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[edit] Do these categories apply everywhere

Tim, your article on dress code seems very simplistic to me. Who makes the rules? Where did they come from? Who is Western and who isn't?

Seems to me that your "rules" come from etiquette books based on English upper-class rules as imitated by a conservative US elite. North-eastern US elite. Frex, doesn't describe the situation here in Hawai'i at ALL.

I think you ought to narrow the scope of your article and include more documentation and historical discussion. Zora 03:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I agree it needs lots more work. I'd be interested to know in which way it doesn't describe the situation in Hawai'i (ie. can you give me one example). Let me ask a different question; if I removed the "typical events" column, would it then match the Hawai'ian situation? TimNelson 03:30, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Um, I dunno about the uppper levels of Hawaii high society, since I've never moved in them. But my sense is that we just don't have formal affairs here the way they do in New York. For office wear, women can wear normal Western fashion, mu'umu'us, or, Japanese-influenced Western fashion (lots of that). Men will wear loafers, slacks, and reverse-print button-down aloha shirts. Suits are rare. For dress-up, women wear fancy versions of the above, and men can wear fancy aloha shirts or Filipino embroidered shirts. Especially if it's politics and guys need to look local. Leis are usually a sign of a special occasion (you see someone wearing a lei and you ask if it's a special occasion) but some people just like to wear them all the time. My Hawaiian teacher wears a lei every single day.

Hawai'i is part of the US and the US is usually considered Western, but here's one place that doesn't play by the rules you described. I imagine that this would be true of many places. There would be local inflections of the rules everywhere.

If you're talking about international elite wear, then you start running into problems with fashion. Fashionistas make and break rules. You show that you run with the in-crowd by picking up the new rules before they filter down to the masses. Plus you're going to have different crowds. Rules for the British royal family are NOT going to be the same rules followed by the glitterati of Portofino.

So, whose rules are those? I think they're London and New York old money rules myself, and while they're influential, they don't govern everything people wear. Zora 03:52, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

--

Thanks for this -- I've modified the page to make a distinction between what people mean when they say "business wear", and what they actually wear to the office.

Your specification of what people are wearing falls into three categories:

• Stuff specified on the Dress code (Western) page (the rare suits you mentioned)
• Non-wastern stuff (Filipino, Hawai'ian, Japanese)
• Western fashion items

I expect that you can see why I think we're essentially arguing about the third category here.

I'm not trying to say "wear this in these situations", but only "what should I wear if I see X on an invitation". If you see "formal" or "white tie" on an invitation, that tells you what to wear. You state "we just don't have formal affairs here". Hence, only the bottom categories (up to "Informal") apply.

As you've said, different crowds will wear different things. I'll take the two examples you mentioned:

• The British royal family: some of the events they attend will be labelled "White tie". Turn up in something else, and you won't be allowed in. Many of the events they attend don't have a dress code, so then there is a much wider range of clothes to select from.
• The glitterati of Portofino: I'd never heard of Portofino until now, but I'm assuming they're a crowd who follow fashions to a greater degree than the British royal family (if this assumption is wrong, please let me know -- Google Images turned up no hits for glitterati portofino). The dress code on their events is probably in the upper levels of casual; just because that's as high up as they ever dress when not working, doesn't mean the other categories don't exist. I don't think it's a bad thing that some people only ever dress that high (I'm writing this in a tattered shirt :) ).

It's been useful interacting with you -- feel free to keep it up.

TimNelson 04:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Call for help

If anyone can find links that cover the following items, that would be great.

In lieu of that, if anyone wants to develop this content in line with the suggestions in Cracking the Dress Code that would be wonderful (NB: don't just copy any of that stuff in; it might be copyright.

The items that need covering are:

• Casual chic (I've put in a request for this one)
• Rugged attire
• Leisure attire

Also, I'm unaware if clothing is temporally bimorphic for women (ie. do women wear different clothes in the morning/day and the evening?; if so, I suspect that what's already there is for the evening

TimNelson 22:36, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Too much ambiguity

This categorization seems too ambiguous. For example, evening gown is here listed as cooresponding to women's black tie dress, but the evening gown article says that it can refer to either women's black tie or white tie dress.--Azer Red Si? 00:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)