Living in Boston, it goes without saying that baseball is the great American past time. In waves of red and blue, thousands brave the cramped seats of Fenway and cheer on the Sox, snacking on ball park snacks like Fenway franks and cotton candy (well, maybe I'm the only adult who seizes any and every opportunity for cotton candy). Yet, there are other American past times that necessitate a very different dress code, including: the theater, the ballet, and the opera.
As a little girl, I always looked forward to the holidays, when my mother would present me with a spectacular "Christmas dress" that I would actually get to wear before Christmas when we went to the Boston Ballet's performance of The Nutcracker. Barely aging double-digits, I understood that these outings required fine apparel, and this lesson has remained with me.
Thus, it is with disbelief that I have to ask: Can someone please tell me when theatre-going America officially turned its back on fashion etiquette? In New York this past weekend, I received a rude awakening while innocently enjoying an evening at the theatre. When the lights came up, I couldn't believe my eyes: denim (and I don't mean R&R, Seven, or True Religion), sneakers, and sweatshirts--OH, MY! It might as well have been lions, tigers, and bears.
Still in shock after returning home, I googled furiously. After reviewing handfuls of articles on theatre dress code, I found myself somewhat defeated; popular consensus indicates that theatre dress is officially a thing of the past (or, as bestie and fellow blogger Lizzyh113 might say, a ghost of theatres past).
Fortunately, in addition to etiquette, my mother also taught her stubborn daughter that you can drag a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. I guess that makes me the horse in this scenario, for I refuse to drink from the bitter fountain of fashion faux pas. So let them wear sneakers! You will still find me in the orchestra section, dressed to the nines, for in the words of Marc Jacobs, "Happy, happy fashion--there is not much more to it than that."
Photos: (1) The Critic by Weegee, featuring Mrs. George Washington Kavanaugh (my great-great-grandmother) and Lady Deices entering the opera in NYC, 1943 (courtesy of the International Center for Photography http://museum.icp.org/). (2) My friends and I, en route to the theatre in NYC, 2009.
No comments:
Post a Comment