Mom sees what her 11-year-old daughter has done to her school shirt — feels both angry and proud

Dressing up in a school uniform is not the most glamorous feeling ever, but it surely is a bittersweet episode of every child’s life. They wake up earlier than the roosters and get dolled up in a crisp papery shirt, tie, and jumper, the ingredients of their school fashion. Like wearing badges of pride, they pull up their socks, comb their hair, and shine their shoes. Everything is jimmie-dandy until they step outside the house. One schoolgirl in the U.K. figured out a quirky solution to this dilemma. In a TikTok video, Becky Measures (@becky.measures), a BBC Radio presenter, shared how her 11-year-old daughter revamped her school shirt using a pair of scissors.

The video opens with a shot of a typical white-collared school shirt sprawled on the bed. The shirt, however, seems to be trimmed at the bottom hemline into a shorter length, like a crop top. “The daughter has cut up her school shirt so she can wear it under her school jumper and not get too hot…Don’t know whether to be angry for cutting up a perfectly good shirt, or proud of her ingenuity,” the mom said. Calling out the viewers, she asked, “Is it genius or is it ridiculous? Don’t quite know.”

Of thousands of people who watched the video, hundreds of them jumped into the comments section to compliment not just the girl’s brilliant idea, but also her sewing skills. “Genius! Get that girl a sewing machine, she has potential,” said @rw11. @louise_1.0 wrote, “That is a really smart idea. Until she needs to take her jumper off for some reason!” @foxgloves.bouquet reflected, “Is the school making her wear a jumper during this weather? If so ridiculous from them and genius from her.” @comedystans quipped, “Collars and Co. did this on Shark Tank?”

After this video went viral, Measures shared with Newsweek that her daughter saw people’s responses and felt “very smug” at the popularity it reached. "She had been talking about doing it for ages, and I have always said no; now, she has the backing of most of the internet," the TikTok mom added. She revealed that she was stunned when she went to her daughter’s room to collect laundry and realized what she had done with the scissors. As some people pointed out, the girl could have simply deleted her jumper from the uniform, but she preferred to include it.

People’s reactions also made her realize that her daughter had actually crafted something akin to genius, not ridiculous. "I suppose I have to be proud of how innovative she is," she told the media outlet. She added that this episode is a good lesson for all the parents out there. "Never underestimate your child's initiative. It could just be the multi-million-pound idea you have been looking for," Measures said. Who knows, perhaps this innovative shirt design could end up attracting the interest of school dressmakers and fashion designers out there!

You can follow Becky Measures (@becky.measures) on TikTok for lifestyle video logs.