A Week in Starchville and Sparkle City

Today, I'm in my everyday attire of frumpled jeans and cozy sweatshirt--the sort of clothes that make it easy to go from home office to barn and back again. But last week was a different story. Then, I took my editor's job on the road to the World Championship Quarter Horse Show in Oklahoma City--where the unofficial dress code calls for men to be in jeans and shirts so stiffly starched they could stand up on their own, and for women to be as blinged out as possible, whether in the show pen or not.

In that environment, no one gives you a second look if you turn up at 7 a.m., glittering from head to toe with crystals applied to everything but your underwear. (Well, you could glitter there, too, if you were to spring for one of the crystalled bras available at the trade show.) And while I have to badger my hometown cleaners to process my show jeans in extra-heavy starch ("Are you SURE you want them that stiff?"), one of the World Show perks includes showgrounds pick-up and delivery from vendors with names like Cowboy Cleaners. In that instance, you have to specify when you want anything BUT extra-heavy starch.

"Civilians" don't really understand why horse-show types wear these sorts of get-ups. But I think I understand it perfectly.

The starch turns plain cotton garments into a form of body armor. It makes you stand up tall, suck in your gut, square your shoulders and lift your chin to face the competition. In today's super-casual society, where it's socially acceptable to wear elasticized sportswear even to church, we don't see much in the way of crisply-pressed clothing anymore. When you put it on to attend a horse show, you know right away that you're about to enter a non-everyday realm.

Same thing with the sparkle sported by the gals. We don't have that many dress-up opportunities anymore--those chances to get all decked out and feel like queens of the prom. With workplaces that've gone from Casual Fridays to Casual Everydays, and a society in which track suits are as ubiquitous at the mall as at the gym, we need another outlet for putting on our princesswear.

I didn't give this subject much thought until I left the show to fly back home. As I settled into the center seat for my homeward flight, I was somewhat jolted by the appearance of my two seatmates. With both in clothes that'd come straight out of the dryer, wrinkles and all, and with two sets of eyeballs peering over at the big-crystal belt adorning my waist, I realized that Starchville and Sparkle City are the equivalent of foreign countries to people who don't frequent Western horse shows.