In the year of our Lord and Saviour (Jesus to you, Beyoncé to others, but it’s wee sweet pet Daniel O’Donnell to me) of 2021 why do we still give a damn what people in power wear? Debate has raged since a fashion-police-style column popped up in a national newspaper dissecting Fianna Fáil’s sartorial choices. It read like the things you suspect your mam’s mean aunties were always saying about you before you walked up to them at a family do.
“Fionnula, look now, could she not have put in a bit MORE effort. The state of those shoes ... Jaysus, here she comes ... OH, HAIIII, WE’RE JUST SAYING YOU LOOK GAWJUS.”
However, the author had a point: our clothing choices tell stories. But only because we think they tell us how to treat other people and how people are allowed to treat us. For example, we have to wear certain things so that people trust us to do our jobs well. Professionalism is a dress code just as much as it is a behaviour. We would instinctively trust giving the office keys to a man in a well-cut sports jacket over, say, someone wearing a novelty T-shirt from Malaga with cartoon boobs drawn on it. Our clothes become a costume.
People wouldn't take me seriously if I wore a messy bun and dressing gown while giving you the latest updates on air, even though the information I would have for you would be exactly the same
I cosplay “professional TV news journalist” every day by putting skin-coloured powder on my face and wearing a blazer.
My job essentially is reading things, going to things and talking to people. Then I tell everyone what I’ve seen and heard down a camera and into sitting rooms across the country where people are usually only half-watching while they eat toast and look for kids’ missing schoolbags.
For some reason it was decided the information I have for you counts more if I wear a suit, a pencil dress or a shirt while I tell it to you. That’s why you don’t see me wearing a messy bun and dressing gown giving you the latest updates on air. People wouldn’t take me seriously, even though the information I would have for you would be exactly the same. Maybe it would even be better, if I didn’t have to spend 30 minutes thinking about what to wear and trying to find tights without a ladder in them. (They all have ladders in them when you need them, for that is the law of tights.)
When I come off air my anxiety likes to lie to me that I have missed a key fact, overlooked a statistic or let someone get away with spoofing because I didn’t have the right information to catch them out. I check my mails and the social-media comments occasionally out of neuroticism. But, reassuringly, the complaints rarely have anything to do with what I say, just with what I wear.
“DRESS IS VERY BORING. PINK DOES NOTHING FOR BRIANNA,” said one comment. The offending account’s profile photo was a naked baby posed on a pumpkin. On investigation, I had not made a tiny gourd-loving infant enemy. The account belonged to a grandmother from a picturesque small town. She looked like she had a lovely life full of grandchildren, gardening and holidays. I wondered how she found the time and energy to care about a dress a stranger wore on the telly for a few hours.
She had recently updated her photo with one of those sticker things that you can put over your main photo. “Be Kind,” it said.
I was once refused cold and flu medication from a local pharmacy. It was because I was wearing a full tracksuit: as the medication contained pseudoephedrine, a precursor to meth, staff were trained to deter 'drug seeking' customers
All my colleagues in telly tell me the same thing happens to them. One of the most capable journalists I know has reported from war zones, coups and elections while wearing her pyjamas under her coat because no one will see. But still I am aware that how I dress for work has to get me into certain places, in front of certain people. When my shift is over I take off my make-up, put a 1980s Parramatta Eels jersey on and comfortably morph back into the absolute tiprat that I am.
I don’t care any more, but for years I was always conscious of what clothes I wore to certain places and how people thought my attire gave them permission to treat me a particular way. Groups of my friends have been followed around department stores by security because they were wearing hoodies. “Not tonight, boys: no shirts with logos,” bouncers have said at nightclubs. The problem was never with the clothes but with the class or ethnicity they were shorthand for.
Even seeking medical help required careful clothing selection. I was once refused cold and flu medication from a local pharmacy. “No, we can’t give that to you. Here’s a natural remedy.” Perplexed, I waited until my friend who worked there came back from her break to ask why I was knocked back. She explained gently that the medication contained pseudoephedrine, a precursor to meth, and staff were trained to deter “drug seeking” customers from accessing it.
Then she looked me up and down. I was wearing a full tracksuit. Albeit one stuffed with tissues and with Vicks down the front because I HAD THE FLU. And I got off easy. I know people with chronic health issues who have special “doctor” outfits because they’re afraid they’ll be denied healthcare if their visible tattoos and street clothing are seen.
I often wonder what happens to those who don’t wear “doctor appointment” attire and what treatment they might miss out on. All because of clothes.