Guide To Decoding Dress Codes On Party Invites

WhatsApp has made it easy to send formal invites for even the most inconsequential of occasions, each mandating a dress code, sometimes with oxymoronic terms like 'Smart Casual'. Here's our guide to decoding them

- Magandeep Singh

There was a time when everyone dressed well, even if they only bathed once a month. That explains the excessive perfumes. Either way, cholera, and plague aside, I would've loved to live in those times. For one thing, things were simpler back then. No, I don't mean knowing the right hashtags and the best time to posting a reel. I am talking about simply knowing what to wear when heading out at any time of the day for whatever specific occasion may have been on your calendar.

Today, each of have so many social appearances to make, that it seems like we all are heads of our respective states on diplomatic missions to meet other similar heads of states. Sometimes, we fight two such fires in the same evening. Besides the thought of dealing with the traffic snarls ahead, the conundrum that invariably stresses most of us out when one opens the wardrobe is what to wear for which occasion.

What can one wear all through the day so that we are workplace-suited by day and cocktail-ready by evening? Alas, no one such formula exists, certainly not for men. What we wear is dictated by many factors - from hierarchical, like our job profile and position in the company, to practical, as in, is it comfortable to work and move about it.

Given that no two people will ever make the same choice of clothing to see them through the day, it only makes sense for hosts to put something down on the invite to indicate just what they wish their invitees to put on. This is in the interest of decorum or, otherwise put, to ensure that the photographs turn out pretty without having to Photoshop someone out of them. But even the dress code terms used on the invite could sometimes be very confusing. Here is my guide to cut through the ambiguity.