012/ Mom, Can You Wear Something More Basic?

How my eight-year-old son prompted a discussion about dressing norms

Hello dear readers, I wanted to start by thanking all of you for reading this newsletter today.

Over 900 of you have subscribed to In Moda Veritas, which…kind of blows my mind?  The idea for this newsletter came to me on one of my daily walks a month and a half ago, and within three weeks, In Moda Veritas (“in style, there is truth”) was born. I thought I’d get maybe 100 readers when I launched (mostly friends and family lol) and that it would be really cool to reach 1,000 readers within a year. Well, it’s only been two weeks, and I’m already almost there.

***mind blown *** In Korea, we have an expression that I love — 신기하다 (shin gi ha da) — which I want to use to describe how I feel. It loosely means “amazing,” but with added layers of mystery or surprise. Whatever this alchemy is, thank you for believing in it.

Anyway, onto the main content of the post. I hope you will join the discussion in the comment section below!

Socio-Cultural Dressing Norms: A Risk Assessment

If you’ve read my last post or have seen my Instagram, you may remember our family was vacationing in Guadeloupe for March Break. As we were getting ready to head to dinner one night, I emerged from the washroom wearing the outfit on the left, when my eight-year-old son said to me: “Can you wear something more basic like a t-shirt and shorts? Can you just wear what you wore yesterday?“

 Left: Cecilie Bahnsen Janet skirt, Zara cropped organza top; Mimi a la Mer bikini top; beaded earrings from Etsy; Tibi Rudolph flat. Middle: Tibi Italian Sporty Nylon Cami dress; Ancient Greek Sandals Celia flats. Right: Zara poplin culottes; APC Eva bag; Tibi Rudolph flat. 

As sophisticated fashion consumers, you know that “basic” has a very specific meaning in this space (ha!). I quickly reasoned that it was unlikely he was using “basic” in that context, and asked him if he was embarrassed by what I was wearing. (Yes, he was.) The next day, when he saw me in the outfit on the right, he said to me unprompted: “Good mama, that’s very basic.” Seizing the moment, I asked him what he meant by “basic”, and he said: “by basic, I mean normal.” Wooboy.

I actually did change into the middle outfit for dinner that night, not because of his comments (I swear!), but because I wasn’t 100% happy with the styling, which I go into more detail about here. But the exchange stuck with me, and seems to have resonated with many of you too based on all of the DMs I received. Because whether we’re conscious of it or not, we’re social beings who live in societies with written and unwritten norms which guide our behaviours, including what we decide to wear every day.

Most obviously, without any deliberate thought, we always wear garments that cover what society deems our “private parts.” We instinctively know not to show up in a floor-length ball gown to the PTA meeting even if the dress code isn’t listed in the Mailchimp agenda. And by now, it’s a Law of Nature that Crocs will always be ugly, even if Balenciaga did them.

Social codes develop to help society run smoothly; they give everyone a baseline of what is expected of them and what to expect from others. The tricky thing with these codes is that they change, across neighbourhoods and national lines, but also cultural and religious ones. Navigating them correctly and graciously is a rarefied skill.

So what do you do when how you want to dress is outside the socio-cultural norm? And how important is it to respect norms, anyway? What are the consequences of not doing so?

For some people, expressing themselves authentically, including in how they dress, is a need; not being able to do so is stifling, and at the extreme end, depressing. Yet as a social species, it’s important to our survival to be accepted and supported within the in-group; in some groups, the consequences of not conforming are severe and potentially life-threatening.

So does the answer come down to a (sub)conscious risk assessment?

We are still talking about clothes, by the way. I think we are all on the same page that dressing up too much for the situation isn’t going to kill anyone, but fashion risks can still be risky.

For the most part, in environments I am familiar with, I mentally note the dress code — such as the appropriate level of formality or how trendy people dress — and take it into account when getting dressed. Sometimes I decide to wear something because I’m feeling the vibe but I know it will be an outlier. In doing so, I understand that by choosing to stand out rather than blend in, I am opening myself up to judgement (whether positive or negative). There may be times where I don’t think that risk is worth it, and others when I’ve frankly got no f*cks to give.

When I’m in an environment I’m unfamiliar with, including when I travel, I’m much more likely to dress within what I understand the norms to be. I think this is because I don’t have enough information to assess whether I can push the envelope without causing great offence, or even — in some cases, it’s important to acknowledge — compromising my physical safety. (Another vain reason is that I would loathe to be labelled a culturally insensitive philistine. The horror!)

As for my experience with my son’s comment last week, we were headed to a buffet dinner at a family-friendly resort that certainly wasn’t trendy. It wasn’t formal either, but at the same time, the guests were primarily French and in my experience, they do maintain a minimum level of decorum at dinner, such as wearing a collared shirt and proper shoes (e.g. you won’t see them showing up in tracksuits and flip-flops).

I think my son intuitively understood that my Cecilie Bahnsen outfit was way outside the norm, and for him, at the tender age of eight, that instinctively felt unsafe. He doesn’t have the maturity and experience to analyze why he felt embarrassed or to realize that it was low-risk — it would have been fine to dress however we wanted in this particular environment. So yes, that is my conclusion: had I been happy with the styling of the Cecilie outfit, I would have worn it!

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below! Tell me about comments you’ve received from your children about what you wear, or tell me about your high- or low-risk looks. I’d love to hear your stories too.