What to Wear to the Grand Deliberative: A Necessary Intervention
The Grand Deliberative convenes once a season, and once a season, without fail, something unspeakable waddles through its doors wearing nothing. I have endured this long enough. I am intervening.
Let us begin with the baseline, the floor, the absolute minimum required of any fruit entering a solemn chamber of consequence: you must wear something. This is not a preference. This is civilization. I should not have to write this sentence and yet here we are, largely because of Tangelo, who appeared before the Autumn Tribunal last month in what I can only describe as his natural state, which is to say a catastrophe. A dimpled catastrophe. The rival rag called it "authentic." The rival rag calls everything authentic. The rival rag has no standards and neither, apparently, does Tangelo.
For those requiring more specific guidance: a structured rind-tone wrap is always appropriate. Foliage — if it is your own, if it is attached, if it is doing something intentional — may serve as a collar accent. It may not serve as the entire ensemble, Kiwi. We have spoken about this. The Deliberative has spoken about this. The doorman has spoken about this in increasingly direct terms.
Fruits arriving in delegations must coordinate. Not match — coordinate. There is a difference and it is the difference between a statement and a tragedy. I watched Plum, Mango, and Fig arrive together at the Chamber of Prolonged Disagreement dressed in what appeared to be three entirely unrelated decades. Plum was doing something Baroque. Mango had gone completely rogue in the direction of casual. Fig, as is his custom, appeared to have given up somewhere in the corridor.
I say this not with malice but with the weary authority of someone who has been correct every single time: dress like you mean to be taken seriously, or do not dress at all — and if you do not dress at all, do not be surprised when the minutes reflect that you were present but regrettable.