When is it right to wear white?
Dear Miss Manners: I’m pleased to note how consideration for others seems to be the guiding principle of manners as you promote them, but one rule of etiquette has puzzled me for a lifetime: the prohibition of wearing white or linen between Labor Day and Easter.
This rule assumes September is always nippy and Easter is always mild, when the reverse can often be true in the United States. The rule seems even more arbitrary when one lives in the subtropics, where February days routinely top 80 degrees. Would you please shed some light on how we might understand this rule?
Gentle Reader: Consideration for others is something you have kindly shown Miss Manners. When this rule is questioned, it is usually with a barrage of sarcasm and disdain rarely leveled on far more restrictive rules.
Miss Manners is aware of the glamour of rebellion, but could there possibly be a more tepid cause?
The source is a misunderstanding that you share with the ferocious rebels. It is true that consideration for others is a guiding principle of manners, but that is not its only function. It is also a repository of folk customs that are indeed arbitrary, but that folks like to practice anyway. Or, as Miss Manners has learned, hate to.
This one has to do with seasons, not with weather. Easter is a time for bringing out pastel colors and, for those few who care to, straw hats. Memorial Day marks the beginning of summer, when white seems refreshing. However, there is no wardrobe police to enforce this, which makes Miss Manners wonder what all the excitement is about.
Haven’t I seen that before?
Dear Miss Manners: When my husband and I attended an inaugural ball for a local official, the invitation specifically stated that the dress code was black tie. Being that the affair was in winter, I went to great lengths to find an evening dress that looked like winter attire.
I was appalled to see the number of woman at the ball with strapless, chiffon, light-material dresses. I always thought that strapless dresses in the winter were acceptable if the material was velvet or some other heavier material. I also thought that light, pastel colors should not be worn in the winter months. Several gowns were light, springlike colors.
Gentle Reader: Yes, yes, Miss Manners knows all about seasonal rules for colors and materials. But she also knows that most people do not get multiple use out of inaugural ball gowns, and therefore cuts them a bit of (chiffon) slack.
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