Dress Codes

about what other people wear? Now you might be thinking I don't care what other people were, But imagine for a moment that your sister shows up in a long white dress to somebody else's wedding, or are your wedding, Or that your first night with your new roommate reveals that he sleeps in a softball uniform. Or let's say I start telling the story of a friend who showed up to divorce court in fishnets, a basketball jersey, and

a glowstick necklace. Wouldn't you lean in just a little to find out what is going on with these people? If I talked to a lot of my colleagues, let's say, well, I know nothing about fashion, you know, to one of the first things that they'll say to establish that they're not wasting their time on stuff that's trivial or insignificant. I don't agree with that at all. That is Professor Richard Thompson, Ford, and he's an intellectual who cares quite

a bit about fashion, thank you very much. He professes at Stanford Law School. But he was driven by his sartorial interest to write a book called Dress Codes. How the Laws of Fashion made history. When tailoring really began to develop as a skill in Western Europe, what you see is the re sculpting of the body in order to present like a different type of body. The cinched waste,

the dramatic skirts, the big shoulders. All of the powerful institutions in these societies are doing this, whether it's the church or the state. And all of these things are communicating in societies where most of the populations illiterate, so the communication is done visually. It's as though early fashion aimed to create the impression that rich and powerful people

were fundamentally different sorts of creatures. Like think of those insane standing white collars that monarchs wore in their portraits. Queen Elizabeth the first late that kind of thing imagine putting one of those on for the first time. Uh, I look like a freaking cobra and this is awesome. Okay, no rule, only I am allowed to our cobra stuff. Well,

me and some of my friends. You had laws that specified no one below the rank of a night of the Garter may wear a certain type of silk or a certain type of ermine, fur or tram and you talk about, like how emotional the response to this stuff was. In the very opening of your book, you talk about like a fashion faux paw that has children screaming in

the streets, Women are feigning, dogs are freaking out. A dude's arm is broken because another guy whore is still cat right, Like we have feels on this One proclamation declared that they would be guards posted at the gates of the cities with a list of people according to their social rank, to make sure that no one dressed

above their social condition. It's worth noting that we still have fashion guards posted at some gates, like brawny bouncers at swanky nightclubs serving side eye to your graphic t and denying entry to anybody in athletic shoes. And dress codes still function to distinguish social classes. Okay, we're pivoting the microphone here to a woman named Liz Wise. She works for de Brett's as an etiquet advisor. If, like me, you are a lowly commoner, you may not be familiar

with the name to Brets. However, if you are a member of British aristocracy, presumably listening to this podcast while polishing your monocle, you will know it as an institution that's been concerned with hereditary titles and minding manners since seventeen sixty nine. Nowadays people can go to de Breads for advice. Someone has been invited to a fancy function, say, and they're not sure what would be appropriate to wear. Liz and her colleagues swooped to the rescue. Like batman,

bat meant bat people for formal wear. I asked Liz to run down the dress codes that her clients might encounter. Absolutely most formal is white tie. Then there's black tie, which is much more common. There's also morning dress, which in the UK is the dress code for weddings primarily, but also for events like Royal ast Scott naturally, and then going down on the hard rocky there's lounge suits. And then there's the most difficult one of all, I think,

which is smart casual. I'll note that Liz deals primarily with UK dress codes. When I asked about business casual, Liz suggested perhaps a lounge suit would be appropriate, and I broke it her gently that in the US crocks and board shorts might be closer to the mark. Formal posh parties, however, have more exacting standards, and those standards hit different depending on your gender. All the dress codes for ben are very very prescriptive, all the formal ones.

They comprise a very sort of detailed breakdown of tailored garments and what the shirt should be like, what the tie should be like, what the buttons should be like, what the cufflinks should be like. It's absolutely codified to the nth degree. Scrolling through to bread social media accounts, the level of detail on dudes suits is pretty nuts. So tux shirts should be made of special Marcelic cotton because it's super stiff and can hold a mess of starch.

Bow Ties should always be tied a little bit imperfectly to prove their hand done, just like how very important people smudge their signatures to prove its bend in real ink. To state the obvious, these dress codes have a very old fashioned idea of gender, and all sorts of people can cut a sharp figure in a suit. Shout out Genomone and oh n Lister from Gentleman Jack Total Fox.

But a lot of this stuff sounds like a needlessly complicated Victorian costume party, relics of a long gone era and an aristocratic worldview that has fallen away out of favor, like our formal dress codes really doing much for us these days. Historically there was an absolute assumption that everybody had these clothes and they knew precisely went to wear them.

But of course, I think for a lot of people, when they're presented with a very stiff formal invitation with a dress code specified in this dad age, it can be quite an oppressive thing, can't it, Because for an awful lot of us we don't have a morning coach or a tuxedo or whatever in our wardrobe. But I do think you just have to interpret them as a rather nice, kind of very intermittent aspirational thing. Sometimes it is nice to just discard your everyday clothes and put

on something you would never normally wear. You're not pretending to be somebody or not. It's just it is dressing up and that's nice and now valued listener. A quick personal aside. For most of my professional life, I've worked as a gigging musician, something to fall back on if the whole nerdy podcast doesn't pin up. As it happens, I recently received an invitation to perform at a masquerade

gala fundraiser thing that specified black tie. My bandmate Abbe and I weren't quite sure what that should entail, and so, now, drunk on power, I'm going to rest the controls of this podcast away from our dutiful producer, sorry Beth doors Locked, and exploit this interview for my own shallow it. I need some advice, so I'm showing Liz a potential outfit to get an expert opinion. This is one of my classic l b ds, my little black dresses. That would

be absolutely fine. Yeah, but is it in any universe acceptable that I wear that with motorcycle boots. I'm gonna show you the boots. Wait, let's just open your heart, open your mind. The general recommendation would be that you'd wear it with heels, maybe something a little less clunky. I mean, in a way, the way a woman interprets black tie is to do with their character and personality, and if they can carry it off, maybe you can wear the motorcycle boots because you're wearing a very very

nice little black dress. But you know it's not by the book. Put it that way. So like, as long as I ride a motorcycle into the event, secondhand dress and rented to CARDI, We've got a plan. If you have one golden rule, what would it be. You'll never ever enjoy a social event if you're physically uncomfortable. So you know, whatever you choose to wear, just just make sure that it fits, that you can move around in it,

that you can sit down with it. I mean, that's the absolute goal, really, that you can make your entrance, you can look great, and then you can just forget about it. I'm wearing the motorcycle book. Not all of our choices about what to wear amount of simple decisions of personal taste or comfort. Some fashion is policed by like actual police. Back to Richard Our, Stanford law professor, For instance, there are a lot of cities in the United States where you know, sagging pants are outlawed. And

people are arrested and fined for wearing sagging pants. In Fort Worth, Texas, the Public Transportation Authority banned writers who wore low slung trousers with signs that said pull them up or find another ride. Most of us, however, are more likely to run into a dress code as part

of our job. In two thousand four, a U. S Court upheld the firing of a bartender from a Reno casino because she violated their rule that end i quote lip color must be worn at all times, and other employees have objected to mandatory high heels or a prohibition on men wearing long hair sidebar. Yes, we know Reno Casino sounds like a scene from a Danny DeVito feature. So we still have rules like that, but they're being

enforced by the private sector more than the government. As part of the research for his book, Richards sat down to talk and listen to high school students, because kids are actually often subject to some of the more intense modern dress codes. Lots of credit card rules about you know, the skirts gotta be no more than a credit cards length away from the knee, their dress codes banning yoga pants. And the thing is that in each of these instances, whether or not the dress code is forced can depend

on the girl's body. Two girls could show up to homeroom wearing the exact same outfit, but only one of them gets hit with a dress code violation. The teachers would even say, well, honey, she can get away with that. But you've got a different pot, right. So it's all about that and just and not distracting the boys. It's up to you not to wear something that's going to be distracting to man. I first ran into that particular edict at about eight years old when I wore a

skirt to Sunday school. And if you're not a child of the eighties or a tennis pro, a skirt is a hybrid garment half skirt, half shorts into the sport and contemporary to the crimping iron. So as soon as I arrived to class and my sea green skirt, which fell just above my knees, the religious instructor ejected me from the room, sent me out to the playground and called my dad. And when Dad showed up, I was on a swing, not swinging. I got kicked out. I told him. He took my hand, come on, kittle. We

went back into the building together. I hadn't ever heard my dad angry on my behalf, and it was drilling. The instructor explained that the dress code had been clearly communicated, we don't allow young girls to wear skirts because if young girls wear skirts, the older girls are tempted to wear skirts, and if the older girls wear skirts, the older boys will be tempted to sin against them. My dad thought this argument was hot garbage, and his response

included the phrase sexual hangups. We left then my head held I in escorted victory march to the car. As girls get older, however, Richard describes a sort of catch twenty two. You either risk being branded as a temptress or you're not done up enough to be presentable. The dress code for women doesn't always leave a safe place to land in the middle. Richard says that was actually the thing that surprised him most during the course of his research. I'd say, yeah, it's function is to keep

women off bound. Its function isn't to make women modest, or to make them sexy or pleasing. It's to make it so that they could never get it right. A dress codes aren't just about what's being worn, but who's wearing it, gender, race, class Some of our most complicated social dynamics are sewn right in. One thing that you know, I found is that there's a lot more strict enforcement in a lot of instances in poorer schools, in schools

that have heavily you know, black or Latino populations. On the one hand, that's unfair because those kids are getting sent home from school more often than you know, rich white kids. On the other hand, you can see that some of the school administrators are trying to make sure that those kids know how to dress professionally and appropriately so that they can get good jobs later. And so it's not all malevolent. Some of it's kind of trying to deal with the world as it is rather than

the world as it should be. But the idea that kids from marginalized backgrounds can dress up to get ahead is way too simple. Richard's book delves deep into the long and complicated intersections of clothing and race relations. Richard himself is black, and his dad actually trained as a tailor. Alongside his college degree. People of color often learned a backup trade in case racism thwarted their professional plans. Not all that long ago, Black people in the US could

be penalized for dressing too well. After World War Two, racist mo moobs would attack black servicemen wearing their service dressed uniforms for being uppity. People were threatened by black people wearing refined, in elegant clothing. They saw it as an attack on white supremacy. They were angry that you had black people who were dressed better than white people, because that clothing communicated to everyone that the wearer deserved

respect and dignity. In the nineteen fifties and sixties, civil rights protesters often wore their Sunday best two marches or to lunch counter sit ins, where they could reasonably expect to be met with every variety of indignity, if not violence, police dogs, batons, and fire hoses. More recently, writers and activists have critiqued that sort of protest dress code with

the term respectability politics. They argue that no one should have to dress up to prove that they weren't humane treatment and equal rights, and doing so amounts to a concession to the mainstream oppressive culture. But Rich doesn't see it that way at all. People are bringing their Sunday best. That's not trying to ingratiate yourself with the power structure. That's a statement of defiance. That's a statement of opposition.

It's a demand for dignity. I published a picture of myself running in a beautiful street in London, filling the wind in my hair. That is Massy Elena Jade. She's actually she's the last person to need someone else to introduce her. Okay, get hi, this is Massy. I'm from Iran. I'm a journalist, I'm a campaigner, but mostly I'm a troublemaker for my government. I'm a badass. Massey is also

something of an online phenom. She's got millions of followers, and that photo she mentioned of her running in London started a massive movement. And that shot, taken in two thousand fourteen, Massey's wearing an orange jacket, jeans, a toothy smile, and her long dark hairs like flipped up behind her, still airborne as she descends from a bouncing step. When she posted this photo, women back in Iran left heartsick comments. They were envious of the freedom the Iranian government requires

women by law to wear. His job and just a refresher here on terms. When I say he job, it means that you have to cover your hair in all your body. According to shah Yah Law and Chajury is more strict version of his job, it means that sometimes you have to cover your face as well. Touched by the feedback she received, Massey posted an even more daring photo. This one had been taken in Iran, where she had removed her her job in direct defiance of the dress code.

This snapshot sparked a firestorm. Other women took similar potos and sent them to Massey to share, and soon she was buried in photographs. She uses these images to call attention to the plight of women living under the Islamic Republic of Iran. You've talked about the dress code as the most visible symbol of oppression. Can you explain why you think that it's so important to this government. Look,

I'm gonna just ask a simple question. When you go to my beautiful country, Iran, how are you gonna understand that this is Islamic country through us, through women? Because we are the one that we carry the most visible symbol of Islamic republic. So basically, when Islamics take over the regime, the first thing that they do they write their ideology on our bodies. Massey, We've been talking about the compulsory hid job policies, but obviously there are women

who choose to wear the garment of their own volition. Right, Look, I'm gonna actually make it clear that my dream is to walk shoulder to shoulder with my mother, who wears hitch ab in Iran, in in the West, without being forced both of us to take it off or to put it on. That's it. I mean, both of us want to be our true soul. We don't want anyone

else to make decision over our own bodies. In Western countries, women are sometimes harassed for wearing clothing that isn't secular enough, and a lot of European nations have formally restricted women's head coverings. A woman's agency is hemmed in on both sides of this debate, given that so many fundamental freedoms are restricted in Iran, like female vocalists can't sing a solo for a mixed audience, married women can't obtain a

passport without their husband's permission. People sometimes ask Massey why focus so much on the dress code part of it. If you don't wear a job from the age of seven, you won't be able to go to school. You won't be able to go to university, you won't be able to get any kind of like driving license, not at all. If you say no to compose your job, you won't exist. And that is why for US women, it's not about

small piece of cloud. It's like the Berlin Wall. You know, when we are fighting against it, it means that we want to turn this world down, then the rest will get easier. For Massey, freedom of dress is very much related to freedom of thought. When I live in a country that the regime do not allow me to choose what I put on my head, the same regime won't allow me to control what's going on inside my head.

Massey now lives in the US. In interviews, she often wears a white and yellow flower pinned above her left ear, and she comes off as comfortable, self assured, but her personal choices have had serious ramifications, even within her own family. Yes, my mom wears his job, but my mom is a woman who is not forcing other women to wear hedge job.

My sister is my sister like was forcing me and other women to wear a hedge job because she was educated by the system that you have to take other women to have and by force, and she sees it. Massey had to fight to reclaim her personal freedom, first from her family, then from society and eventually from the government and others have paid for it to the regime actually went after my family arrested, my brother, intrigated, my mother brought my sister on TV to disowned me publicly.

You know that shows that how they're scared of our revolution. These women who send videos to me are going in public protesting against the post to your job. They know about the risk, they know that this is going to be punishable by the regime. One of the women is only twenty years old, Saba. She received twenty four years prison sentence, more than her age. Another woman, Yos a man, she's only twenty two years old and she received sixteen years prison sentence. And I remember the day when I

heard that, I felt guilty. I was like, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna shut down this campaign. But what happened immediately their mothers joined the campaign. Their mother has actually made a video on saying that now we are the voice of our daughters. And to me, these women are like Rosa parks Off Iran what Rosa Parks did is an example for us because now we are suffering

from gender apartheid. When Afghanistan fell to Taliban forces in Massey started receiving images and videos from again women too, bearing their hair or wearing white to protest mandatory dress codes of the new regime. Women of Iran and Afghanistan are the same. They don't want to be victims. They became warriors. They are not waiting for someone to go

and save them. They want to save themselves. When you wake up in the morning and you look in the mirror and you get dressed, are you doing so with an awareness or a solemnity or a gratitude because of the life that you've lived before where you didn't have the freedom to adorn your own body. That's such an amazing question, and I'm going to be very honest with you. Um. Actually, my husband is listening now. Every morning when I wake up, when I see myself in the mirror, I say, oh,

my God, you have such a beautiful wife. Look at me. I'm so beautiful. I grew up in the States relatively free to dress as I liked and pursue a career in music, But in my early days as a rapper. I was so afraid of being accused of leveraging sex appeal to get the job that I wore oversized men's athletic wear on stage, like baggy hoodies, beat up sneakers, and I didn't care much about fashion. A certain aloofness about clothing was almost a way to signal I was

too busy being a serious artist. It's uh, it's sort of like the humble brag of announcing, oh, I don't have a TV. But fashion isn't something that you can opt out of the way that you can dancing with the stars. Even going naked would amount to a fashion statement. Dress codes reinforce group membership, you know, like we're amish, we're nurses, were straight edge, punks, were golfers. Clothing signals or challenges our social identities and our status. It's powerful stuff. Man.

Fashion is important enough to society for governments around the world to get involved. A few hundred years after Queen Elizabeth the First proclaimed that per silk was for the nobility alone, President Barack Obama asked young black men in America to pull up their pants. We care about what we wear and what others were because it's shorthand to understand how we relate to one another. And if there's one thing that remains endlessly, desperately fascinating to humans, it

is other humans. All right, Well, I change out of my podcast finery Man Bandaliers is itchy. Richard was kind enough to indulge me in a little lightning round on his own personal style. Do you own crocs? Crocs? No? No? What do you think about adults in onesies? No? No, nope, unless it's Sean Connery and gold figure suits with tennis shoes. Yes, but I don't think you mean that at all. Camouflage in urban environments not for me and secretly not for

anyone else. Deeply Human is a BBC World Service in American public media co production with I Heart Media, and it's hosted by Mesa. Find me online at Dessa on Instagram and Dessa Darling on Twitter. See you next cast. A crowd of people can feel electric. Everybody plugged into some shared circuit. Feelings are amplified, Voices rise together, body movement sync up Next time on deeply Human. Why do crowds move you