DRESSED DOWN

posted by James Reel

    The Tucson Symphony has sent its subscribers some pointers on concert deportment. One item:

Concert Dress: Wear what makes you feel comfortable! According to a recent survey, 70% of men wear open shirt and slacks, 30% wear a jacket and tie. Of the women surveyed, 60% wear dresses and 40% wear slacks.

    Orchestras and opera companies, attempting to make their fare more accessible, have been getting the word out that there’s no dress code, implied or otherwise, at the concert hall. This is good insofar as starving students and fixed-income seniors needn’t stay home for fear they’ll be ridiculed for not being able to afford fancy dress. Still, I think people should dress as well as they can when they go to a concert. If the best they can really do is a clean button-front shirt and jeans, fine. But a lot of orchestra patrons can do better than that. Why, I wonder, would a guy who has a halfway decent wardrobe want to show up for symphony in a grubby sweatshirt? Never mind showing respect for the musicians, who are required to dress to the nines for our benefit; what about having enough self-respect to clean yourself up before you go out in public?
    Concerts shouldn’t be exclusive events that bar the “wrong” kind of people—those who haven’t reached the upper rungs of society. But concerts are big productions, with dozens of exceptionally talented people working hard (and usually for insufficient compensation) to make the best case they can for some exceptional music. Shouldn’t audience members acknowledge what special occasions these are by fixing themselves up to the best of their abilities?