A tale of two hats, or more specifically a tale of dressing as per category codes for two roles.

Yesterday was one of the days when one chuckles at how weird and funny life can be. I had two meetings, both involving tables, and both came with dress code guidelines.

One was a filmed Roundtable meeting of creative minds from the ad industry and the other a board meeting followed by a shoot of the directors for the annual report of the company. In both cases we were informed to dress appropriately. Black, of course, was the colour for the ad shoot.

Much conversation ensued about that, as one has now outgrown that colour code and had problems finding black. Give me the flaming oranges, the electric blues and happy fuchsias any day. The world has enough black anyway.

Anyway, I dug deep into the clothes ka pitara and found something to not let the sanctity of the shoot down.

Had super fun chatting up a storm with the inspiring tribe of creatives, moderated by Sonal Dabral for Good Ads Matter

And then rushed back to change for the board meeting. Into a sedate sari. Although I did sneak in some creative panache by wearing one with typographic scribbles and brush strokes all over it. Hah!

Anyway, point to be made is that individuals, industries, businesses, and of course brands are all, well brands. Behaviour, rituals, symbols, forms and colours all take a special meaning and go beyond their literal existence to transform into potent brand statements and are claimed as deemed appropriate by everyone.

So orange is claimed by BJP, black by the ad industry, and a sari and a suit are claimed by roles with gravitas and so on.

My wearing a sari with some panache was an expression of a whisper of rebelliousness, without breaking the code. What we wear and where we wear them and how we wear clothes is a science of human insight unto itself.

Wearing a sari with sneakers, a fabulously tailored suit which is printed in rani pink patterns, etc tell us stories of what the person stands for, likes, reads, travels to, eats and so on. And ditto goes for businesses too. I tell you the world of Design, brands and their rituals are fascinating.

The more we understand them, the better we could put them to use.

I’m off to dress my upper half now for a zoom meeting. Have a lovely day.