Did you know that some schools in the U.S. have banned students from wearing Crocs, popular shoes made out of a polymer? Administrators have claimed they are a safety hazard.
However, this crackdown on Crocs is just one of the latest iterations of dress codes imposed on both children and adults throughout the ages, from “trunk hose” to short skirts. This week on “Something Offbeat” we wanted to take a closer look at these rules.
We talked to Richard Thompson Ford – George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and author of Dress Codes: how the laws of fashion made history – about dress codes going back to the Middle Ages.
“Oh, it goes back to the late Middle Ages – so the 1300s – and the Sumptuary Laws, they covered a wide range of consumption, and the general thrust was they were designed to ensure that people didn’t display wealth in a way that was inconsistent with their assigned social status,” Ford explained.
Grace Goble, an actor, singer, playwright and more who made national news for changing her high school’s dress code, also joined the show.
“I was part of a committee of, I think, 10 students who met with the administration and talked about how we can revise the dress code to be fair and make sense for all students, because the language in it was gendered, which it didn’t need to be,” she said.
Listen to the full episode here to learn more.
Each week, “Something Offbeat” takes a deeper look at an unusual headline. If you have suggestions for stories the podcast should cover, send them to us at somethingoffbeat@audacy.com.