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| Sunday, 11 April 2004 |
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Black tie, Lounge, National ... What do they mean, and why do they matter? Karel Roberts Ratnaweera helps demystify the etiquette of attire
Last week an invitation card was delivered and the Dress Code said Black Tie. It was for cocktails and dinner. But the invitation was in two sections above the Black Tie part was a connected event beginning at five p.m. which was also for cocktails but in this country you don't go out in black tie at five o'clock in the evening! The term Black Tie on invitations is not properly understood in Sri Lanka. Most people think it means an ordinary black tie that it worn to funerals, so a wag in the department suggested that an undertaker whose firm's name is a household word in the country, be asked whether he could kindly supply a black tie for a special occasion! The Black Tie that is printed in invitations for formal occasions refers to a black bow-tie that is worn with a black suit;black ties are worn with white suits only by hotel stewards and some others. Even more formal is the white tie-also a bow-tie-which is never seen here because it is worn with tails, meaning a tail-coat such as great musicians giving concerts at London's Royal Festival Hall or America's counterpart Carnegie Hall-named after a Scottish peer, mind you-wear. Some famous musicians have performed in Colombo dressed in white tie and tails, and it is indeed an elegant sight.
Every man is in lounge suit everyday in cold countries! Nowadays most invitations say Smart Casual for dress codes, which means that, short of denims, a woman may dress casually but not the kind of casualness she would wear on a visit to the zoo. Which all amounts to the fact that a woman has to take her dress cue from the man which is very practical.Look at it this way: There is an invitation to a formal occasion like a National Day and formal dress is specified. It could hardly lay down in print that women should wear silk sarees or dresses with gold jewellery and formal accessories,now, can it ? So women,continue to be content to take your dress cue from the man, whoever the man you are going out with, or even if you are going alone. You should not be inappropriately dressed because it is an insult to your host, and that is rude. All these nice ties have come down to us, the English-speaking if not exactly English-educated,by our last colonial masters, the British.. Not that the other two foreign 'missions' here didn't have social occasions to which they sent out invitations. It is this social group that adheres to these norms of dress and social behaviour. For all the shouting that is being done about equality between the sexes, the fact is that Nature decreed it otherwise.Vive la difference! That is what the French say with great exuberance, and it means'long live the difference!' Every religion we are familiar with underscores the difference between the sexes. Some say that clothes are a superficial issue. Clothes, in fact are not superficial. There is a saying in English that clothes maketh the man, and that is taken seriously by society. Examples are not necessary to be set out here because they are too well-known. may be hungry and thirsty, but you can't go about naked. |
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As a woman, when I get an invitation for any event, I look first at the
event, of course, and then at the Dress Code which is printed at the end
of the card.
But what I am getting at is that the Dress Code specified on invitation
cards applies to what men have to wear; the women take their cue from
that. So when it is Black Tie,National or Lounge,so the woman has to dress
formally because in Sri Lanka National and Lounge are formal wear,although
in the West, lounge suit is strictly not formal.
