English Version | Mentally Coded

Dress codes are everywhere — quite literally, everywhere. You can find them in their most literal ways amidst small kids going to their morning private daycare with their tiny bows and short khakis and in between the flight attendants with their white collar shirts and their blue vests that are urging you to your seat and raising your tray and backrest. Of course, you can also find them in more subtle ways amongst moms on their way to their high-end gyms with their luxury pilates-wear and their carry-all bags or with the finance-bro, who just got his first high-paying trade job, bought new leather shoes, a tailored suit and that specific brand of watch we all know about.

Whether they’re called uniforms, safety gear, work-wear, styles or even “aesthetics”, dress codes have been a part of society since the beginning of time. Not limited of course to one job or activity and rather set to work as differentiators of class, hierarchy and position, dress codes are either written or verbally set rules that dictate how you should dress, what you should look like and how whilst trying to differentiate ourselves from other outside your group, you blend in with your peers inside the same “tribe”. Ironic, isn’t it?

Tracing back dress codes is a task that has been done by scholars before and who’ve eventually synthesized everything into simple lines and examples. In the western world, we can find some examples looking to Europe back in the seventh, eight or ninth century, where classes were distinguished by what clothes they wore. Whether you’re a baron, a viscount, a marquess or duke, it was easy to tell by what you wore to the ball. Of course, for those with no nobility, it was even clearer to the eye of the beholder, as their clothes were not even close to what the more fortunate of the time wore.

From there, we can move further down through time and history and trace how clothes were used (and still are used) as symbols of class and power. From the usage of iconic fabrics and silhouettes of some of the original big designers to the very unfortunate logo-mania that rose in the begging of the 2000s and somehow has crawled back into fashion trends currently, our clothes spoke and speak volumes, but how much is that volume linked to a dress code we might not even know we’re following?

Before dwelling deeper and breaking down the codes of the dress, there’s a distinction that should be made. Whilst uniforms and work-wear are technically classified as dress codes, for the effect of this piece, we’ll do a separation between enforceable dress codes and self-imposed dress codes. That is, dress codes like uniforms, work-wear, work-gear, branded pieces, etc, that one must wear while at work will be set to the side, as that is a separate corporate battle that is not to be taken on here. Sure, one will always be pro individualism, self expressionism and the proper portrayal of one’s avatar, but corporate uniforms fulfill other sets of purposes that while might seem found-less to some, are logical to others, and that in itself is a whole other article on its own. For our current piece, we’ll focus on self-imposed dress codes that could be applicable in work scenarios, social scenarios, private scenarios and much more.

Now, let’s go back in and address the question you must now have — what does one mean by self-imposed dress codes?

For those who grew up in a uniform, catholic or private type school, take a stroll back in time and be reminded of those days in high-school when instead of the regular uniform you were allowed to go in with “normal clothes”. What a mind whirl it was to pick the perfect look the night before the big day. It had to be the perfect low-rise jean, whose waist was low enough to perfectly match the long, rhinestoned, t-shirt you’d bought for this exact occasion. From there, the big question was if you were going to be a potential trend-setter (or fashion victim) and layer a long-sleeve under or a skinny scarf on top. The possibilities were endless, yet somehow you all ended up looking the same.

From there, you choose either to jump into college or even better, your first internship. Somehow, the week before the big start, you realize that nothing in your wardrobe is appropriate to whatever field you’ve been studying to work in for the past three to four years. You then ask your mother, or father, who concur that business casual is the way to go, but what even is business casual? What is that dichotomy of terms that somehow makes sense and justifies polo shirts in the office and seems to be solved with just throwing a loose fabric blazer on top of anything?

And let’s not even get started on weddings. As you get older and your friends start settling down, invites start to roll up, and with them, dress codes as to what to wear to their big day. Of course, you want to look the part, but with each invite, the dress code gets crazier and more ambiguous — almost like a MET Gala theme. “Cabana chic”, for the couple marrying on the beach. “Whimsical couture”, for those who chose the Alps in spring. “Tropical eleganza”, is what the one pair who got married in the tropics decided to go for. Not even a RuPaul’s Drag Race runway was this conceptual.

Now, those are the ones where something is somehow written down — whether it is in the company handbook, the wedding invite or your mom’s phrases of advice. What about the unwritten ones? These, one could argue, are the hardest ones to break, and the easiest ones to lose yourself into.

Let’s revert a bit to the origin of dress codes — originally, they were meant to distinguish and identify an individual apart from others that did not share his status or position and blend him in with those who did. While on paper that sounds like an archaic term, reality is that today, that is still very much in effect — the thing is that we stopped calling them dress codes and now call them styles, trends and aesthetics.

And now this in itself might sound silly or ironic, as when one thinks of styles one normally goes to the extremes, and combined with dress codes, the only example our mind can come up with ends up being emos, who to be fair, have done a fantastic job upkeeping dress codes amidst their subculture across the world. But reality is that there are self imposed dress codes everywhere, yourself probably wearing one or two at this very moment.

Think about the trends, think about the latest thing Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid or Hailey Bieber popularized. Quick example was last year when Jenner, Hadid and other models were seen using their platform Uggs alongside their “supermodel off duty” looks and in a matter of days the Uggs (and their dupes) were everywhere. Sure, we then called it a trend, but didn’t it become too a dress code for those part of the “cool, it-girl gang”? After all, there is no set rules on how long a piece or style should be a part of a dress code or should be “active” to even be considered a dress code, it’s just a matter of acceptance and trends, if you’re part of the “it-girl” community, are their favorite thing to enforce.

Here is where you say, “I’m not part of that community, I’m an individual, I have my own style”. And perhaps, that is true, but up to some extent, we’re all subject to trends and thus, to dress codes. Even the pure antithesis of the it-girl, she who never follows any trend and swears by a classic, timeless, style is in itself portraying a dress code — one that some might even call “old money” or “quiet luxury” if you may.

Now that we’ve established that there are dress codes embedded in our everyday life, literally everywhere we look, what do we do with this information? Well, it all comes down to how we onboard it and how we take it. Let’s start by looking at workplaces. Nowadays, most workplaces don’t have a set dress code, especially within the creative industry — yet somehow, we feel the need to live up to certain expectations or styles when it comes to showing up at the office, and after-work mingle or a company dinner.

Dress codes in itself aren’t intrinsically bad — to be fair, very few things are. The blame on the dress code would come down when we sacrifice ourselves to serve or fit in into the code of the dress. Whether it is to attend our nine to five job at a communications agency, our creative position at a fashion magazine or to party at Berghain with the German cool kids, dress codes should not limit who we are and how we express ourselves to the world.

Who said that a red lip was not applicable for a Monday morning meeting (just because it’s too bold and bright)? Who said that trainers and gowns are not office appropriate? At the end of the day, dress codes (when not imposed by corporate jargon and bureaucratic red tape) are most of the time mental blocks that impede us from reaching our full potential when it comes to experimenting and expressing ourselves through our style and beauty. The fear of going too far or doing too much ends up being the biggest code enforcer we can find, as we ourselves censor our own expressionism in the fear of standing “too much” out or making a fool of ourselves with our looks and applications.

Truth is we’ll never be able to get rid of dress codes all together, they’re engraved and embedded into society and subcultures in a way that it’s impossible to eradicate. And even here, it could be that we don’t need to eradicate them — perhaps, in some weird way, they’re allowing us to find ourselves or at least learn to discover who we are and how we fit in the world. Nonetheless, while they can and should work as guides, that’s all they should be — lines we’re allowed to color outside of, not walls of containment for our creativity and self.

Whether it is in fashion or in beauty, our avatar is the one thing we can customize to our liking. Change the clothes, change the hair, change the makeup and change the face. The possibilities are endless and looking like everyone else should never be the goal. But with that said, could it be that the biggest dress code is the one we imposed on ourselves? One that is keeping us from reaching the full potential we’ve been bestowed with and finally evolving into our truest most advanced self? Mentally coded to fit in and to not do more?

Translated from the original on The Coming Back Issue, published September 2023. Full stories and credits on the print issue.