Every year on the anniversary of the opening of my school, we were read extracts from the memoirs of one of the twelve girls who were there in 1880 on the very first day. One story was about a girl who had entreated her father to send her to school so that she could get a ‘proper education’. Her father agreed, reluctantly, and said that he had no objection to her being educated, providing she wore her skirts long enough to hide her blue stockings.
Boadicea's Chariot 
It’s much easier if you’re are blonde, Boadicea. Have you done the shopping, cleaned the house, filled the freezer with delicious home cooked wonderfulnesses, and how is the research going?
On a serious note; we had a similar celebration which caused total panic because it necessitated the wearing of hats, which were avoided assiduously for the rest of the school year.
Fashion point: we had to wear black stocking until they became fashionable and then they changed the rules, and flesh coloured, worm cast sort of shade became mandatory.
Mine was a boys’ school. The very mention of stockings of any hue would raise the average temperature by several degrees F., which as you know, has a lot more than C.