Applied Fashion

[ed. I don't know... is it just me, or is there a certain apprehension around party season this year?

Have you ever worn something completely wrong for the occasion? I don’t mean social-death wrong: we don’t live in such judgmental, Victorian times. I mean embarrassing-wrong: so wrong you want to go home and change, so wrong you wish the floorboards would open and let you descend into darkness. It may seem a quaint question to ask when the Naked Rambler has appeared in Britain’s Court of Appeal wearing nothing at all. And certainly, getting it really wrong is increasingly rare at a time when presidents appear in open-necked shirts and Downing Street advisers wander about in socks. But it can still, on occasion, happen.

“Occasion” is the key word: there are invitations to certain events which, once accepted, mean you have to play your part just as much as if you were an actor on stage. That includes wearing, more or less, the right costume. Parties, like plays, need to create an atmosphere, to weave a touch of magic, in order to take flight. They are fragile, airy confections, like spun sugar or candy floss; they hold their shape if all the ingredients come together, but if not, they collapse into a gritty pile. That, more than the attempt to exclude socially, is why the dress code still exists.

Dress codes on invitations tend to give men clear instructions: “black tie”, “lounge suits”. Both are unambiguous. For women they’re just the broadest of clues. Hence the phone-a-friend call asking “What are you going to wear?”, a question which lays bare the need of social animals to fit in with their tribe. I’ve always thought it would make a feminist point to turn up in a black tie one day – just the tie, not the full tuxedo – but I’d never have the nerve. (And incidentally, the one time it doesn’t look chic for a woman to turn up in a well-cut tux is when the dress code actually is black tie: it reads as protest or parody, rather than stylishness and wit.) Other dress codes I’ve come across include “dress to party”, “summer chic” and “dress up”, as well as the familiar, oxymoronic “smart casual”. None of them is specific, not even for men. But when decoded they all mean the same: “Be comfortable. No need to go over the top. But please make an effort, because we have.”

by Rebecca Willis, More Intelligent Life |  Read more:

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