The Taste by Vir Sanghvi: The mad, medieval, Raj-era dress codes of Indian hotels and clubs

Hindustan Times

2 days ago

Do you think clubs, hotels and restaurants should have dress codes? I suspect that the answer is complicated. Of course, any establishment has the right to choose how it wants its guests to dress, but the restrictions it imposes often tell you more about the hotels and restaurants in question than the hotels themselves realise. Also read | The Taste by Vir Sanghvi: Why James Gunn's Superman is the best since Christopher Reeve The unwritten dress codes in Indian clubs and hotels: A relic of the past or a necessary norm? (Freepik)
Over a decade ago, my wife was refused entry into a club inside Dubai's Atlantis Hotel because the bouncer took exception to her top. It was a modest, and unremarkable top from Marks and Spencer so we couldn't see what the fuss was about. Of course, we always try and respect the sensitivities of every country we visit, so if the outfit had been vulgar or revealing, the bouncer's objections may have made sense. But that was not the case here.
When we questioned him it turned out that it was not propriety that was his concern. Quite the opposite, in fact. His problem was that the dress seemed 'ethnic' and they only allowed people in western dress.
There was nothing ethnic about my wife's top or the jeans she was wearing so he was wrong. But his objections raised a more serious issue: Was he saying that in Dubai they would refuse entry to anyone who wore anything that looked Arab to him?
It turned out that he was saying exactly that.
Would he have objected quite so much if a white person had worn the same top because then the effect would not have been 'ethnic?'( I wish I had kept a picture of that top; it looked roughly as 'ethnic' as Victoria Beckham.) Was he only objecting because, as Indians, we looked as though we could have been Middle Eastern?
The answer to that question is clearly: Yes.
He was reprimanded later, and Atlantis no longer has those kinds of policies. But my point is that he couldn't have been making it all up himself. Clearly someone had given him some instructions about not allowing Arab dress (in an Arab country!) and he had screwed up the implementation.
Indians will not find this story hard to believe. For decades, dating back to the times when India's so-called elite clubs were founded by the British, our clubs have looked down on Indian clothes.
Back in the 1990s, when I was editor of Sunday, a magazine published out of Kolkata, I would periodically hear stories about well known (and not so well known) figures being refused entry into Kolkata's 'elite' clubs because they were wearing kurta pyjamas.
Indian dress was not allowed but fat guys in terylene singlets that strained to contain their paunches and were worn above low hung baggy trousers were welcome. Even at formal events you could wear a suit cut by Ashok Tailor where the jacket would not button up and the trouser legs stopped a few inches above the socks. That was fine. But a guy in an elegant bandhgalla would not be allowed in/ treated as a bumpkin/ mistaken for a waiter. Also read | The Taste by Vir Sanghvi: Delhi welcomes new eateries, but dining experience falls short
I used to find all this deeply offensive and wrote angry articles about it. But nobody really cared; after all, I was the sort of man who wore kurta pyjamas to office! (I did. And I later discovered that I was referred to, behind my back, as either 'that santoor player' or mockingly as 'sarod master.')
The Kolkata clubs seem to have dispensed with all that nonsense now. I went back a year or so ago to speak at the Bengal Club and was relieved to see that it was full of normal people in normal dress and not overrun by the boxwallahs of old who ordered chhotta pegs and pretended that they were at White's or The Athaneum in London.
With hotels, it's a different story. There was a time when Bangkok's The Oriental had rigid dress policies. Around 15 years ago they relaxed them recognising that it was silly to insist on shoes and socks in the humid Bangkok heat. The hotel's flagship restaurant Le Normandie has thrown out its jackets-at-lunch policy and its two great Michelin starred local rivals, Cote by Mauro Colagreco and Blue by Alain Ducasse have a much more relaxed attitude to dress.
In India, hoteliers have decided that their job is really about toes. (Would that make it a toe job?) You can wear Hideously inappropriate sneakers or trainers to formal restaurants and no one will mind.
But showing your toes? Perish the thought!
To some extent, I can understand their reservations about flip flops. But even India's hoteliers, ignorant as they are of global trends, ought to know that fine leather sandals keep showing up in the summer collections in Paris and Milan. They are meant to be worn with suits and with elegant separates.
Of course, nobody in hotel management knows any of this because they are too busy to read newspapers or magazines. (Or even things on the internet.) As far as they are concerned there is no distinction between hawai chappals and high fashion sandals.
A relative of mine was recently refused entry into Vineet Bhatia's Ziya at the Gurgaon Oberoi on the grounds that he was not wearing closed shoes. He was with a friend, a top Dubai chef and restaurateur who was horrified. 'Can't you see they are Hermes?' he asked plaintively.
Last Sunday I got thrown out at tea time of the ground floor bar/ lounge at the Delhi Oberoi because I was wearing sandals. All I wanted was a coffee so I just moved to Threesixty next door where no one minded.
A few months ago they tried to move me out of the restaurant at the Chambers at the Taj in Delhi for wearing the same sandals. I explained to the manager that I was not wearing chappals or flip flops but proper sandals that were fastened from behind. He let me stay.
But somebody who runs a hotel chain will have to explain to me one day what purpose the no sandals rule serves. These guys are running establishments in India not in some mythical Mayfair of their dreams. (And in the real Mayfair, in any case nobody has ever objected to my sandals.) Why not recognise that this is a hot country and must make its own rules. (Bizarrely, if you wear sports shoes without socks to dinner, no Indian hotel objects.)
We run some of the 21st century's best hotels. Why spoil them by imposing dress codes from the 18th century? Foolishness and ignorance, I reckon.