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Show 159 institutions generally, dress or lack of it played a significant and sometimes ambiguous role. Consistent with the shared heterolhomosexual use of public space, sartorial standards at various times favored individual expression or blending in, depending on the circumstances. Although some men balked at dress codes as an imposition by bar owners, others simply attributed them to custom at a time when "nobody would be seen walking down Main Street in sweats." "Respectable" dress also afforded protective camouflage on the street since, according to Ben Holbrook, "if you wore color, you was a fag .I remember getting knocked off the sidewalk on Main Street several times and called .. "fag," "queer," because ofwhat I had on. Basic colors--black, brown, and navy blue- that's all you could be seen in.,,37 Given their penchant for turning limitations to their advantage, gay men embraced the dress code and elaborated on it, valuing elegant dress as both self-expression and ticket to inclusion in the subculture. a According to Ken Mattingly, "At the top of the social order--and they had put themselves there--were the hairdressers and waiters, because they were so elegant, they were so cultured." Similarly, Jeff Ramos explained, "People put on suits and ties and looked nice in the early sixties .it was very, very classy, .. you didn't look like you were dressing down because nobody would talk to you " ... While bar policies prohibited more casual dress, bar patrons developed their own rules of selection favoring the well-dressed, and at a time when gay men "didn't take too much for granted," dressing up for the bar marked it as a valued institution. According to Brian Jeffries, "People were all dressed up and their hair was always fixed nice, you'd wash 37Holbrook interview. |
