Clothes tell the story

An imaginary club in a 1960’s cartoon strip, the 5Ws, reflected an emerging attitude of the time: We wear what we want. No one tells us what to wear: not friends, not parents, not a school dress code and for sure not social expectations.
In the early 1970’s schools dress codes crumbled. As an 18-year-old college freshman I rolled out of bed at 6 a.m., sleepily pulled on black knit slacks, a T-shirt and black jacket, clipped my hair back and enjoyed waking up in the early morning quiet of the cafeteria, wearing comfortable clothes. I thought I had it good – but by the time my youngest entered college, typical 8 a.m. class apparel was a T-shirt, pajama bottoms and a hat to cover sleep ruffled hair – the ultimate Casual Friday apparel.
But casual can go too far. Recently as I walked through a medical office I crossed paths with a staff member wearing a tired looking T-shirt. The clipboard and name tag declared “professional employee,” but I questioned their professionalism.
Don’t get me wrong. Less formal clothing has it merits. By the second day of my son’s hospitalization in the 70’s he cried whenever anyone in white entered his room. After a parade of lab techs and nurses in white he associated white with pain. Hospital personnel have since swapped starchy white for casual, patterned scrubs in a variety of colors.
I am not alone in my un-written dress code. Independent surveys of patients taken 20 years apart regarding physician appearance resulted in the same message: patients prefer for physicians and their staff to dress in a “professional manner.”
The editor of the on-line edition of the medical journal Archives reflected on that survey. He wrote “Although we may not wish to admit that we make judgments on appearance, I think our intuition will tell us we do. For instance, the quality of food in a restaurant may not always be linked to the presence of a dirty table and trash on the floor. But our decision whether to eat there is often determined by this initial impression … Persons with a slovenly physical appearance may be slovenly in their care.”
Okay. People with access to E. Coli had better dress appropriately, but everyone else can belong to the 5Ws .
… Unless that is they are members of the TV crew filming the Queen of England and her friends reviewing the horses. In June Queen Elizabeth II considered it a breach of the dress code when film crew members in T-shirts or open-necked shirts showed up to film her invitation only event. Proper attire dictated suits for men (top hat and tails preferred) and women dressed up and wearing a hat. She was assured it would not happen again.
Okay, except for doctors and people hanging out around the Queen, everyone else can belong to the 5Ws club
… Unless they attend a school with a uniform dress code of school uniform as they have at Strong this year. Members of the 5Ws club had until August 1 to file for the opt out option. Since then some have chipped away at the rules for those not in a uniform.
Perhaps they are kindred spirits with the family of 7-year-old Mark Ashby Jr. of Omaha, Nebraska whose parents allowed him to go to the first day of school with a blue Mohawk. The principal sent him home because the color was disruptive. His parents asked the American Civil Liberties Union to investigate. He was allowed him to return the next day with no explanation.
While the ACLU may support the rights of the 5Ws, they personally show up for court in suits or extremely, dressy casual wear. They know that slovenly appearance infers the possibility of sloppy legal work. And who says that school children do not need to learn that lesson along with reading, writing and arithmetic?