An Inscrutable Code of Dress
A few days ago, Noel forwarded me an e-mail relaying key information about his upcoming company Christmas party.
All,
The attire for the Holiday party is any of the following… Festive, After-Five, Business Casual, (No Jeans Please)
To me, this this dress code is, indeed, inscrutable. Having chosen the life and career path that leads through the extended labyrinths of academia, where professors dress in anything from turtlenecks with gypsy skirts to full-body ensembles in eggplant. Occasionally, there is a sweater vest involved. Also, mismatched earrings.
Emerging from this context, these random and randomly capitalized words — “Festive,” “After Five,” “Business Casual” — seem obtuse, exclusionary, and even foreboding. Had I not done my research on Google, I may have assumed that “Festive” would be fulfilled by wearing something like:
Turns out, “Festive” is just code for “sparkly.” A shiny blouse, some sort of extravagant bling, a sequin or two. It remains unclear if this reported definition of “Festive” means Noel should wear something like this:
“After Five” is also problematic. To simply declare a particular type of attire “After Five” presumes a hegemonic consensus on what one wears post-five o’clock. What about class? What about race? What about gender? It’s colonial, really. And, should you be wondering, at this time of year, after I finish with school, I am most likely to be wearing this after five:
And, judging from extant literature on the subject (which is how we roll in grad school), the definition of “Business Casual” is still fraught. Even Noel’s company cannot trust its employees to correctly interpret the coded phrase without the helpful parentheses: “(No jeans).” If business folks don’t know what it means then, really, how much hope can I really have?
On the other hand, given the sheer range of formality and, um, tastefulness, of attire at last year’s party, perhaps giving a suggested attire — no matter how inscrutable — is still an improvement.
Now to go buy that elf costume…
april said:
on November 29, 2007 at 9:53 pm
i heard you posted just for suzanne’s benefit
elissa said:
on November 29, 2007 at 9:59 pm
so true. i was thinking about this for a few days, but suz provided the impetus to actually write it out.
Suzanne said:
on November 30, 2007 at 6:17 am
Yeah for blogging. Yeah for festive-wear.
I think of the western ties…
Rebekah said:
on November 30, 2007 at 9:13 am
Yeah, dress for the Coptix Christmas party is listed on the invitation as “Cocktail Casual.” I’m still trying to figure out what that means… In my mind, the connotation of each word seems to cancel out the other.