Wearing My Blues

Because it’s summer vacation and there’s really nothing much to really dress up for, I take the opportunity to wear my blues more often.

Were it not for convention, I would wear them the whole year round. I mean, in the eighties, I used to enter classrooms wearing a pair of denims and a shirt – my favorite attire, the style I’m most comfortable with – until a silly memo came out from somewhere saying that teachers should not be dressing so casually.

Somebody in the upper echelons of education – and old-fashioned hag is my guess – decided teachers should not be wearing denims anymore.

Duh!!! What’s that got to do with teaching? If I dressed up in the fanciest clothes then did nothing inside the classroom but make my students copy notes from the blackboard all day long, where would that leave them?

And there are people of that ilk, believe me…

Don’t ask me what the objection to denims is because I simply do not know. On the premise that denims first came to be as the working man’s clothes – because they were cheap and sturdy – then to brand them as “rugged” or even just “casual” and not fit to be worn to school was probably discriminatory.

There are, of course, limits to what I would consider acceptable – yes, even with denims. I wouldn’t think torn denims are appropriate at all; but having said that, if I tore parts of my slacks they would, technically, not be considered inappropriate for the simple reason that they are not denims.

I wouldn’t do that, of course, because I would only look stupid.

That’s exactly the point. If one dresses up sensibly – i.e. clean, comfortably and without being vulgar or offensive – and if one, more importantly, produces the goods when at work, then what’s the big deal if he’s wearing denims?

Would it make sense if I dressed up in a fancy suit and then played Windows’ Solitaire all day?

Well, I just treated myself to a pair of blues, and in the summer heat, wearing these with a clean shirt can be nothing but appropriate. And no, I do not play Windows’ Solitaire…

[First published on Facebook on 10 April 2008.]

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