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SMART CASUAL
- South African STYLE
- James Clarke
I was invited to Austria not long ago, and advised
to bring along a dark suit because some of the events
would be grown up affairs and quite formal. Austrian
males can be VERY formal. There's a lot of clicking
the heels and saying, “Guten tag, freut mich”.
Vienna was having a festival and they had invited me
to help them celebrate it, which is a talent of mine.
One just has to wear a buttoned-up suit and keep shouting
"Prost!" and remember to click the heels whenever
one shakes hands with anybody taller than oneself.
I can handle this sort of formality. What I really
can't handle is when, in South Africa, people tell me
to come “bush casual".
I have complained about this before (The Journal of
Sartorial Correctness Vol.1 Part iv pp 83-167), but
to no avail.
Recently I received an invitation card to a "bush-casual"
event that was, incongruously, gold trimmed. It was
to be in the grounds of a large house in a posh part
of Johannesburg. It involved a braaivleis, or “barbecue”
as these people preferred to call it. There IS a difference.
At a barbecue they have serviettes and you drink out
of glasses. A braaivleis is, well, very casual. Almost
Australian.
Naturally, I just wore my khaki stuff and no socks.
Everybody stared at me and talked to me as if I was
a cos lettuce. But that, to me, was dressing "bush
casual". If they had simply said "casual"
I wouldn’t have shaved and combed the hair and
worn my favourite T-shirt inscribed “I lost my
Heart in Jo’burg – and my wallet and my
cellphone”.
Much more frightening than “bush casual”
is when they say come "smart casual".
In more gracious times, when men were men and women
were women and there was hardly ever any confusion,
party invitations were straightforward. They would read
either "formal" or "informal". "Formal"
meant men had to wear a dinner jacket; informal meant
wear a lounge suit. One’s partner (quite often
a woman in those days) wore a long (formal) or short
(informal) dress. One always wore a tie, even to swimming
parties. Nowadays, except for job interviews, ties are
mainly kept as emergency fan-belts.
The challenge to come dressed "smart casual"
has made going out very nerve-wracking for those of
us who were brought up (if you'll forgive the expression)
in more simple times. Twenty five years ago, if the
term "smart casual" had been used, it would
have been universally translated as meaning you must
wear a blazer, flannels, white shirt and club tie. Today,
such an outfit would be considered ridiculous - "Ha
ha ha, who's your outfitter? The Moscow State Circus?”
"Smart casual" today means one thing: Come
in anything as long as it is ridiculously expensive
and it has labels on the outside. You can wear a jacket,
but it mustn't be "structured" and the sleeves
must roll up and it must hang from you as if your mother
never had time to alter it after your big brother handed
it down. You can drive spikes into my eyes and make
me eat boiled broccoli but I will never wear a jacket
with roll-up sleeves.
To get back to the subject of "bush casual"
- I have but one piece of ensemble that could be described
as such - a khaki handkerchief. It used to be white.
But even khaki is now out of fashion. “Bush casual"
today means dressing like Michael Jackson, but in colours
that won't frighten the crested barbets.
And people drive to such parties in terribly expensive
"bush casual" vehicles with ladders on the
outside.
Come to think of it, Vienna is much more relaxed. Even
at a das Akademietheater opening night I find I click
far more easily than at a South African barbecue.
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