People Still Dress Up to Go to the Theatre, Just Not The Way You Think

Sartorial culture changes, comes and goes, ebbs and flows, tilts and lilts. One such change is the expectations and habits of dressing for the theatre. Attention to your garments wasn’t only for those on stage in costume, but for the attendee, the audience member. Men would wear suits, women would don evening gowns, it was a whole affair. And at some point, this habit just...stopped.

While people vary in saying exactly when and why and other interrogative sentence predecessors, I think we can all agree that for quite some time now, dressing up to attend the theatre was not common practice. In these high-ceilinged venues, you lay eyes upon a sea of blue jeans, the faintest sound of flip-flops flipping and flopping in the air, and cropped t-shirts cropping up here and there.

But this has changed. It depends on the show you attend, but people are dressing up again. But, it’s not in the way you’re thinking.

I noticed it when I went to see the musical Beetlejuice. I had even done it myself without any inkling that others would do the same, and that I would be the most subtle out of the lot. To set the scene, to give the mise-en-scene if you will, I wore a dress, a black velvet one with a pair of Dr. Marten Oxfords. I was dressed up in the traditional sense. But, I decided to add an accessory I had recently purchased that I thought would be particularly fun to wear that night. I wore a pair of black and sheer striped socks from a brand called Poketo. The idea came to mind because the titular character of the musical I was attending is known for his black and white striped suit. I chuckled to myself at this clever little nod to the show that I dreamt up.

When I showed up to the show, there was a swarm of stripes, an endless line-up of edgy goth dresses, and even one or two people with green hair! The majority were dressed up in costume! Everyone fell somewhere along the spectrum of subtle homage to the show, me and my understated socks as an example, to full-on, decked-out cosplay. People were excitedly, shyly, loudly, and playfully complimenting each other throughout the night on their looks. There was a hum in the air.

This trend has bled into movie theatres as well as stage theatres: the eye-watering hot pink of Barbie-core, the humorously business-like procession of teenage boys dressed as “GentleMinions” in attendance of Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022), and the Taylor Swift-themed outfits for both her in-person concert and concert film.

As the curtain goes up, the barrier between the audience and the show thins. Rather than dressing up being a sign of respect for a creation, it is an avenue to creating together.