Sartorial Splendor

 We were watching an old British drama the other night: Witness for the Prosecution. This movie was so old it was in black and white. There were a few interesting plot twists but I was intrigued with the decorous courtroom scenes and, more closely, the sartorial splendor of the various judiciary: the horsehair wigs, the long black robes, the white collars; even more intriguing, I realized those same honorable outfits are still worn in English courts today. 

In the film Charles Laughton played a very principled English barrister and very much looked the part in his wig and robe. For those unfamiliar with the British courts, a barrister is a specialist in advocacy and typically represents clients in court. In other words, he can stand in front of the bar and plead his client’s case, while the solicitor is the equivalent of a paralegal. Typically, the solicitor handles the majority of the behind the scenes legal work, the research, the document preparation, etc., everything needed to make the barrister look good.

The movie harkened me back to a moment in time, many many years ago. I was toddling down Chancery Lane, one of London’s finer streets, wearing my best ‘mod’ poor boy tee shirt, macrame belt, with contrasting leggings and sandals, when I noticed a display window filled with various styles of horsehair wigs and black robes. “I say!” I said to myself, what is the import of this shop; costumes for Halloween, or props for movies or the theatre? The name on the door said Ede and Ravenscroft. Being the curious Dolly Bird that I was then, I entered the shop, looked about and tried to make sense of any of it. A well tailored gentleman, whose demeanor suggested him to be the proprietor, asked my business. My business? He bore a remarkable resemblance to Patrick Macnee which made me wonder if he was Patrick Macnee, there to pick up a costume for some film. “I beg your pardon?” I retorted causticly. I fairly dripped with condescension. During my travels, I had learned how to be more portentous than the haughtiest of snobs. He looked me over; I was clearly a long haired hippy, but still kinda cute in my hot pants. He reassessed, then finally retreated with “how may I help you”. 

I deduced that he was the shopkeeper, not the shop owner, while he deduced that I was an adorable, but penniless, waif. Clearly, a detente was in order. After all, there were no customers in the shop, and no prospects due to the inclement weather, so we proceeded to while away the afternoon with idle chatter. I explained my world tour expedition and, in return, he gave me a long and entertaining history of the exalted wig and robe establishment in which we stood, while pouring tea for me at the back of the shop. (As an aside, wouldn’t The Wig and Robe be a great name for a pub?) Anyway, it was raining, the hot tea and crisp biscuits were from Twinings, and the afternoon went by pleasantly enough with my asking only a nominal number of stupid questions. 

He explained that the original idea in jurisprudence, back in the 1700s, was that the wearing of wigs and black gowns as the uniformity of dress, would make the administration of justice impersonal, together with the elimination of personal bias and, at the same time, emphasize the formal gravity and dignity of justice. It did not matter whether, under the robe, the suit was tailored from Savile Row or purchased from Suit Supply London; everyone looked alike so the focus became the legal issue at hand, not sartorial splendor, as the means of determining guilt or innocence. A most noble principle with which I heartily agreed.

In England, he went on, wigs came and went, sometimes from completely different directions. Wigs were first associated either with vanity over hair loss, or the histrionics of the stage, or newfangled female fashions. Queen Elizabeth I wore a red wig to cover her thinning grey hair. Ironically, the wigs caused the hair to thin, which meant more wigs were required and of course those wigs were hugely expensive and elaborate. QE1 had more than 80 wigs. Since I own more than 80 pairs of shoes, I would not throw any stones in her direction, but it’s curious how one style often morphs into something else, like tattoos on grizzled sailors which have now become mainstream among the general public while at one time they were the outward sign of a life lived on the far edge of society. Such was the case with wigs.

Sir John Fortescue, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, at one time was at the wrong end of the War of the Roses, but was later reinstated, then wrote the most influential treatise on English law. He wore his tunic, as it was called then, with an elaborate belt and fur trim at the hem. Previously, the robes would change colors depending on the stature of the barrister but after a time the only acceptable color was black to illustrate the gravity commensurate with the Noble Robe. Even now, in England the Noble Robe continues to include black silk stockings and black patent leather shoes but is no longer the heavy material that was mandatory then. Currently, the textiles change in weight according to the weather; lighter fabric in summer and warmer in winter. 

In the US, oddly enough, the founding fathers ditched the wigs for court, although a number of them wore wigs around town for vanity’s sake. Remarkably, George Washington didn’t wear a wig but had reddish brown hair which he powdered so that it looked like a wig. 

And, for the most part, the US fathers scrapped the tradition of black robes for jurists. The rationale for ridding the robes was to differentiate the lawyers from the judge, which was a huge error in judgment (pardon the pun), because it also eliminated the allusion of neutrality. Today, in movies, we only know the good guy’s lawyer from the bad guy’s lawyer by the cut of the suit. The good guy’s lawyer is portrayed as earnest, committed, usually a low paid solo practitioner, standing in front of the juror box wearing a suit purchased off the rack or even second hand (as any John Grisham novel will enlighten you), coupled with a frayed dress shirt and a sad rep tie, while the bad guy’s lawyer arrives with an entourage of bag carriers, wearing a custom Armani suit, well polished Italian leather shoes, a silk tie, a monogrammed shirt and fairly oozing with the scent of an expensive French after shave. How would the jurors react? How could the jurors react? How impressive. So much for the concept that justice is blind. Clothes make the man. Forget truth, justice and the American way. Of course Mr. Armani would win the case. He was rich and successful; anyone could see that, so he must be the better lawyer. Therein lay the detriment to the common man.

Today, in the US, only justices and judges wear the black robes, while in Canada, justices and lawyers both wear the robes, but only at the federal and supreme court levels. This loss of formal decorum for jurists is a complete mystery since the original point of the wig and robe was to forge legal neutrality and to eliminate juror bias. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who famously gave us the ‘clear and present danger’ doctrine, also wrote a book about The Common Law and would be among the first to agree that the disappearance of the court’s ‘wig and robe’ tradition was a sign of lack of respect for the common man, as evidenced by My Cousin Vinny and Legally Blonde.