Lahore women’s college bans jeans

I’m an old student of Kinnaird College (1982-1989)and was intrigued to read about the ban on jeans and other figure-hugging outfits because of ‘terrorist threats’. Kinnaird has a long tradition of allowing its girls to wear clothes of their choice; the focus was on all-round personality development, and since choice of attire is a reflection of a mindset, our teachers were careful to point out what was appropriate or otherwise. In fact, the most common words of praise for us as a student body was how we had blossomed into the young women they had striven hard to nurture and oftentimes how much like an assortment of flowers we looked as we walked the winding pathways or assembled in the Hall. Those were happy times and I look upon them now as some of the best years of my life. Had it not been for the freedom of dress, I would have never known of the world of fashion, the elegance that clothes lend to a personality or even the shades that go together. Kinnaird has always lived in the shadow of one form of terrorism or another. What people generally tend to forget is that the young women who come here to study are actually the cream of the Pakistani society. While many of them are wealthy, the majority come from good families who have a strong sense of right and wrong. There is no need to brandish a stick to get them to toe the line. They are well-versed in the art of discipline. As for the terrorist threat, it is just another ploy to destroy what Kinnaird stands for; it’s motto is not ‘ironic’ as the article so heartlessly puts it: it is something that lives inside every Kcite-strong, vibrant and purposeful.