Hello, Open Thread. To all the mothers out there, I hope you got your flowers last Sunday. The big subject of this week: dress codes! This is always one of my favorite subjects because it is really about the social contract (Rousseau in action). Recently, it has surfaced in a number of unexpected places. First, the powers that be at the Cannes Film Festival delineated new official rules of dress, including — shocker! — no full nudity on the red carpet and no “voluminous gowns.” The no-nudity ban got the most attention because “naked dressing” has become such a common attention-getting celebrity strategy, but I actually think the no-big-dresses prohibition has had a … well, bigger and more immediate effect. In part because “nudity” is a relative concept. Does that mean no visible breasts? Or no clothes at all? And in part because policing women’s bodies in the current political environment is a fraught proposition. (The ban, BTW, also applies to men, but no one seemed to think the possibility that Tom Cruise would drop his tuxedo was much of a risk.) Policing trains, on the other hand, is less complicated. Trains have, in recent years, grown to extreme and unwieldy proportions. Just this month, at the Met Gala, Diana Ross won the night with her 18-footer. It’s another shortcut to effective entrance-making and gets you more time alone on the red carpet, which is better for photo ops since no one else can get near you — literally. But, as the Cannes folks pointed out, trains get in the way in the theater and risk getting stepped on, which could be dangerous. Anyway, Halle Berry, a member of the Cannes jury, admitted that she swapped the gown she had planned to wear for the opening ceremony — apparently a Gaurav Gupta number with, yes, a very long train — for a simpler Jacquemus style because of the rules. That’s her new look, above. We will see if others follow her lead. Next up: Starbucks instituted a new dress code for employees, requiring them to wear a solid black shirt under their fir-green apron and black, blue or khaki pants. (Previously they could wear black, white, gray, navy, brown and denim shirts — or patterns mixing all of the above.) Not all employees are apparently happy about the new look, and more than 1,000 of them are now on strike, protesting it. (The union claims it violates their collective bargaining agreement.) As with most dress codes, this is really a question of the individual vs. the institution, and which side takes precedence. Starbucks wants to highlight the brand — it says the green of the logo stands out best against black — but that by definition takes free choice away from the employees and reduces their ability to express themselves through dress. In other words, it’s the coffee equivalent of demanding the return to the man in the gray flannel suit, only this time it’s the barista in the black T-shirt. As with much of what is happening in the United States right now, that makes it very on-trend (the 1950s are having a moment), but also retrograde. Sign of the times, people. Finally, on May 15, otherwise known as Vyshyvanka Day, Volodymyr Zelensky abandoned his now-signature uniform of olive green or black military-style dress for a custom-made vyshyvanka, or traditional embroidered Ukrainian shirt, by the Ukrainian brand Gasanova. That’s not a big surprise since the point of the holiday is to celebrate a Ukrainian folk tradition, and Mr. Zelensky is about nothing more than solidarity with Ukraine, but it is notable given his consistent (and smart) adherence to the military look. Maybe it is a sign that, as with his mineral deal with the United States, there’s room for change. Think about that. Then consider the re-emergence of Catherine, Princess of Wales; check out the diamonds Kim Kardashian wore to testify in the Paris trial of the men accused of tying her up and robbing her in 2016 — and why she may have worn the gems; and mull over the latest escalation in the sports-fashion relationship. Have a good, safe weekend. If you are looking for some escapism, the Eurovision finals are tomorrow. The only dress code there: outrageous.
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Your Style Questions, AnsweredEvery week on Open Thread, Vanessa will answer a reader’s fashion-related question, which you can send to her anytime via email or X. Questions are edited and condensed.
How do I make sense of trends when they range from maximalism to minimalism and seemingly everything in between? I’ve always drawn wardrobe inspiration from fashion magazines and street style, but lately fashion feels too fragmented to decode. How do I decide what to buy? — Sarah, Madison, Wis.Fashion is simply a reflection of the world around it. Trends are fragmented because everything is fragmented these days: how we communicate, who we listen to, how we get information. Once upon a time magazines were the power brokers of what to wear next. Editors attended the shows; decreed what styles, lengths and shades had reached critical mass; put them in their pages; and decided (or at least suggested) what everyone should buy to stay au courant. Now, thanks to social media, that role has also been assumed by influencers, celebrities, the cool kid next door. Pretty much anyone. The result is that often everything seems like a trend (skinny pants! wide pants! bumster pants! high-waist pants!), which conversely means nothing is a trend. When even being anti-trend — deciding to buy nothing or at least nothing new — is trendy, you know we have reached peak trend Dada. Recently my colleague Callie Holtermann wrote an article called “Too Many Trends” (the title really says it all), inspired by the young people she was encountering who felt overwhelmed by the conflicting and relentless messages they were getting about what was in and what was out. I asked her how they handled the situation. She said the kids she interviewed told her that “the more chaotic the trend ecosystem got, the more important it was for them to pay attention to the internal signals of what they liked.” She added, “They’d ask themselves: ‘Can I see myself wearing this in six months? How about six years?’” From the mouths of babes and all that. Because here’s the thing: When there is no way to make sense of trends, the best solution is to give yourself permission to ignore them. Another way of thinking about this is as an opportunity to develop personal style, a concept that has always existed outside of trends. The great dressers of the past — Katharine Hepburn or Shirley Chisholm or Grace Jones — had personal style, which is exactly why we still hold them up as models today. And personal style is really just another phrase for “knowing your own mind” or “independent thinking.” Which, when it comes to clothes, is where we should all be going anyway. Why outsource that most personal of decisions — what you put on your body — to someone else? Practically, that means spending some time thinking about what’s already in your wardrobe, what you actually wear (often only a fraction of it) and why. If, for example, you have been gravitating toward jackets and trousers, that means something. If you like skirts and sweaters or T-shirts more than dresses, ditto. If you like neutrals, that’s also a sign. Same thing with brights. It’s not that you want to replicate what is already in your closet, but your gut is telling you something about how you want to be seen. Then you build from there. The idea is to buy things that coordinate with what you already own so it fits together like a puzzle. (Also, it’s more economical.) And that means ignoring what does not mesh with what you have identified as your own dressing patterns. It also means — please! — no clothing that causes pain or in any way restricts your motion. Part of knowing your own mind is recognizing the silliness of that and being able to liberate yourself from the chaotic autocracy of the trend. It is, after all, an increasingly petty tyrant.
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