\u201cWhy are clergy the worst dressed people in church?\u201d\u009d said a lay friend of mine the other day. \u201cI know they shouldn\u2019t try to be too transcendent, but do they have to dress aiming to look like hobos?\u201d\u009d he said.<\/p>\n
It got me thinking. I must say I think he\u2019s onto something. Commonly, but not always I am pleased to say, in my experience the clergy dress worse than the lay people. Not as a question of casual versus formal. There is a way of dressing casual that looks really good. There is a way that looks positively daggy and scruffy.<\/p>\n
I wonder why this is. I guess one of the reasons is that overall now we are a much more informal society and that means that a Sunday best really doesn\u2019t exist. A good guide is to just look at television. The Sunday presenters are dressed more casually than the weekday ones, and that should be a model, of course, to the clergy if they are not wearing more formal robes. Although there is a way of dressing casually which looks quite smart, there is a way of dressing casually that looks like you just don\u2019t care.<\/p>\n