DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have had season tickets to the orchestra for a couple of decades.
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For evening concerts, the orchestra wears white tie, and women soloists wear evening dress. For afternoon concerts, the soloists still wear evening dress, and the men in the orchestra wear black suits, black shirts and black ties.
The musicians who are women, however, wear an assortment of black clothes: from black slacks with a regular black shirt to an orchestra musician’s traditional long black dress.
In my opinion, some of the women look as though they should be turning on the TV and getting a big bowl of popcorn.
GENTLE READER: Strange, isn’t it, that when formal clothes are called for, men are often now more dressed up than women? Not counting the Oscars, of course.
Miss Manners has noticed this in orchestras, but also at social events. The men will be properly — not to mention attractively — clad in dinner jackets, while many of the women hardly bother to dress up.
Granted, women are expected to show variety in their outfits, and there are unlikely to be enough formal events in modern life for them to invest in an evening wardrobe.
But even when such occasions were more common, ladies knew how to dress up without maintaining costume shops — pairing basic dresses with scarves, jewelry or little jackets. Miss Manners herself once managed one carry-on bag to the Wagner festival at Bayreuth — encompassing 10 formal evenings — with one evening dress and a different look every night.
As for orchestras, surely women musicians can find long black dresses or trouser suits they can wear at every concert. Variety is not a concern in this case.
Of course, these garments would have to allow for ease in playing their instruments. Miss Manners recalls reading about a cellist who tried on a dress in a New York department store by sitting down and opening her legs to accommodate an imaginary cello — whereupon the saleswoman said sternly, “Madam! Bergdorf’s is not that kind of store!”
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’m in my late 70s and enjoy spending time with my adult children.
My son-in-law drives a van, which is very hard for me to get into. I would prefer to take our car, which is easy for me. However, anytime we go as a group, we take his van.
When I asked my husband what we might do to avoid my difficulty, he just said, “(Son-in-law) likes to drive.”
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I’m spending my second day in pain from getting in and out of this van. Would it be rude of me to insist on taking our car? How should I express my needs without seeming too demanding? Also, I’m not able to drive at night.
GENTLE READER: So you really need your son-in-law’s help in getting around, and it is not unreasonable for him to use his own vehicle — especially as there seem to be several people in this group, and a van is probably a better fit.
Miss Manners is not unsympathetic with you; she mentions this only to free you from any sense of victimhood. And then to tell you to buy a small folding footstool to keep in the van for these excursions.
Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, [email protected]; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.
