The concept of "professional dress" is murky at best without a definition of
what professions you're talking about - professional teachers often wear
slacks and layered sweaters because of the varied activities they're
involved in. Professional surgeons wear scrubs at the hospital and street
clothes in their offices. The professional historians, archaeologists,
curators, etc. would seem to dress according to their activities too. In
fact, I've never seem my favorite archaeologist in anything but jeans and
mud! :-) 

The next issue is the definition of "profession." When I was a kid, there
was a pretty narrow interpretation of profession - usually medical doctors,
lawyers/judges, and ministers. People talked about "being in a profession."
Now, the concept seems to have been widened to include anything you take
money for...as in I am considered a professional photographer because people
hire me to take photos for them, or buy my photos. And of course the term
"professional athlete" is understood to be one who is paid, versus the
amateur who trains and competes only for the love of the sport. 

Seems to me the main point to dress codes, uniforms, etc. is to help the
visitor identify museum employees. If that is indeed the purpose, then golf
shirts/khakis are perfect. One of my "tricks of the trade" in my former life
as a consultant was to ALMOST blend in with the clients. If you dress too
much more/less formally you actually create barriers between yourself and
the client. So...if I was meeting with the Superintendent of Schools I'd
wear a suit, but when doing school visits I'd usually wear a nice pair of
slacks, blouse and cardigan. So, to my thinking, the golf shirt/khakis is in
the "business casual" range of most museum visitors, and a step up from the
jeans crowd - just right for making the museum employees seem open and
accessible. 

Becky Fitzgerald
Susquehanna Museum

-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Deb Fuller
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 11:35 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Economic status, museum visitation and dress codes (was intern
dress question)

On 11/29/05, L Dewey <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Isn't it the case that many museums and cultural organizations function
> as 'country clubs', not to promote inclusion or cultural diversity?
> This whole discussion about 'dress code' is about a 'code' that belongs
> to the upper middle class. (As well as a matter of 'conformity', which
> is another contemporary 'murkin' cultural trait.)

Okay, I have to throw the BS flag here. Dressing appropriately for a
job has nothing to do with economic status. All jobs from ditch
diggers to corporate execs have some sort of dress codes. Some dress
codes are to meet specific safety standards. Others are set to create
a uniform appearance to be easily recognizable (i.e. military
uniforms). And lastly, some dress codes are set to meet
etiquette/professional standards.

Since the dawn of fashion until about 40 years ago, people of all
social classes dressed as best as they could afford, excepting those
who adopted a dress code based on religious or ethical convictions
like Quakers and the Amish. It's only been a recent paradigm shift to
"dress down" and it to be fashionable to dress trashy. Okay, there was
the "pastoral" movement in the 1800s where the tragically hip donned
expensive peasant outfits and frolicked in countryside but they wore
stylized, fashionable peasant outfits and wouldn't have been caught
dead in what the real peasants wore. They wouldn't have worn their
peasant outfits to the workplace anyway but I digress.

> According to the data collected by the NEA and by the US Census bureau,
> U.S. museums mainly attract an upper middle class audience, which is
> very unfortunate, but hardly a coincidence.

Museums are considered "professional workplaces" regardless of the
clientell they attract. Adopting the gansta or ho dress code will not
attract a more diverse demographic.

Besides, museum visitation demographics is a completely different subject.

deb

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