deemed unsuitable but it had taken quite a few cuts of her new governess's cane to persuade her likewise).
University is out of the question for her. She is thought to be too immature, a view encouraged by her appearance and the childish uniform she is constantly kept in, an innovation of her governess; the true reason has a lot more to do with her guardian wanting her kept under close supervision. Her future is mapped out for her, it has been agreed that in time she be allowed some form of employment but she knows that will only be allowed if she should work for her guardian's company. If she has ever contemplated developing any form of career then that ambition has already been crushed; she has already been told that she shall be employed in the most junior of positions and each day be required to wear a suitable uniform of her guardian’s own devising and designed specifically for her. Deep down she knows that no matter how well she works, how great her potential, it will be ensured that she never rises above that junior role, absolute rock bottom in his organisation, and that in time she will be taking orders from, and being subservient to, girls many years her junior.
This is how I would see the situation, the uniform the girl presently wears she might well have been obliged to make herself and it might well consists basically of the sort of gingham dress that the correspondents suggest. Then there are those little details that the opportunity suggests could be incorporated - all the more to the chagrin of the young lady concerned. For example; shoulders can be exaggeratedly puffed, long sleeves can be terminated in long white cuffs fastened by a row of three buttons much in the style of a Victorian dress. The neck can be high-buttoning and incorporate an overlarge white collar. The bodice can be cut so as to be closely fitted to her figure, the latter enhanced perhaps by old-fashioned ‘stays’ - perhaps a nice boned corset with high-lifted bust cups having the sort of conical profile typical the 1950s. The waste can be self belted, a belt formed of the same fabric as the dress and buttoning with two buttons to the front, as this is a feature seen little outside of the world of uniforms and workwear. A school badge would be prominently embroidered on the breast pocket to leave onlookers in no doubt that what the girl is dressed in is, in actuality, some form of school uniform. To see the principal at work here you have to fix in your imagination a childishly juvenile frock, but one whose design has, mixed in, features designed to show off the maturity of the wearer's figure - but not in anyway that the young woman might be proud of.
Once again this one of those unfinished posts but I have to rush out. I will return and put up some suitable illustrations and further discussion of that particular message board. There are some great ideas developing there are much mileage to be had.
Wednesday 15 October 2008
A Return To The Dress Discipline Site
Then my mind moved on to the ‘dress discipline discussion board I had been looking at the day before (I took another look last night – the latest stuff can be found at: Link removed ( the links to the dress discipline bulletin-board I have been discussing no longer work - it has been taken down) there are somewhere in the order of 10 pages of discussion there, ostensibly following a thread regarding the advisability or otherwise of retaining knee socks on young ladies in their late teens / early twenties if still under parental or other guardianship. But here and there the discussion has digressed to encompass quite long and detailed descriptions of various shame-dress / punishment-costumes as well as the concoction of carefully prescribed lists of rules, restrictions and impositions as a framework outline for a domestic discipline regime. Enthusiastic prose are generously lavished on the benefits of worsted pinafore dresses, bib-fronted and pleated-skirted. Thick woollen knickers irritate and abrade sensitive parts, fully buttoned round necked cardigans are over-hot yet must remain fully buttoned nonetheless and doubtless, school ties while stifling must remain tightly knotted.
Imaginative, certainly, yet I couldn't help thinking these folks are missing a trick or two here: what is wrong with some experimentation with different fabrics – latex or PVC for knickers rather than all that wool. and worsted material for example. If the intention is to instill shame and a sense of discipline what could be better suited than a pair of short-legged or medium-legged bloomer-style knickers manufactured in a suitably practical material – even if of nylon or a nice thin glossy acetate, closely fitted. And its not as if suitable, or at least adaptable, commercial products are not freely available. A quick perusal of the Internet brought up several useful examples within a few moments. Notable was this fetching rubber example by Honour:
Particularly intriguing in terms of possibilities is the all-in-one plastic style on the left - imagine that adapted to incorporate an integral sprung steel locking waistband!!!
And then again while she is at home, perhaps under the supervision of a stern stepmother, or if she is to live tied to the apron strings of a strict governess or, better still, confined to some sort of institution, there seems little reason on benefit to be derived from our limiting our pallet to that of the traditional school uniform colours nor our choice of fabric to serge, cotton or even nylon / polyester. If one is to retain the school uniform theme, perhaps for the purposes of instilling a heightened sense of restriction and of discipline, for which purposes it is admirably suited, then one is free to embellish each garment accordingly with such features as braided edging and piping and of course a school badge. Even a school tie may be incorporated into the design but of course in all these features and other forms of decoration, should ‘unorthodox’ colours and/or fabrics be chosen then that must be taken into account if the correct image is still to be achieved. Details such as button holes and pockets may be picked out and edged with contrasting stitching to enhance the look and feel of the garment as being part of a uniform (or printed and or embossed if latex or PVC are used) . Of course it goes without saying that pockets should only ever of use as a stylistic device and be of no real utility – our young miss is not to be trusted with her own money nor troubled by the possession and carriage of combs and other personal effects.
I like to envisage a soft pastel pink for the dress under such circumstances with a school badge embroidered in pale powder-blue and gold thread over the left breast and repeated at a jaunty angle at its skirt’s hem. The knickers would be lent a pinkness to their hue, despite being their being in actuality white, by the soft flesh beneath. The dress I can imagine as being fabricated in overall-weight nylon (practical and washable - if somewhat sticky in warm weather) but could just as easily be of a suitable fabric so as to match the knickers, be they latex, PVC or what ever and would be worn over a nylon school blouse of pastel pink and powder-blue stripe having a high-buttoning stiff collar neatened by a traditional looking school tie but in pink with powder-blue and gold diagonal stripes.
Her hair – corn gold of course – would be kept tightly French plated and brought down to either side as a pair of little stubby pigtails, each tied in a bow of broad pink and blue striped nylon ribbon to match her uniform. Finally the whole confection would be topped off with a traditional school straw boater adorned around its crown by a ribbon matching those in her hair that hangs down to at the rear as two tails to her mid back.
Imagine the scene if you will – all of this, the sharp pleats of that little skirt stiffened and running down and out from the tight trim little waistband at 45 degrees to swing stiffly at mid thigh, well out from the fullness of her thighs. Glimpse beneath that abbreviated hemline the bewitching sight of taught fleshy globes. Her well rounded bottom cheeks sheaved as closely as to have completely lost the thickened latex or PVC seam deep within the cleft between to only emerge at the front at the very top of the deeply defined and detailed declivity outlining her femininity there. And if she should have recently tasted the cane then what could better display and detail those swollen wheals then thin skin-tight white rubber. Then below, long coltish legs flow down to meet little pink anklets, their frilled and lace decorated tops prettily turned down, a little bow in contrasting powder-blue decorating each to the rear. Then at last our eyes come to rest upon the shoes: Mary Janes in a shiny patent light blue or pink plastic (never leather).
To return to the correspondence on that particular message board for a moment; it can not be said, I think, that any of the aspects of the design I would advocate and the characteristics lauded by those correspondents are necessarily mutually exclusive. In answer to the case put for the wearing of coarse woollen knickers for example I would point out the endless possibilities inherent with the provision of interchangeable knickers-liners which could in principle be of any manufacture one might desire while retaining the special advantages of the latex or PVC outer garment. Besides, in an institutional environment, depending on the type of institution wherein the young lady is being detained, it is easy to envisage that the regulation knickers she would be provided with might well be likely to incorporate internally some system or other designed to secure an absorbent pad or towel in place.
Designed to deal with the needs of patients to whom incontinence has for one reason or another become troublesome, for example, the securing straps or bands within such an undergarment could equally be pressed into service to hold in place a wide variety of pads and towels having an almost infinite set of different textures and other characteristics. Every thing from the intolerably-pleasant caress of a lover's velvet tongue to the equally intolerable yet infinitely more diabolical prickle of coarse velvet could thus be made available for her to experience – imagine, if you will, a towel having the surface qualities of glass-fibre roof insulating material for example. Should she have been unlucky enough as to have found herself somehow or other and by some twist of fate consigned to a place habitually used to dealing with the disturbed, unstable or otherwise handicapped she might well find that the same locking waistband mechanism that safeguards those poor souls from their unknowing tampering is just as efficient at preventing tampering with the rather special punitive measures applied to her. Imagine, then, the truly fiendish torture that I would call the unscratchable itch – best kept to such a institutional scenario this one, a place wherein the proper medical restraint measures can be put in place and applied in conjunction. A few thousand candida spores finding their way somehow into the perfect incubator that is the hot damp environs of a pair of rubber or latex incontinence bloomers and you have a case of thrush producing truly sanity-endangering irritation and discomfort. Yes, best kept for the caged-bed, humane restraints, the straitjacket, padded room and professional supervision.
Even if a girl has not been in such a way institutionally confined one can still imagine a governess under the right circumstances, perhaps an ex-psychiatric nurse and chosen for that fact, and having the girl under her roof with cart blanch over her, having access through old contacts and other channels to such resources. And perhaps to others too. I imagine a woman almost permanently garbed in the old-fashioned navy-blue uniform dress she once wore on the ward, at least when alone with her charge, a leather tawse hanging from her white Petersham ribbon belt with its ornate silver butterfly clasp.
Upstairs the girl's bedroom is as plain as anything a puritan might have imagined: an old hospital bed takes up most of the space. This having barred sides, one side presently lowered to the floor, the lockable hinged top, swung back and leaning against the plain white wall. The white plastic mattress has strewn upon it a well-worn assortment of medical restraints, ankle cuffs at the bottom, a broad abdomen strap crossing at the centre and having attached wrist cuffs to either side and a strap to secure the forehead lies across the pillow. At this end of the bed the one object that might seem to lighten the mood,taken in the context of its usual late teen occupant only deepens the foreboding, asking more questions than it is willing to give answers. A curving metal bracket holds a child's mobile, a simple circle of sparkling silver stars – illuminated by two small strobe lamps, these mounted on the bars of the bed end, one to either side, it shimmers and flickers and holds the eyes with jaw-dropping fascination as it turns.
Just beyond the bed's foot thick 'blackout' drapes have already been drawn across a small window, whitewashed in any case lest the girl should waste her time sky-gazing and daydreaming when she should be turning her attention to her impositions and protected by vertical steel bars, both inside and out, lest she should feel the least bit insecure. This is where a somewhat over-plump girl is presently easing herself into her night attire, rolling skin-tight latex over curving hips. Folded neatly on the the only other pieces of furniture present, a child's combined school desk and bench seat, is an abbreviated and juvenile little green and white school dress.
It is just coming up to two o'clock in the afternoon and most of her old friends would now be on their way back to work from lunch, those not presently at university that is – for her, though, it is time for her afternoon nap. Her governess, looking as implacable as ever in her hospital uniform, is standing impatiently by the bed, pointing...it is all that is needed, the command needs no words, not after so many months in charge of the girl. not with the help of her little toy glittering away so soothingly, her little secret as she calls it, not to mention the promised kiss of her tawse – and the girl has felt that once today already.
Monday 13 October 2008
More on Dress Discipline
Link removed ( the links to the dress discipline bulletin-board I have been discussing no longer work - it has been taken down)
And don't just settle back to read the stuff...contribute. (Well you can't now, see above - but you can still post your thoughts here if such stuff is your bag)