Today is Father’s Day here in Thailand, with much of the honor and regard being directed towards the king, the father of the country. In honor of the monarch, Thais are wearing yellow, his color in honor of the day he was born on, a Monday. But today is not the only time that Thai people dress the same.
Uniforms, both official and unofficial, are a big part of dress in Thailand. There are of course uniformed professions, such as the police and the military, but it goes quite beyond that, and it starts early too.
Student Uniforms
All students in Thailand wear a uniform, and there are slight differences in the primary, secondary and tertiary uniforms (yes, even university students wear a uniform).
Boys in primary and secondary school wear a white button up shirt and either blue, khaki or black shorts (blue and khaki are most common) with tall, brown socks and brown shoes.
Girls wear a white shirt with a back bib and loose hanging bow in primary school, which is switched to a white, short-sleeved button-up shirt in secondary school. Both are worn with a knee-length, dark blue or black pleated skirt, white ankle socks and black Mary Janes.
University students all have black bottoms – pants for males and either pleated or pencil skirts for females – and a white button up shirt. The shirts are typically embroidered with the student’s name and school.
Girls in primary school must keep their hair no longer than chin length and boys at all levels must keep a crew cut.
Scout Uniforms
These are not the only uniforms that students wear; one day a week is designated as Scout Day at each school. Both boys and girls are scouts and participate in scouting activities like marching and going to an annual Scout Camp.
Civil Servant Uniforms
But the uniforms don’t stop when school ends. On Mondays, all civil servants, which includes teachers and postal workers, must wear a tan colored uniform that also has ranking badges that I still have not quite figured out.
The shirts may be either short or long sleeve. Men wear pants and women wear pencil skirts. There is also a more formal version of the civil servant uniform that is all white and is used for special occasions and is typically worn by those in higher rankings.
Informal, “Uniform” Dress in Thailand
That’s a taste of the variety of official uniforms you may see in Thailand, but there are also informal uniforms, as I mentioned.
At my school, Tuesdays are designated as “Thai dress” day and everyone wears some kind of Thai outfit or the short-sleeve, pea green blazer with the king’s crest and the name of the school on the breast.
Wednesdays are sport day, so the students wear a sport shirt and black pants and the teachers wear a polo that we were made to purchase, again with the king’s crest and school’s name embroidered on the breast.
My friends, who work in local government offices, say that the uniformity goes even further there. Some offices have official shirts for each day of the week that are provided to the employees. When there’s a special event happening, another new dress code comes into effect, sometimes for an extended period of time, such as Songkran shirts around the time of that festival, and sometimes longer.
Dressing the same even happens outside of the office and professional setting. Going on a group bpai tiao often calls for a custom made t-shirt that is worn by the group while touring around. Some young women will purposefully buy and wear the same outfit as their friend. There is definitely a sense of uniformity in dress in Thailand even when not wearing a uniform.