letter from the editor: February '05.

Totem and Taboo

I was sitting at Per Se, the four-star culinary palace in Manhattan, when I spotted friends in a hushed discussion with the maItre d'. He was smiling pleasantly, but he was clearly displeased. My friends had arrived wearing jeans. Never mind that the jeans were dark and lean or that they were topped with glamorous jackets. My friends broke the rules, and now they had to pay. They dashed to the J.Crew store on the floor below and bought khakis in time for dinner. I understand the point of a dress code at a place where presentation is so revered. But I was more put off by the group of men who showed up in ill-fitting T-shirts and rumpled jackets with computer bags slung over their shoulders. I suppose if my friends' jeans had been acid-washed, artfully torn, or high-waisted, I would have been outraged. Crimes of fashion offend me more than dress-code violations. Most beauty and fashion transgressions are simply inappropriate and tacky; others cross the line from tacky to taboo. Jeans at a fine restaurant are too casual; jeans with a visible thong or butt cleavage anywhere are taboo. Wearing white to a wedding if you're not the bride is tasteless; wearing sheer, short, and navel-grazing white is taboo. Any beauty regimen can become ugly when it enters a public space. Overdosing on perfume is vulgar; spritzing it on in an elevator so that everyone gasps for air ...