To Protest Her School’s Sexist Dress Code, A Teen Girl Made This Bold Fashion Statement

When 13-year-old Grace Villegas started receiving “not nice looks” and comments about the “inappropriateness” of the top she had chosen to wear to school, her sister, 17-year-old Isabella, felt her pain and helped her out with a new shirt to wear in its place.

This one was a little less runway-ready, but managed to make a very powerful statement in response to the shame that Grace felt.

Isabella gave as the reason for her creation of this new shirt, emblazoned with thoughts on the dress code, saying, "I know my sister felt embarrassed and ashamed, but I felt pure anger. As a middle schooler, she has enough to deal with regarding gossip and ridicule and should not have to fear getting it from her teachers as well."

So, dressed in this white shirt, scrawled with objections to the school’s dress code, Grace hit the hallways:

Isabella Villegas

Isabella said, "I wrote those things because I felt like they best explained my point as to why the current dress code (or way it is handled) is wrong. They summed things up."

She then posted the incident on Twitter, which sparked (mostly civil) dialogue about whether or not what Grace was wearing was really appropriate for a middle school.

Some thought it wasn’t:

Others (including a dad no less) didn’t see the big deal:

There were, naturally, a few simply looking to pick up some style pointers:

Others were more interested in the statement the handwritten shirt made, so Isabella was quick to act, letting curious parties know that the design would be finding its way to a printer now:

We’ll see if two girls’ objection to a school dress code violation becomes the hit look of classrooms this spring.