Dress Code

When did a dress code for a funeral become a thing?

Obviously, I know that there are traditions about what convention dictates you should wear, which vary from country to country and change over time but in the last few weeks I have been asked (sometimes by strangers) what they should wear on Friday.  My answer is always, "clothes," but I think they want me to be more specific.

In England it all started with the Romans, who would wear dark togas to express their grief.  This continued with most people wearing dark colours as a mark of respect until the Victorians came along and made their rules. In Spain, they wore white. At the end of the Victorian period mourning clothes were a family's outward sign of their grief.  The rules were outlined in household manuals.Women had it hard they had to wear black for a specified length of time , avoid satin, lace  or embroidery and wear dresses or hats trimmed with crepe - a hard scratchy material.  Men were let off much more lightly and would wear their usual suit with black gloves, hatbands and cravats.  Children were not expected to wear mourning clothes.  Widows were expected to wear full mourning for two years and half mourning for another two.  It was a year for parents grandparents and siblings and four weeks for cousins.

I can see why people want to kick back against all those rules.  I've been to funerals where we were told to wear bright clothes, something red or butterflies.  Friday is red nose day, so maybe we should insist on red noses.

However, none of us have any particular desire to tell people what to wear.

It's difficult enough without a particular thing being imposed.  I wanted to wear black.  I wear black all the time, so I should have just been able to open my wardrobe but all my dresses looked tired, like me.  Several trips out and I have found a dress that looks nice and I will wear again.  In Miss Selfridge I got quite excited because I thought I'd found the perfect dress: a dress with pockets. Unfortunately, it had a split to the thigh, which somehow didn't seem like appropriate funeral attire.  The Long Suffering Husband has used the funeral as an excuse to get a new suit.  He has a brown one, which would have been fine but it was a bit snug and he really hankered after a blue suit.  The lady in the shop wasn't too pushy but she was friendly.  She told him that he looked very nice in it, "Are you going somewhere nice, wedding, party?" she asked.
"Funeral," I whispered, not intentionally (it happens when you lose your voice)
"Pardon?" (That's what they all say)
The LSH told her and her brows knitted together.
"Oh? Blue? For a funeral? That's.  I mean. That's. Well, I wouldn't have asked. Normally it's black or charcoal grey. Are you sure, you're allowed to wear blue?"
We assured her it would be fine.
"Have you asked?" She was clearly very concerned about the LSH making a huge social mistake.
"Asked who?" I wondered.
"The relatives." She was certain that we should have checked the dress code.
"Oh," I said
"Darling," the LSH questioned, "Do you think it would be alright if I wore a blue suit to your Dad's funeral?"
I assured him that it would.
The lady briefly stepped back but recovered her composure quickly.
"That's why you've lost your voice," she said, "It'll be the stress."

One of the conversations I'd had with Dad in the last week had been about dress code.  The Youth Orchestra had agreed to do a concert for the Mayor, who was more particular about what the audience should wear than the quality of the music they were to listen to.  He had made quite a big deal out of it and had made comments like, "I know how you ladies like to dress up."  Dad thought this was all quite funny.  He asked me to post two pictures on out committee chat page, which is what he thought we should wear.

I'm not sure it's how he'd interpret a funeral dress code but who knows?

Clothes make the man; women can wear what they like.

My son's school has a new headmaster who likes suits.  I should rephrase that because there are no such things as schools anymore; they're academies and headmasters are principals but I'm an old grumpy woman and so I'm not going to.

When I was in the sixth form we had a new headmaster, a Dr of Maths, who stayed in his office and didn't talk to anyone and he also liked suits.  He thought we were scruffy.  Some of us were but we were finding out our own style, wearing what we felt comfortable in and suits wouldn't have made us smarter anyway.

Dr Maths (I don't actually remember his name but it was probably something like Smith) decided to impose a dress code on the sixth form.  No longer were we to wear jeans or t-shirts, have coloured hair, painted nails and the boys were not allowed earrings.  I remember discussions.  I remember everyone getting upset but I don't remember anything changing.  That was in 1984, when people did wear suits to work; when men wore ties and jackets without making everyone worry that they were about to attend a funeral, so I was quite surprised to find history repeating itself. However, we were a militant lot.  No one was going to tell us what to do. Students (and parents are much more fearful and likely to tow the line these days.

One of my friends was sent home for dying her hair black.  She came back the next day with bright green hair, as a result of trying to bleach it back to blond.  "See," we said, "you should have left her alone."  She was one of the cleverest girls in the school and black hair wasn't going to stop her fulfilling her potential and her Mohawk looked much better in green anyway.  I wasn't brave with my outfits.  I would wear tailored trousers and had a pair of red low stilettos, with a matching scarf and  gloves.  I thought I looked amazing until I walked past a group of younger students.  One of them said, "God, I hate that girl, with her matching accessories, she really thinks she's it!" and another girl, whose voice I recognised agreed adding a few other more accurate comments on my awful character. Sisterly love was never very strong in our family.

I remember my form and maths teacher (who was a bit of a hero of mine) discussing the issues with us.  She  pointed out that any dress code was sexist as it defined men and women.  In those days, the girls were meant to wear skirts or dresses and boys were supposed to wear suit and tie. Now, nobody would dream of telling a woman she wasn't allowed to wear trousers, although wearing a skirt with leggings does apparently exclude a female journalist from walking around a building site with an MP. This means that women have more choice in what they wear. Men are still to embrace the skirt as a fashion choice and although they don't know what they're missing, especially in warm weather, when it's nice to have a bit of a breeze around your nethers, it has naturally diminished their choices.

Psychology has a lot to say on this subject.

We know that how you dress can affect how other people rate your performance.  In an interesting study  by Joel Wapnick, Jola Kovacs Mazza & Alice-Ann Darrow (Journal of Research in Music Education, winter 1998, vol 46 no 4, p510-521)  how someone dressed did significantly change how their performance was valued.  People were asked to rate people on attractiveness, the way they used the stage and what they wore, others were shown a video with sound of the performance and a third group were asked to rate an audio version of the performance.  They found that those who scored highly on stage presence and dress also scored significantly better on the ratings of their performance where the video was also shown.  Attractiveness also had a slight effect, which is a shame for any ugly musician.

But it's not a simple cause and effect.

Many businesses (especially American Companies) are adopting casual dress codes.  Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Linkdn and many others recommend their employees dress casually, as is enables them to be more creative.  Employees like this freedom.  In a 1998 survey by USA Today, 64% of respondents said they work more efficiently in casual dress.  When asked about this casual way of dressing for work employees cite many benefits (such as comfort, increased camaraderie and better work environments), while only 4% perceived any negative impact.

When people are allowed to make their own choices about what they wear for work many will wear certain things that they believe make them more productive.  I have a brown cardigan that I often wear when writing and I think it makes me write better (I'm not wearing it now, which explains a lot) and means that I can even write in my PJs.  As long as I slip my comfy cardi over the top I'm ready to work.

It is all to do with what associations people have with the outfit.

Hajo Adam and Adam D Galinsky wrote a paper called Enclothed Cognition (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, July 2012, Vol 48(4), p918-925), where they asked participants to take part in the Stroop test.  The Stroop test is the one where you are shown things like this and asked to state the colour the word is written in.

BLUE   GREEN  RED  YELLOW

It's a test that shows how well someone is able to direct their attention, as we tend to process the written word quicker than we process the colour.  In this experiment, the Adams noticed that if they asked people to wear a white coat they performed better on the test but only if they told them that it was a doctor's coat.  If they told them it was a painter's coat they didn't perform any better.

When I go to work I dress like a teacher.  I wear a dress or a pair of trousers and a top.  Children are always very interested in my shoes and often make comments on my outfit,  "Ooh, I like your top," they say.  I don't think my lessons are any better than they would be if I was in my PJs.  When I teach privately at home I wear jeans, a sloppy cardigan and slippers and my pupils don't tend to comment.
It doesn't matter how much effort you put into your outfit, how someone sees it will probably depend on how they think of you.  The naughty kids will get told off for short skirts or loose ties when the clever, polite ones will get away with it.  My daughter was told that her bright red dyed hair was beautiful when others were sent home for a similar hairstyle choice.  Last week, I wore a blouse that had buttons down the back.  A child laughed, "For a moment I thought you had your top on back to front but then I realised it was meant to be like that."  I joined in with the laughter and then another child said, "Oh, I thought so too but I didn't like to say," and I realised that they all saw me as a batty old woman who might not be able to dress herself properly anymore.

It could be an interesting few months.  I hope that sixth form students still have a little bit of fight in them.