Frock Friday

Cool on the heels of International Talk like a Pirate Day (a fortnight agoish) I’d like to initiate a weekly special day - Frock Friday. Now before I start, yes, I know that people are starving to death and being hurt by violent people and that habitat is being cleared and oceans are being treated like waste dumps, and I should really have something better to talk about than frou frou, and I do know this, I feel all of this, but shit – that’s humans huh? Full of contradictions? Full of light and dark, holding the fragile extremes of the world in our meaty palms. Years from now when our civilization has poisoned itself from antibacterial surface spray and petrochemical based wrinkle creams, starved itself from eating nothing but processed food with no useful content and all flavours and colours made in a lab, suffering from either type 2 diabetes or heart disease or deep despair (I know, this is just too too cheery isn’t it) – at that time in the future someone looking back through the stratified fossilized remains of zeros and ones splayed out to make pretty words and patterns in cyberspace will think “what the fuck where they doing?”. “Why the bejeepers was this otherwise apparently reasonably intelligent organism sitting on top of the pile of 40,000 plus years of human history - and who can even be bothered to remember just how many years of evolution - and using the wealth and abundant leisure time and (for the time remarkably advanced) technology and insight that was available to her to communicate to her wider networks of friends about – ways to drape woven textiles around her body? They may as well have formed a punk band and electric guitared while Rome burnt.” And I think mmm – punk band, not a bad idea. But back to the frocks. Frock Friday is my version of mufti (that’s ‘casual’ for the non-eastsiders) day in the office. Not that I work in a highly corporate thou must wear a suit kind of environment (heaven forbid) – it’s a bit more like working somewhere with a parent that says ‘I trust you, I know you’ll do the right thing – you decide’ and you are left to be your own dress code enforcer – censoring the occasional whim to wear silly school girl tunics with fishnets or completely trashed but comfortable gardening pants with daggy old jumper, and instead turning up with a modicum of officeishness, with hems up, with colours to amuse yourself but most of your bits that are meant to be covered, covered, tryting to look like you take the whole thing seriously and also deserve to be taken seriously. Except on Fridays. On Fridays I think it is entirely appropriate to wear silly 1950’s frocks with a little back jumper and Mary-Janes (these are shoes, just for your information oh voyeuristic future readers who probably no longer wear shoes because you’ve figured out that feet are happier being massaged and going bare, and indeed you probably wear spacey light weave jumpsuits that have algae spliced into the cellular make up and hence phosphoresce beautifully in the moonlight and photosynthesise beautifully in the sun, giving you energy to run your personal teleport devices, which are made mostly of woven vines). I also think it is entirely appropriate to wear the skpant (no that’s not a typo for ski pant – skipants are obviously a hideous throwback to the eighties which I for one will not be revisiting – elastic stirrups under the foot, now really, was that ever comfortable?) – which is the sk(irt)(worn over a)pant. Thanks to Miss Ivy who gave me a word for this lovely phenomena which I previously didn’t even think to give a name to. So, frock Friday could include a jaunty slip dress layered with coloured lace singlets over a footless tight (if you are the waify nymph type), or a structured shorty dress that flares out from the hip and barely covers your arse but mirrors the curve of your flared pants. It can even be worn over an otherwise entirely conservative pinstripe suit – a gash of hot pink silk or lurid polyester patterned dress over the pant and under the jacket. Or, like me today, you could wear an above the knee orange and black and white patterned 60’s drop waist dress, with a little triangle of permapleat on one side and lovely black bias binding edging, over a black three quarter pant, with a black high heel sandal. The sandal; makes it all seem officey you see – it must be a serious outfit, look at those conservative shoes. And what of the gender issue? (yes jumpsuit folk, I know you’ll find this hard to believe but we still for the most part expect people to dress according to binary uniforms set down gender lines, which are supposed to be set by biological differences, and lots of people get all confused and upset if people do their own thing and ignore iron clad convention). Well, I don’t know. I know that not everyone is into frocks (both many boys and many girls) and that some people would feel decidedly un-fun in frou frou. So maybe we can use the word frock to mean more than just an actual literal dress, and mean more the act of ‘frocking up’ which to me conjures dress ups and wearing your favourite things, conjuring up mojo based on wearing significant accessories, and exuding glamour (as in the original meaning which was about magical charisma, rather than a uniform of diamonds and designer brands). And if that doesn’t ring your bells maybe you can just go back to dressing like a pirate and saying ‘argh’ a lot, which is fine too.