White Masks after Labor Day? Never!

 RHYS BOWEN: I saw this week that someone on Facebook asked, “Are we wearing white masks after Labor Day? I want to make sure I’m doing the right thing.”

 

While I had a good chuckle this made me think of all the silly rules and conventions we humans invent for ourselves. Who made the rule about not wearing white after Labor Day?  It must have been some socialite at her cottage in Newport RI who proclaimed those cutting words, “Nobody who is anybody would be seen dead wearing white after Labor Day.” Maybe that was because her maid had forgotten to pack her white gloves! Thus everyone made sure they were not seen in white or they wouldn’t be invited to the right places.

 

This is amusing, superficial, but it all goes down to basic survival. I suppose it has a lot to do with wanting to be part of the in-group, wanting to conform, to be accepted by the tribe. I think it’s built into human survival that we want to make sure the tribe does not reject us, because for our ancestors that would mean starvation and death.

 

From childhood on we yearn to be accepted, even more to be popular, and so we do everything we can. God forbid if we wear what’s not fashionable at the moment, or even the wrong brand of clothes. Mortification. Being rejected, or being laughed at, are worse than death. One of my daughters told me that “everyone else in my class” was wearing Calvin Klein jeans. She implied she couldn’t show her face again until she too had Calvin Klein jeans. I sat outside in my car one afternoon and reported that night. Survey on the behinds of sixth graders: it turned out only seven girls wore Calvin Klein. Some even wore the dreaded Sears. Case disproved, I said. I hate you, she said. But obviously it was the seven girls who mattered. It was case of wanting to be accepted by the in-crowd.  (That particular daughter now has the most sophisticated and classic fashion sense. She worked in Germany and learned that in Europe women only a few items of clothing but they are very good quality.)

 

I was always the good child who wanted to look right. There was one very rich girl at my ballet school and I wanted to look just like her. The good thing about living in England was that we wore uniform for most of our lives. No differentiating who was rich and who was poor, except on weekends and at parties.

 

In my kid’s school there were always one or two kids who didn’t care a fig for what was in fashion or the norm. They marched triumphantly to their own drummer, wearing tie-died and flowing or black and scary and not caring that other kids mocked them. I often think that those were the kids who succeeded as adults. I bet Mark Zuckerberg had a button down shirt and pocket protector.

 

 Most of us, however, are desperate to conform: My grandmother would never go out without her hat and gloves. When I was a child men still wore hats and tipped them to ladies as they passed. Remember that? And took them off in church, while ladies covered their heads. And women were slaves to fashion: the new look after WWII with its long skirts, then the A line, Mary Quant and hot pants, flowing hippie flowery garb. It’s that conforming to the tribe so we’re not rejected again, isn’t it?

 

I confess that I still want to be the good child: I peek out of my door at conventions to make sure that what I am wearing to the banquet is neither too dull or too flashy.  I learned the hard way. When I was writing YA books, years ago, a cocktail party was given in my honor at the Frankfurt book fair. I bought fabulous emerald green silk pantsuit. AND… every single other woman in the room was wearing a black cocktail dress. I wished the floor would open and swallow me up, even though I kept telling myself that these people had come to meet me.

So now, even if I’m guest of honor, I still want to look right. I agonize far more about what I’m going to wear than what I’m going to say in my speech (at least I don’t have the fear of speaking in public, like so many people).

 

Yes, I guess I’m still insecure. How about you? Are you comfortable just the way you are, have you always been the confident rebel who wears what she likes, when she likes? Or are you more like me, wanting to look right? Are you going to keep wearing that white mask after Labor Day?