Shoot styled and photographed by Petra. All clothing Petra’s own except where indicated. Models: Anna, Aleks, Raevv’n, and Aurora.
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71 Comments
YESSS!!!! I wish I could dress like this…especially 8 of 11.
Love the mixture of prints!
oh i love this the colors work so well togethh
Love it. I wish we didn’t have uniform (SIGH)
I am in love with these photos. If my school didn’t require a uniform, I’d so be wearing this. All of it. All at the same time.
Aaw, it’s sad that we aren’t allowed to wear like that at school…
We have a style post lined up for tomorrow that’ll make you like your uniform! Seriously, those things can be so cute.
Ahh, this website is so good it makes me cry. I can’t wait until the weather cools down enough to wear knee high socks. I’m a huge fan of Petra and it’s terribly exciting to see her doing some photography for the website!!
Yeah, we have to wear polos at school, and they recently instigated a rule where we can’t wear skirts! It’s madness!
i love the mood and styling(!!!), but…the lack of ethnicity? it seems like the clothes are exclusive to slender, caucasian-looking girls which is really off-putting.
high school is beautiful/awkward for every type of lady! i know you know and i wish it were evident.
Hey janemerrily, I’m glad you wrote this. We aren’t happy with the lack of ethnic and body-shape diversity in this first month of Rookie, either. All we can say is that so much had to come together so fast to make this site that we couldn’t get everything we wanted right at the start. We’re working on making sure every type of lady is represented now that the site is up and we have more time to be more directly involved in the content than the tech side. Not that you shouldn’t be pointing this out, of course — these things are important, and I appreciate that you wrote this without trying to attack us! Thanks! Tavi
I love these!! – too bad i have a uniform – sux 4 me – cant wait for style post 2morrow Tavi:)
oh god… my first day’s tomorrow and i just realized i have NOTHING to wear!! racing to goodwill with my fingers crossed!!!
I’m obsessed with the schoolgirl look! Just posted this entire thing to my tumblr….
I was never a fan of cheetah print, but oh man, I NEED socks like those.
I am in love. The colours and the patterns are perfect! Wishing my wardrobe was full of these skirts and socks…and the shoes (last)
The girl on the left in the second photo on kind looks like you Tavi! These are great, I wish more girls were ambitious to dress this gaily regularly
@batiababe94 YOU CAN’T WEAR SKIRTS AT SCHOOL?!?!?! Go die, administration. I sympathize immensely.
That said, where are those lace knee socks from (because they’re effing awesome)?
<3Lovely
no.6 reminds me so much of shelly from twin peaks!
love it!
Oh, nevermind. I silly.
<3Lovely
love these so much! wish i could wear skirts to school. stupid dress code. uniform kids may complain, but at least they can wear skirts and get cute ties or blazers.
yes don’t worry janemerrily, I have all types of girls up my sleeve. this is just one shoot out of many different ones. xxx
so accurate. :)
Oh man I LOVE that daisy shirt. Where’s it from?
Yessssss Petra!!!!
Love love love that daisy shirt! My school seems to have a de facto uniform of combat boots worn with leggings that don’t manage to cover everything as opaquely as they should, but I’d prefer it if we all wore those socks.
also, i love the hair in these. so long and flowy and just…well, just really making me want to grow my hair out.
I like the lace ones a lot but the colors just go so well together and it is really cute.
@janemerrily, perhaps “lack of easily visually distinguishable ethnicitIES”, since everyone has an ethnicity.
the prominent band-aids are, like, perfect.
I saw this photo on tumblr and I took it because I thought it was anonymous :(
these are all so great! how I wish EVERYONE at my school dressed like that.
I love it!!
amazingggg
Gorgeous shoot, and sweet styling. Just a little hopeful advice, though. Please don’t be another magazine that reinforces the standard white skinny girl image and feature some color and some different body shapes on this site! I know you just started out though, so I’m sure that you will soon :)
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fashion editorial and/or photo portfolio magazine thing that made band-aids look so chic. I love it!
love the pantsu shot
For me, it would be dresses and boots. It’s always dresses and boots. A dress that looks very nice and pretty but with tough girl boots to stomp around in. I just love my boots.
@lavie – everyone has an ethnicity, you’re quite right! maybe it’s growing up white in “post-racial” america–i am used to ‘ethnic’ insinuating “relating to a people not christian or jewish” (merriam webster), which is dumb/archaic. i appreciate your setting me straight! “ethnic diversity” is what i should’ve said, totally.
@admins – much excitement for the upcoming. best wishes for the girls stuck in your sleeve, i hope they get out of there safely !
Arrgh. To be honest, I am so disappointed in this :( ALL we DON’T need is yet another exploitation of the American Apparel -girl. With skinny legs, way too short flirty skirts, knee socks and a “sexy document holder” – can’t you see this is such a porno(!!) cliché? You could might as well add Dov Charney or whatever that creep’s name is to these photos….sorry but I don’t like veiwing girls through THAT guys eyes. Or any guy for that matter. Cuz I can really see a man’s eyes gazing over these girls. Yuck. Yeiks.
Although the idea of wearing plaid with flower print is lovely, grunge revival.
Hoping you’ll do something more girl power and less cliché next time. I am a huge fan though of you, Tavi, will always be!!!
Hey Hagar,
I totally get where you’re coming from, but to me, cheerleader skirts and document holders are pretty standard high-school-girl cliches before they are porn cliches. They’ve been taken out of their original context and put into a porny one quite a bit, but I don’t see the use of handing them over without a fight. Everyone involved in this shoot — photographer/stylist, models, and editor (me) — is a teenage girl, and these photographs are expressions of a teenage girl’s experience. Yes, the girls are attractive and have long limbs, but I would say it’s taking away from a girl’s power over her own sexuality to decide that if she ends up looking sexy, it’s only for the benefit of an onlooking dude. Sometimes teenage girls wear short skirts and knee socks solely because they feel like it, and they have a right to do that without its being assumed that it’s just to serve some kind of male fantasy. These photos are meant to feed our creative juices, aesthetic sensibilities, joy towards things resembling old film stills, and Petra’s own way of capturing the people around her. They’re meant to feed our SOULS, our SOULS, I TELL YOU! …..Sorry if I got a little intense just now.
The girls here are very purposely not making ~*sexy eyez*~ or giving suggestive looks to the camera or an invisible male viewer. There is no dude in any of these photos — the girls are talking and laughing together. Basically, these photos are reflective of Petra’s experiences as a teenage girl, styling and photographing her sister and their friends. Please don’t, just because the girls happen to look sexy to you, or because they are showing some flesh and wearing high-school-girl-appropriate clothing, impose some dude’s gaze onto them. I think a lot of trouble comes from that impulse!
I am in love with this shoot. I just started community college and I’m afraid of looking like I’m trying too hard (therefore I haven’t been trying at all) and these styles look so effortless, I’ve been inspired.
Reality: I love this!
I wish I could wear whatever I want to school… but that’s the uniform-obsessed Australian public school system for you
Girlcrushing so hard on all these crushing beauties. Petra, you’re so talented I want to put an infinite recursive loop of weightless medals around your neck!
And thanks Tavi for writing this: “but I would say it’s taking away from a girl’s power over her own sexuality to decide that if she ends up looking sexy, it’s only for the benefit of an onlooking dude. Sometimes teenage girls wear short skirts and knee socks solely because they feel like it, and they have a right to do that without its being assumed that it’s just to serve some kind of male fantasy.”
Brain hugs for being so thoughtful to Hagar’s comment, which I’m also grateful for, because honesty is cool & so is dialogue. I hope we keep having opportunities to talk about these thorny issues of how we as girls represent ourselves and how we are represented by others and how we see ourselves and how we are seen.
I had to wear a uniform at school :(
In response to Hagar (whose comment really stood out and quite frankly annoyed me slightly), girls have the freedom to wear whatever they want, and since this shoot was directed and styled by a teenage girl, it’s representative of the traditionalism that a teenage girl feels towards teenage girl high school style! I’m not from America, I don’t have the freedom of not wearing a uniform, but I personally found this shoot inspiring because it gets across a kind of back to school happiness, the girls look natural and it is no way a reference to whatever you mentioned. Yeah, just backing Tavi up here I guess, because these girls were not intended to look “sexy”, they were intended to look like teenage girls, and I think that it’s a very good representation.
I do appreciate Hagar’s comments though, because at least it made me consider a different point of view other than the “way cool! American school-ness!” one which I tend to always have.
Loving the work xooxo
I LOVE THEIR OUTFITS, and i love this website !! It’s amazing !
xo
These look like a John Hughes film and I love it!
I am 31 but Rookie takes me back to my 14 year old self. I remember the night My So-Called Life DEBUTED on TV and being so excited. In those days, I did not have access to a computer except at school! I’m loving the site but just want to caution you against being too white-washed. Girls of color would love (and need) to be represented here, too. Believe me, since I am the Puerto Rican girl in my high school rocking Hole t-shirts and reading Sassy. Best of luck. xo
These photos are beautiful- I have a school uniform (English!) but it’s nowhere near as cool as any of these. This could be my weekend uniform! Loving the site xx
Petra, you are a really good photographer and stylist! This could be in any high fashion magazine if high fashion magazines would do shoots like that. Actually it reminds me of old high school movies. I don’t know how kids dress in America when they go to school cause like apparently a lot of people here I don’t live in America. So I just wanted to know if this is the real world or just like you’d like to have it. It would be really cool if you could like show what real American high school looks like today. I often find that strange about fashion magazines. They just show a world they create while never showing reality.
Wow! I was looking for a new style for back to school, looks like i found it!
I loove these photographs, so perfect! Also those black shoes with the chunky heel, those are amazing!! Also just wondering what camera do you use? thanks
Why are socks so amazing? The lace ones are grand. Great picture.
I’m excited. ( only for my Sanrio doc martens and platform converse I got this summer )
The hairstyles are pretty spot-on – at least in comparison to how the girls at my high school are wearing their hair these days.
also THE BANDAIDS, AWW <3
Really love all of the looks no offense to the actual clothes or anything but I NEED THOSE SOCKS! I am surely hitting my local thrift and Goodwill this weekend!
These clothes are too cute! Third picture is my favorite
You should do a homecoming fashion guide next, please.
omg this photography is so cute! i wish i could pull of the plaid skirt thing :/
Petra Collins, you are my newest favourite photographer.
– Another photographer
Freakin awesome!
I wanna dress like this ALL the time.
Just looking at these pictures at work is transportative.
Small note Tavi: please please please have diversity with the models you use. I wanna see some slightly bored looking lounging black and brown and everything inbetween girls in their plaid skirts and sweaters!
And finally, rookie is an oasis on the net that centers and calms me. THANK YOU
Hey squeezyfbaby! We wanna see those bored black and brown girls too, and we will, and you will, in the future on Rookie. We promise! It’s important to us, too.
Oh man, the downfalls of being English – uniforms. And yes, admittedly uniforms can be cute and fun and what not…just not if everyone else is wearing the same thing…and if your skirt and blazer are made out of some weird wool that makes you stink like a dog when it rains…ah, rant over.
Where is the daisy shirt from?
I really wish I could dress like this! the cheerleader-y skirts, the socks, the school jumpers… my school uniform jumper is horrible though, nothing like this!
Y’all might like this:
<3Lovely
Such lovely inspiration :D Although the last pic was somewhat a little too revealing, everything was great and I’m just feeling the creative juices right now. haha.
B-E-A-UTIFUL.
inspiration = very high<3