Fuck The Dress Code

When a rule is put in place, we ought to consider the reasons for it and the power dynamics that allow it. Even when rules seem harmless – or even positive – we should investigate why they are there and who they benefit. I mean, what could be wrong with a dress code, for example? Don’t they just make us safer and more appropriate at work? Clothes, though, are an expression of a person’s personality, and to criticise what somebody is wearing is to say that they don’t belong there. To police what somebody is wearing in a dress code is to signal what is and is not acceptable in microcosms of society, and I challenge the reasons we reject certain clothing pieces and with them their wearers.

Some of the most common parts of a dress code may seem reasonable: not wanting to see somebody’s underwear peeping out from under their low-rise jeans, for example, seems fair, until you consider the socio-economic implications. Sagging pants can be tied to racial identity, coming from African-American culture and, although it is hard to mark the beginning of a trend, is often perceived to be due to the lack of belts in prison or to signal ones sexual openness to other prisoners. Whilst on the surface it may seem fair to want to remove the gangster and prison stereotype from fashion and encourage the youth onto the straight and narrow it’s worth looking at what the conditions were that gave rise to the trend. Black and Hispanic people make up 56% of all prisoners in the US (the home of black fashion), and are incarcerated at five times the rate of white people. Young people of colour are aware of the injustices they face! By dismissing the way they wear their trousers alongside the cropped tops and blingy hoop earrings of chola culture, we are signalling to people that belonging to their group and all that it entails means they will be perceived as hoodlums, that in establishment spaces black culture is synonymous with crime.

The effect of this is double: signalling to people of colour and those from lower-income households that they are not welcome in a space unless they assimilate whilst also showing those trained to inhabit those spaces not to talk, dress or act like people not like them because it’s lesser. Not only are we allowing institutions to whitesplain what students or employees should or should not identify with, we are discouraging people of colour from joining the establishments that set these rules. What is the difference between a sheer blouse through which you can see a vest – also, it’s true, a piece of underwear – and trousers which sag low enough to show boxer shorts? Pure aesthetics, when you strip away the cultural heritage.

Is it a surprise, then, that the most often-criticised groups are women, the young, the working classes and black men? These groups are signalled to be outsiders by their clothes, which are used as a weapon against them by establishment members wielding questions purporting to be for the good of society: are trainers appropriate in an academic setting? Are women’s legs distracting? Some of the distinctions made in dress codes are clearly based in power structures. Why are watches not considered jewellery, for example? Because they are principally worn by men. Why do Harrod’s do a ‘face check’ to make sure that all their members of staff are appropriately groomed before they head onto the shop floor? Because the wrong kind of makeup looks ‘tacky’, but not enough looks austere and unfeminine. These are the kind of dress codes we ought to be abolishing – the kind that keeps social mores in separate tiers, with people of colour and women lower down and striving to be taken seriously in certain spaces.

It is from America, where divisions are prominent and noticeable, that we hear the most news of the dress code. Of girls’ shoulders being deemed inappropriate, of it being necessary to pass a literal law entitling black people to wear their hair natural and still find gainful employment or decent housing. It is in America that we see racial tensions more starkly than they appear in the UK, and the connections are much more significant than we might at first suspect, the ramifications much more severe. “I knew he was trouble,” a police officer might say, in a crisp pressed uniform at a tribunal, “his clothes marked him out as a hoodlum.” Dress codes are just one more example of subtle social codes and judgments which are a minefield unless you were raised around them.

It must also be said, though, that these biases also work the other way. Have you ever been to a South London house party straight from work? Or attended a poetry slam in heels? Although these dress codes are unspoken, rather than policies set out for a specific purpose, the silent dress codes show that it is how we interpret clothes that matters. Why not think of an example applicable to all of us: I own t-shirts proclaiming me a fan of things as diverse as Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner and Girls Aloud – which do you think I wear in lectures if I want to speak up and be taken seriously? These social codes are showcasing what we want to be associated with, what we want people to take as cues about us. A person wearing a kaftan might be signalling their interest in yoga and the body as connected to the world, a person wearing fresh, clean Nike Dunks might be signalling their appreciation for fashion and love of branding – these are the cues we ought to take from their outfits, not how capable they are of their job or whether they can be trusted. Fashion signals what we can relate to a person about, not whether one person is better than another and more worthy of our social efforts.

Of course there are instances where my words could be thrown back at me – Dr Matt Taylor’s sexist shirt, for example, has no place in the workplace, and a dress code would prevent it being worn in that context; school uniforms, which equalise (although arguably disenfranchise) students are not only a dress code, but a fairly extreme one at that. The purpose of these rules, though, is different: rather than showing people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds that this is not their ‘place’, removing caricatures of women has the reverse effect, welcoming women a work environment which is typically male; removing obvious boundaries between students can prevent bullying or clique forming and allow students to learn and develop in a much more accepting atmosphere. We should analyse the reason for the code, weigh up the pros and cons, before we accept its authority.

A dress code marks the kind of institution you are in: the difference between the knee-length minimum, suit-wearing sixth form I attended and the jeans-or-leggings sixth form I work in should be obvious, even before I tell you that one of those is an inner-city state school and one is a grammar in a leafy suburb. One of the biggest distinctions between middle- and working-class opportunities is the understanding of subtle social cues a middle-class upbringing develops. Knowing how to present yourself ‘appropriately’ in a number of different situations puts others at ease and brings more of those opportunities to the door of the middle-class person. Perhaps those chola-style earrings are a health-and-safety hazard, and thus not appropriate for a job interview, but it’s only a problem for people in certain lines of work. What’s stopping a customer service operative from showing her Hispanic roots – other, of course, than subtle racism and social codes designed to exclude her?

Some bold public figures, of course, are not letting dress codes stand in their way: Magid Magid, Lord Mayor of Sheffield, regularly pairs his ceremonial collar with snapbacks and trainers. He manages to remain popular with his constituents and is entirely capable of doing his job in this garb. Ari Seth Cohen’s blog ‘Advanced Style’ challenges the idea that older people wearing revealing clothes or high-fashion couture is inappropriate, refuting the idea that people should ‘grow old gracefully’ and cease to have a visible personality or make a statement as they age. Serena Williams and Kristen Stewart have both staged silent yet effective pushbacks against their industries’ policing of the female body, putting their health and their comfort first whilst using their outfits (a Nike catsuit for Williams, bare feet for Stewart) as a way of showing their distaste with how they are treated by the establishment within their own industry. It’s tempting to say that we’re in a time of change, but that would lack awareness of how much there is yet to undo.

The subtext of fashion comes to be is relevant when discussing what it says about our society, and when we are deciding what kind of society we want to live in. Giving social cues is something we should be free to do as ourselves, and receiving social cues ought not to be confused with thinly-veiled racism, sexism, homophobia or ageism based on judging a person’s skills or ethics by their clothes. Clothing does not tell us how a person does their job, parents, or lives their life. Clothes do not maketh the man but they do designate ideas held by him, and as such they deserve the respect we owe to the individual.

To-Do:

• Go to old house and pick up rice cooker, food etc
• Apply for Monzo card so I can pay for things in Boston
• Write a page of gratitude journal

Today’s Culture:

• Reading Anne Brontë’s classic Agnes Grey in advance of her bicentenary celebrations later this year.
• Trying to get back into a routine for bringing lunches to work. Hardboiled eggs are the best snack.
• Working in a corporate environment for the first time in forever. I’m earning a decent wage 🎉 but still have a couple of months to work on getting out of debt