The Southland Girls’ High School uniform is smart and distinctive.  It is universally identifiable.

Both Winter and Summer uniforms with their various combinations allow for comfort and individuality.

Our red shoes are an established icon which gives us a unique presence in the community.

Our uniform sets the tone for the school.  We want all students to wear the complete and correct uniform with pride, too and from the school.

We expect all students to maintain a high standard of dress at all times.

We have two Uniform Shops, one stocks brand new uniform items and the other is run by our PTA, which stocks second hand uniform items.

The school uniform shop is open during term time school hours only, please see Student Services to view the shop, or if you wish to make an appointment please call 03 211 6030.

The PTA 2nd hand Uniform Shop is open on the last Friday of each month from 3pm—4pm, the next open date is:

• Friday 28 August
• Friday 25 September

The PTA Unishop is located in the front of the Connexions Building by the big sign.   Cash and Eftpos is available for payment.

For the New Uniform Order Form click HERE

Please click on the images below to view our school uniform:

We are famous world-wide for our red shoes and aren’t we all proud of that fact. Being the only school in the Southern Hemisphere with these fabulous shoes certainly gives us a unique point of difference.

The graduating class of 2007 even produced a leavers t-shirt that highlighted our love for these icons “we won’t miss our red shoes – Yeah Right”!

In the last month I have asked the school archivist, Barbara Clark, to find out when the red shoes were introduced. She has provided me with the following information.

“Red shoes were introduced by the Principal, Miss Muriel May, immediately after World War II. One perspective of the process was that the then new navy uniform with white spots was considered drab and in an effort to persuade the girls to wear it, Miss May suggested that girls might be allowed to accessorise it with red shoes”.

However, recently Mrs Margaret Cook (nee Bensley 1952-1955) has written to inform us how she remembers the red shoes became a piece of our uniform. “My very clear memory tells me that Miss May announced that we were going to be able to wear a red belt with our spotted dress and red gloves. I well remember pupil Jill McKay then standing up to ask a question. Now this was a quite unprecedented action – no-one stood in Assembly unless invited or ordered so to do. There was a collective gasp and a collective holding of breath while Jill said, “Please Miss May can we wear red shoes”? Miss May shrugged her shoulders as she was wont to do and said that she would consider the idea. Next assembly she announced that red shoes were an option we could choose”.By 1954 the red shoes were ‘uniform’. The SGHS red shoes have since then been a great conversation piece.
In 1999 Elspeth McLean wrote an article for the Otago Daily Times about her desire for red shoes and her various attempts to buy them. Finding it hard to acquire a pair, Elspeth wrote about how a friend of hers remembered seeing Southland Girls’ High School students on a tour of Cadburys and how they wore red shoes. This in turn led Elspeth to H & J Smith and finally she was able to purchase the much sought after red shoes.

Elspeth described feeling ‘deliciously subversive’ to be wearing part of a school uniform when she didn’t have to. A comment from a friend across the road one day ‘love those shoes’ led Elspeth to wonder “if sensible grown women were effected in such a way (to call out across a road), what might the red shoes be doing to these impressionable Southland Girls”? “Were red shoes helping them to become stroppy, outspoken, challengers of authority who are not afraid to stand out in a crowd”?

Lind Braun, (Principal 1986-2002) couldn’t resist replying to the question posed by Elspeth McLean under the headline “Red Lace-Ups Build Schoolgirls’ Character”. Mrs Braun said, “These gorgeous shoes, hated and loved by schoolgirls since the 1950s, for just the reason your columnist suspects. We encourage our girls to stand out, speak up and make their mark. We like uppity women. A leaver once told me that five years of wearing bright red shoes had prepared her to face anything. So your shoes are not only beautiful and distinctive, Ms McLean, they are also character building. And at Southland Girls’ High School, character is even more important than the colour of our shoes”.

Over the last few years, our girls have developed a less polarised view of our red shoes with many professing pleasure in wearing red shoes. My view is simple. It is better to be noticed than not at all.

Our red shoes certainly do this and so some 60 odd years later, we continue to wear our unique red shoes with pride, certain that we do indeed stand out in the crowd.