Clothing/ anarchy

Clothing creates order. It is my opinion that without clothing and accessories there would be anarchy. Without clothing how would you designate a police officer? Without accessories how could an officer do his or her job? If athletes wore no clothing how could tell the teams apart?

Uniforms can be political, a tie can represent partisanship or merely bad taste. In a place of business uniforms designate people that can help you.

What some call tools of the trade are just highly functional accessories. Investment bankers are pairing Starbucks and blackberry with navy suits this season. If you wear an apron don't be caught without a tray and discontent expression to complete the look.

So why is it that this very powerful tool of sociopolitical importance is so often written off as trivial? I often refer to my uniform as my slave clothes. They bind me to my position. They are pretty much the last thing I would ever purchase. They actually require us to wear gap jeans. Let me tell you about shopping for jeans at the gap store on Michigan avenue:

You will walk into calamity and chaos as this weekend a plague by the name of bogo has descended upon the store. You'll have to push through a mob of every fat dumpy Midwesterner from here to Ypsilanti to even enter the store. You'll ask a sales person to help you find the jeans designated by the restaurant manager. This incompetent person, wearing his incompetent person uniform, will try to sell you red jeans. You did not ask for red jeans. When you find the style you're looking for the sales person will not be able to locate your size because the store is a garbage pit of unmarked and improperly stocked goods. It will take no less than three people no less than twenty minutes to find these jeans. They will be the one pair of jeans not on sale in the store for some reason that nobody will be able to explain to you.

This is clothing, something that represents order to me, at it's worst. I want shopping to be easy, enjoyable, pleasantly air conditioned. I was sales people climbing all over me trying to make my job of finding clothes as easy as possible. I do not want a slop pile of schlock merchandise obnoxious tourists and witless employees

If clothing represents order then the gap must be anarchy.