FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

Gone are the days of summer. September has arrived! Within seconds from leaving home I could smell it in the air: excitement mixed with sweet perfume... No, hang on - this ain't September - these are teenage students.

Never in my life have I seen so many fashionable teens in one go. It's nothing like the take-it-out-on-your-kid-by-dressing-them-like-a-little-twat day that I remember from my childhood (my personal favorite expression of my mum's creativity was putting me in a dark green velour dress with a crispy white laced collared shirt underneath). And forget about limiting uniforms. Modern kids are all about style, and apparently they're all about sex too. Although they play it smart - most of them manages to fit in within the classical attire of white blouse and dark skirt - it's still very much Toddlers and Tiaras meets Jersey Shore. The secret lies in proportions of covered to uncovered parts of the body. Back in the day it used to be 80/20, now the numbers have reversed: the blouse barely covers the chest and if a skirt got any shorter it simply wouldn't be a skirt any more. It would be a suspender. Which brings me nicely to one of the hottest 1st of September in Krakow trends: sexy stockings. Why bother leaving something for imagination - 2014 is apparently a show it all year. On a side note: we have some pretty leggy teenagers in Krakow. Quite hopeful in the light of recent obesity statistics... Back to the teenage fashion statements: the shoes. The shoes are the proof that in every sexy kitten there is a little pussy inside (no pun intended). They still can't decide whether they want to be Freaks or Chicks and the platform buckled sandal boots (yes, it's an all in one!) they're wearing is an expression of this doubt. Which, when you think about it, serves as a relief - they're not teenage whores after all, they're just kids who want to be adults.

Watching teenage boys on the other hand was more like traveling in time than running through a bad reality TV channel. Some look elegant, some look quirky and some look enchantingly funny. But they all look their age. And although I'm far from feeling maternal there is something heart warming about boys in over sized jackets and ties which obviously belong to their fathers. So there are those: cute boys barely out of their milky teeth, proud to become a part of September the 1st craze. Then there are the blaze private school students - a male equivalent to teenage hookers, though way more stylish (thank God for the suits!). They are the ones who know when and how to unbutton their shirts and how to loosen up their labeled tie just right. They are also the ones whose parents can afford exotic summer holiday: their skin shows a recent memory of the sun, their hair is surfer styled. They're the 1st of September Zac Efrons, which, when you think about it, makes them potential bullies of another type of male school goers: geeks meaning the spotty ones aka game and science addicts. They're obviously too smart to care about fashion and with their parent being busy inventing a cure for cancer, they look exactly what they are: they look like geeks. When it comes to nerds I'm a strong believer in the last will be first slogan though. Wait until they grow out of their acne and graduate from Harvard (or at least SGGH) - they will be the ones getting all the chicks, no doubt about it. And let's not forget about the cool geeks, The OC's Seth nerds. You won't catch them dead wearing lacquered shoes. They're the hipsters' children, the suit + New Balance sneakers is the must. Which makes me think about the girls again.

No SWAG t-shirts, no OBEY sweatshirts, no BAD HAIR DAY caps... Did someone die or is Local Heroes out of stock?! As much as I look up to LH success I'm quite glad for the absence of  monotonous slogan fashion, it opens the door for other, more subtle kind of statements. Case in point: while there was no much style amongst all the sex in the city (pun intended), I spotted few girls who could speak, not scream with their clothes. The first one, let's call her A., was wearing an over sized mustard colored knitted sweater over the shortest black skirt you can imagine. Black tights, black shoes. Very Alexa Chung: sexy, but not over the top. Another one, an ex hippie going through a process of showing more and more skin wore a loose jacket over a loose t-shirt and the navy just-above-the-knee polka dot skirt. Stylish and quirky, I liked it. The last girl I want to mention was a proper in betweener of the Sexy and the Quirky crowd. She wore a knotted white blouse over skinny black jeans. Topped with some nice rocker boots and a cool bag it made her look posh and sexy, yet elegant. I guess it's the most you can ask of the kids these days. You may be a teenage hooker, but for God's sake, stay chic!

PS. I'm still in a first stage of blogging, not quite yet at the photographing people in the street level. Instead I made some doodles. Let's hope I'll be becoming more and more patient with those in the future (I mean replacing doodles with proper illustrations)