A Fashion Photographer Considers the School Uniform

Growing up on the Caribbean island of Nevis, Kacey Jeffers had a ritual: Every Sunday evening, from when he was in preschool to fourth grade, the photographer would watch his mother steam, iron, and starch his school uniforms—hunched over, he recalls, “like the woman in Degas’s The Laundress.” It’s been years since he and his mother have had to deal with such a task, but the ritual’s significance has stuck with the 31-year-old, even after he moved to New York City to pursue photography. When his visa expired in 2018, Jeffers saw his return home to the island of just 11,108 as an opportunity. Working with the Department of Education, he set off on a tour of 14 different Nevisian schools, photographing a total of 26 students. The end result—Jeffers’s first monograph, which is appropriately titled Uniform—is less of a showcase of the island’s dress codes, and more of a study in individuality. Take a look, here.