DRESS CODES
"While studying with Michael Ratulowski at Parson's, he told me about his home town Chicago. He mentioned dress codes that indirectly forbid black people to enter bars. Basically the dress code rules excluded all the clothes that young black men in his neighborhood would usually wear. Coming from Denmark, I was completely shocked by this.
It reminded me of something else that had shocked me; the many sexist dress codes I had experienced around NYC, and especially the ones in the Meatpacking district. I had begun noticing these dress codes after I had been refused to enter a club due to the fact that I was not wearing heels. I started doing research and realized how - on top of being focused on attracting wealthy guests - dress codes are more often than not both sexist and racist.
Ratulowski and I decided to adopt quotes from the already existing dress codes and put them on the entrance door at a private party in Bushwick. We knew that the crowd would be very mixed. When the party was over, it was no longer possible to read the rules as the guests' markers did not agree with what the dress codes had had to state."
-Cecilie Beck
