Never mind our current political crisis, a fascinating footnote to Stormont business last week was Speaker Mitchel McLaughlin’s castigation of one elected member for appearing tieless in the chamber.
It pales into insignificance beside the sartorial shambles that is Jeremy ‘man of the people’ Corbyn, the newly elected Labour leader who fetched up at party conference looking as if he still had the hanger in his coat. Since his meteoric rise to prominence and his grudging nod to appropriate dressing, he appears to be wearing the borrowed clothes of somebody bigger and none too happy about it. Surely the Labour Party could stretch to the purchase of a decently-fitting suit? Though what’s the betting Comrade Corbyn might be too highly principled to wear it? It’ll be interesting to see what he turns up in on state occasions.
Also in the sartorial soup for slovenly appearance is the BBC’s erstwhile elegant and much respected financial correspondent Robert Peston, he of the drawling delivery and disastrous hair, who used to be quite fanciable till he got big geeky specs and let himself go. “I don’t need a tie for gravitas,” he’s reported to have said. Yes, you do Pesto, when you’re representing the august institution that’s the BBC.
“Surely dress codes are old hat in this day and age?” say all of you reading this at the kitchen table wearing tracksuit bottoms and an ancient singlet. No, they’re not. ‘Appropriateness to the occasion’ is key, and whether you like it or not, we’re all judged (or mis-judged) on our appearance. We had a nun on our staff and when we took our pupils on school outings, people automatically (and erroneously) assumed she was the headmistress. Almost from birth we’re imprinted with a certain set of expectations from people depending on how they present themselves.
There’s a fairytale common to all cultures where the ruler dresses in rags and goes forth to discover how his subjects treat him. You can predict the outcome. Through dress we perceive status, mentally placing others on a social scale. Of course you get mavericks like Apple’s Steve Jobs and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg who deliberately ‘dress down’, but they’re multi-millionaires and American, so can make their own rules, though I can’t see Barack Obama attending an international summit in a baseball cap.
Dress codes have evolved with us since the dawn of recorded history, so we’re unlikely to be the generation that abolishes them. Indeed, we’ve complicated the issue by introducing a new category, ‘smart casual’, which nobody can quite define. A propos of nothing, why can no mother get a son under 20 into a pair of proper shoes? It depresses me to see young girls out, dressed to the nines and their male escorts in shirt, jeans and trainers, as if they’ve just come to shift the furniture.
Ah… the ubiquitous trainer – my bugbear. The whole world’s wearing trainers – godawful, clootery canal-barges, designed for sport, worn by people who couldn’t run for a bus. What’s the point of being smart to the ankles and ruining the effect with a pair of glorified gutties? Some see this laissez-faire attitude as a welcome liberation from the tyranny of dress codes. Others make a big issue of non-conformity, like the man who refused to attend a function because the invitation stipulated ‘lounge suit’. Nobody cared that he stayed at home in his hair-shirt. Why do grown men groan when a formal invitation arrives? Most of them scrub up a treat. It’s amazing what a dinner-jacket does for the most unprepossessing male figures. ‘Clothes maketh the man.’ Never was there a truer aphorism.
Appearance matters. Dressing appropriately, whether for business or pleasure, shows professionalism, consideration and respect. Any psychologist will tell you that, in an interview situation, you have just seven seconds to make an impression. And that’s before you open your mouth. By the time you get from the door to the interview chair, most of the panel will have made up their minds.
Life is one long interview with one’s fellow-men. Advisory dress code: No trainers.
