Hartley Neita

Wow! Did you see the photograph last Saturday of Mr. Asafa Powell and Ms. Sanya Richards, with their entourage of world athletes, Sherone Simpson, Xavier Carter, Lashinda Demus and Tyson Gay at the Salle des Etoilles of the Sporting Club d'Ete in the principality of Monte Carlo, Monaco?

The occasion was the presentation of trophies to the world Athletes of the Year.

Did they not look gooood? Did they not look like the world staaaars they are? Mr. Powell, in his well-tailored jacket and bow tie, and Ms. Richards, in her beautifully designed and cut dress. Did you see the lovely dangling earrings? Lordie, lordie! And, oh, did they not know the dash they were cutting?

This was how the ladies and gentlemen of Jamaica dressed when they went out up to 40 years ago. Not just to evening and night functions, but also during the day, the headmasters of elementary schools, civil servants, floor walkers in stores and professionals wore suits or at least a clean white shirt and tie.

Taxicab drivers wore suits and they never drove their cars if they had a dent or scratch.

There were places you could not go without a suit. Arthur Eldemire refused to allow an English Member of Commons (Parliament) to enter his theatre in Montego Bay one Sunday night. It was the rule that on Sundays, men without jackets and ties were not allowed entrance. It was so, too, at the Jonkoono Lounge of the former Sheraton Kingston Hotel. And if you were not suited, you could not sit in the balcony or a box seat at the Carib cinema in Cross Roads. And no restaurant of class, or hotel, allowed men to dine if they were not appropriately dressed.

To my surprise

Recently, I mentioned quietly to my banker that had I entered the premises 40 years ago and seen men wearing merino shirts, three-quarter-length jeans and boogas, and women wearing b...y riders and being catered to by the tellers, I would have run to the nearest police station and reported an invasion of bank robbers. Needless to say, these men and women have bank accounts which make mine look like the piggy bank it is. In fact, going to the bank in those days was like going to Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's Cathedral. One had to be properly attired.

Ladies wore hats to church, then, according to a reported dictum by St. Paul. Today, only the elderly and the ladies who attend Pentecostal and other non-traditional churches do.

The annual St. Andrew Parish Church Christmas Supper was a fashion parade by the ladies and gentlemen of the parish. The ladies wore white evening gowns, white hats, elbow-length gloves, white stockings and shoes and carried parasols. The gentlemen wore grey evening suits, carried a walking stick, and also wore gloves and sometimes top hats. Ladies and gentlemen paraded before the grandstand of the former Knutsford Park on racedays in their best finery.

Bustamante, Sangster, Neville Ashenheim and Edwin Allen attended the opening of the Spring Session of Parliament wearing morning coats and top hats. Bustamante even wore gloves. A bit much, perhaps, and Iris Collins embarrassed her chief when she turned up at this session in 1944 without a hat.

Nowadays

You did not go to the gala opening of a movie, a dance recital or a play if you were not wearing a coat. Nowadays, it is not strange to see a lady at these events looking like one million dollars (US) being escorted by a fellow with his shirt out of his pants. Incidentally, too, a gentleman never wore a brown suit in the evenings. It had to be grey or black.

And have you noticed that banks and other companies provide their female staff with well-tailored uniforms including jackets, while the men are only given a necktie? Tut, tut.