Fade to concert black
A conversation on fashion in classical music
When you think of attending a classical music concert, what do you imagine yourself wearing? What do you imagine being worn on stage? Do you like what you see? Where do these outfits in your mind come from? What would you wear if you could wear anything?
Inspired by Paris Fashion Week, which runs February 24 through March 3, I hit up my fellow musician friend Sarah Wagner to have a wee chat about fashion in the classical music world. Sarah is a graduate student in violin performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Like me, she savors the fun in getting dressed every day, and she takes a thoughtful approach to classical music aesthetics.
In our (slightly trimmed) conversation below, we talk formality versus uniformity, gender, Givenchy, and what it takes to break the rules.
SL: Let’s start by talking about you. How would you describe your personal style, and how would you describe your personal style as a musician? Are those the same or different?
SW: I like bright colors. I like mixing and matching different things. It’s kind of fun to have each day’s style match your mood and your character for that day, so maybe some days I’m feeling a vintage vibe or maybe I’m feeling more punk-y today so I’ll do some wacky makeup or something. Then when I go to perform or teach, I want it to still feel like me. I don’t want to feel like suddenly I have to be super formal or I have to wear something that doesn’t feel like me because I’m in teacher mode. To give a good performance I want to be comfortable and confident in whatever I wear.
SL: Are there parts of your style that you feel like you have to put aside for the job?
SW: Especially with symphony orchestra concerts, there’s something in that environment that feels so conservative, I guess. It’s always bugged me how orchestra dress codes, to me, seem like they’re more concerned with you looking conservative than with you looking fancy — like dictating dress lengths or sleeve lengths. For example, I have a lot of really nice black gowns that are backless or have thin straps, and they don’t necessarily meet the dress code. Or I could wear a cheap black cardigan over it and I would technically fit the dress code, but then I wouldn’t look as fancy.
SL: That’s so true! I’ve definitely been at concerts where I realize some of us really aren’t dressed well. Like you can meet the dress code but still not be dressed nicely, and then sometimes you end up with a range of formality within the ensemble.
Dress codes also inevitably bring up this whole issue of gender expression, too. There are a lot of dress codes that have different requirements based on gender, and that can be limiting for people — not to mention what if the genders presented in a dress code don’t apply to you?
SW: When I started my undergrad at Lawrence University, their dress code was “men wear this, women wear that,” but I think by the time I graduated or a year later they had gotten rid of the gendered language because students complained.
SL: Even in the last couple years, the New York Philharmonic still had gendered dress codes. I don’t know if they still do or if they’ve stopped, but as recently as 2018 the orchestra still required that women wear a floor-length dress or skirt. I remember that kind of blowing my mind because I’m like, it’s the 21st century! How is everyone not allowed to wear pants yet?
SW: Meanwhile I’ll sometimes go to professional orchestra concerts and find it way more distracting if you have on a really sparkly black top or a lace top on stage. It’s a different texture. That to me sticks out more than your skin where that’s just your body, and I’m not offended or distracted by your physical body.
SL: The whole distraction thing immediately makes me think of Yuja Wang — I feel like she’s her own topic, just her as a figure — but the number one thing I hear when people criticize her clothing choices is that it’s distracting. And I’ve heard that from people of different genders, different ages. I just think that’s an interesting critique. Like what does that really mean and why does it matter?
SW: As someone who has an interest in fashion, I think it’s really cool if you can tailor what you’re wearing to fit with the performance you’re giving. If you were going to play Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, then wearing some sparkly, bright red minidress or something totally fits the aesthetic of Carmen. That would make more sense to me than, I don’t know, a huge blue ball gown or something. But maybe the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto is better with a Hollywood glamor gown and not as much with a sassy minidress. But it also comes back to what I was talking about earlier, which is that, as a performer, I want to feel comfortable and I want to feel confident. So if having a shorter skirt or taller heels can help you give your best performance, I think that’s what matters.
SL: People sometimes assume heels or a shorter dress can’t possibly be comfortable. But also “comfortable” can mean different things. There’s “I’m in PJs” comfortable, and then there’s the question of, what do I feel like myself in? What makes me feel comfortable taking on this role of being a performer? And like you were saying, there’s also confidence. Personally I feel like more of a boss when I’m wearing heels. We could unpack that on its own — why do I feel that way — but also if that’s helpful for me to be able to be in that mindset...
SW: I can’t think of any specific interviews to cite right now, but I have definitely read interviews with actors where they’ll talk about how as soon as they got into full costume with full hair and makeup and everything, that was the last transformation they needed to become this other character. There is a certain amount of acting that goes into being a performer on stage, so having that strength that can come from your fashion choices can be really important.
SL: You’ve said a couple things now that, for me, have pointed to this question: Is your appearance part of your performance or not? Sometimes there’s this feeling I pick up on in classical music as if music is this pure thing, it’s transcendent, it goes beyond the body and exists on this beyond-the-physical plane. At the same time though, we do get judged on how we look and are told how to look.
SW: Something I think about is where does this want for conservative concert black come from? What exactly is the point of it? Historically, going to the symphony or opera was a big deal, and people in the audience dressed up, but now people might just be wearing whatever they wore to work that day, or jeans and a button-down. I’ve had conversations with people who say we should also let the orchestra dress really casual and the experience will be like going to the movies where you get a ticket for 10 pounds, you just show up, and it’s fine. And I’ve talked to other people who say this should be a special, formal occasion and the orchestra should reflect that, so it’s more about the formality than just the uniformity of everyone in black.
This also ties into the conversation around selling tickets and how we get audiences to show up. I’ve heard the opinion before that maybe people don’t go to concerts partly because they feel like they have to be really formal, so let’s make the symphony more casual. Then if the audience is super casual, does the orchestra still have to wear tuxedos and formal black?
SL: I hear that too, and I know a bunch of orchestras — the Boston Symphony is one, my hometown orchestra does this, too — are experimenting with casual events where both the audience members are encouraged to wear whatever they want but also the orchestra dresses less formally. It’s supposed to be more inviting as if the formality of the dress is intimidating or inaccessible to people. I’m really curious about what research that’s based on. Do people feel more comfortable if they can go wearing whatever?
SW: Living in a college town that has a big music school and a lot of performing arts ensembles, usually the young people I see in the audience are people I know from school and then there’s a bunch of people older than us. Oftentimes it’s people who are studying musicians who show up in jeans or yoga pants, and then the older people are in their fur coats and stuff. I wonder if the norms are also changing generationally.
SL: That makes me think about how, outside of music entirely, professional wear is becoming more casual. It used to be more standard to wear a suit and carry a briefcase to work. That has turned into a lot more people wearing khakis and button-ups, and now you also have completely casual workplaces, like big tech companies and funky brands, where people go into the office wearing jeans and t-shirts and sit on colorful couches. It seems like that’s just changing in society in general — just because you’re out, doesn’t mean you have to make it a big, formal event.
SW: In today’s gig economy, there’s also less of a demarcation between “this is me at work” and “now I’ve left work and I’m going home.” So I wonder if that has some impact on office fashion; if there’s less of a distinction between work and not work, there’s less of a need for a work uniform versus a not work uniform. Thinking about how that translates to classical music, I think it does feel different if you are giving a formal performance and you dress up for it and you’re in a big space versus, say, inviting a bunch of friends over to your flat to play music for each other and you’re just wearing whatever you’re wearing that day. It’s still a performance but it feels different than when you have this whole setting around you.
SL: You have me thinking about what factors make a performance feel more or less formal. You pointed out how big the space is. Also, who’s your audience? Are they people I know or people I don’t know? How esteemed are they? How much are people paying?
Switching gears, have you noticed any differences between the U.S. and the U.K. in terms of norms for players or audiences dress for performances?
SW: In general it seems a bit more casual in Scotland, especially in terms of young people. You were just mentioning ticket prices; maybe that has an impact. Here you can get cheaper student tickets and you have more options. At the opera house you can get six-pound tickets until you’re 26, and that’s for just about anywhere in the house. I got practically a front row seat for someone playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto with one of the orchestras here, which cost me five pounds. I would never be able to afford a seat like this in the States, because usually that seat wouldn’t be available at a student price. So I think that opens it up for more young people, and then because it’s cheaper than a movie ticket, that makes it feel more casual — or at least for busy music students who will just run to a concert at the end of their day.
SL: Are there any people in the classical music world whose fashion you’re digging lately?
SW: Actually I was just talking with a friend about this earlier today. Do you know Nicky Bendetti?
SL: Yes!
SW: I’ve gone to some open dress rehearsals she’s done, and she’ll show up to play with the Scottish National Orchestra in yoga pants and a hoodie and rip through the Brahms concerto. Or she’ll be in heeled boots and a mini skirt. I look at that and just think it’s cool that she’s so confidently herself. I don’t ever get the sense that anyone in the orchestra or the conductor are treating her differently or thinking that she looks unprofessional, because she clearly has the talent to play all this repertoire with great ensembles.
SL: That last point is really interesting and I’ve thought about it in the case of Yuja Wang, too — with people who are at the top of their field and diverge from the classical music uniform, how good do you have to be “allowed” to do that? Is it more acceptable for someone who’s playing at that high of a level to break the rules, versus what if it’s a more mid-level performer or someone who doesn’t have a name at all? I feel like having that acclaim gives you more of a pass to wear what you want.
SW: At the same time, I’ve definitely seen Facebook comments on these people’s performances that basically say, “she’s not that good of a performer, she just got here because she dresses sexy” or whatever.
This is a tangent, but another interesting crossover of fashion and classical music is you’ll see a fair amount of fashion designers using classical music in their shows. In the most recent Givenchy show in Paris, all along the catwalk they had musician perched in chairs suspended from above so you had this whole orchestra playing during the show.
SL: That’s super cool! It’s funny, when I think of classical music appearing in the fashion world the only thing I think of is those really terrible stock photos or ads with a girl playing violin with the worst posture ever and you’re like, that’s fake.
SW: Or they’re playing backwards or something.
SL: Exactly. But that’s a really legit example.
Source: https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/latest/violin-stock-photos/hair/
SW: I’m pretty sure there was an Alexander McQueen show where he had a live string quartet that played. I know Burberry has also used live musicians, although those have tended to be more pop or jazz, not necessarily classical players. And there was a Moschino show that had dresses inspired by Picasso’s musician paintings.
SL: What do you want to see in classical music fashion?
SW: I’ll answer on a wider scale and then on a personal level. I would love to see the focus shift away from a specific uniform and more towards an aesthetic or level of formality (designating it black tie, or whatever is one step below black tie). I think that’s one way to get away from the gendered language and to even the playing field a lot in terms of formality. In terms of a personal aspiration, I’ve always thought it would be really fun to collaborate with a fashion designer on a look for a specific concert. Right now I’m working on a program of Ravel, Debussy, and the Gershwin Heifetz arrangements from Porgy and Bess — so 1930s French jazz vibes. It could be so fun to work with a designer to pull historical aesthetics from the time period of the compositions or the synesthesia of the colors that you hear in the music.
SL: I love that! It occurs to me that in all other performing arts, costume is very important. In dance, of course you think about how the costume works with the subject material. In opera or theater, the people on stage are in costumes meant to fit the roles they’re playing. Any form of performance art, you’re probably at least thinking about what you’re wearing. So it’s kind of funny how music is this outlier where we stick to narrow standards or often don’t give our clothing much thought.
We’ve talked a lot about orchestra standards, because that’s a lot of the playing we do and a place where we’re given the most strict dress codes. It’s harder to change a whole institution. So I think it’s really exciting to think about the smaller ensemble work or solo stuff we do where we have more room to say, this is my concert. What do I want to wear? What would I wear if I hadn’t inherited the norms of our field? Or maybe I really do want to be provocative for the sake of being provocative and that’s part of my purpose in that concert.
SW: Your comment on the other performing arts has me thinking about pop artists. I mean, Beyoncé puts so much thought into what she wears on stage.
SL: She did a nail change in the middle of a show once!
SW: There’s this idea in classical music that the music should speak for itself or that it goes beyond words. And I think that’s where this idea of “distraction” comes from, that people don’t want to watch something more than they’re listening to it. My response is if that’s the kind of experience you want, you can sit at home with a CD or your record player. We don’t go to a performance just for the audio. So maybe we shouldn’t try to hide the visual so much.
SL: Another aspect of this is that we’re mostly playing music written by other people, right? So there’s this idea that we’re playing in service of something bigger. If I’m playing Beethoven, it’s not about me. Who am I to steal the show with my appearance?
SW: I think something that makes classical music so special and unique is that each performance is a new thing. You’re going to play a Beethoven sonata entirely differently than somebody in the same year at school as you, different from someone who played it a hundred years ago, and I think we should allow those performances to change over time. We should be able to have our performances exist in 2020.
SL: When I was younger I used to think it was so boring that we all play the same things over and over, as if these works are dead because they’re old. Now I think of it more as if they’re living entities and we’re participating in a collective experience. And of course there’s new music being written all the time, too. I think we do bring some level of individuality to these pieces, otherwise why are we playing them? So I think it’s a beautiful thing — that collective experience — and then it’s a question of, what is the role of the individual in that?
Additional reading:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/05/yuja-wang-and-the-art-of-performance
https://www.wqxr.org/story/fashion-sponsorship-deals-and-classical-musicians/
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/fashion/runway-crescendo-strut-over-beethoven.html