Some say that rules were meant to be broken. Others stick to them vehemently. But in the words of the Queen of Pop, Madonna, in the turn-of-the-century dancefloor-filling classic, , maybe there’s a healthy medium: ‘Mix that bourgeoisie and the rebel’.
Well, as a queer person, that’s exactly my approach to - especially where dress codes are concerned. Perhaps it’s inevitable. At the most historic events of the British Social Season, yesteryear’s guidelines don’t typically factor in revellers who might not identify as either a man or a woman - not to mention the old-school member's clubs that require strict uniformity upon entry.
It can all be rather dull if you’d rather don the outré than the appropriate. (Shouldn’t we all be striving for fabulous instead of conformist anyway?). Until recent years, was one of these institutions.
That was, of course, until Daisy Knatchbull, Mountbatten scion and founder of the first women’s tailors on Savile Row (The Deck), rocked a top hat and tails to the event back in 2017. This led to women being allowed to wear tailoring and jumpsuits instead of the previous dresses-or-skirts-only policy. It’s an ongoing conundrum for many tentpole events on the calendar: respecting historic tradition while remaining at the cusp of modern living is a constant source of contention for those with more conservative tastes.
I’d avoided the landmark summer event for years, struggling with the idea of fitting my gender identity into a s.