18/09/2024
CELEBRITIES AND THEIR DRESS CODES AT OFFICIAL RECEPTIONS
I have come to notice that most sport celebrities don’t mind the way they dress when visiting state authorities in their offices. When they are informed that they will be visiting a state authority in their offices, that is when they choose to put on T-shirts and all sorts of assorted wears. The most recent in Cameroon is Olympic Gold medalist with the American Basketball team at the recent Paris 2024 Summer Olympics Joel Embid who was invited by the Cameroon government and decorated with the Commander of National Order of Valour. In as much as I don’t buy the fact that someone would grow in a field, attain his apex and during a prestigious world event such as the Olympics, he chooses to defend the colours of a different country and his country of birth which he abandoned, emerges with zero medal, yet decides to call and decorate him, I as well don’t condone his attire when he was called up to be honoured.
How can a minister and all his cabinet members put on suits and official wear in a ceremony to receive and honour you for your brilliant career and performance in an official event and you decide to turn out in an attire that even your underprivileged relatives can’t accept to put on when you would have returned to the US? Is Joel Embid sure that if he removes that his T-shirt and abandon on the bed, or somewhere in the house any relative of his would dare wear it even for once? In fact, I am convinced that the attire now serves as shoe rag in their family compound but that is what he choose to turn out with during an event in which his host and all his cabinet members where all in dark suits for men and corporate attire for the ladies.
This is the same thing Lionel Messi did when former Gabonese president Ali Bongo turned out at the Airport to welcome him. The guy descended from the plane in shorts as though he were strolling to his backyard to check on his flowerbeds. My goodness! A head of state cannot mobilize presidential guards, and all his Etat Major to the airport all dressed in official wear and their guest of honour emerges from the plane as though he was strolling from his bedroom to his bathroom to brush his teeth. This is an insult and an intentional lack of respect to state authorities, and these guys all know it. They have suits, dark ones for that matter, they know how to wear it, where and when to wear it, but they simply choose not to do it.
Look at the way they dress during Ballon d’Or events and when they are presented to the press in their new clubs when signing new contracts! The attire is dark ceremonial suits, white shirts and black ties and they all respect it. But when they visit our state officials, they behave as though stars have no idea about corporate attire or state protocol. My brother, if I am the one, you will return and we have that event cancelled and I get back to work. I cannot prepare to welcome you with my entourage in an event and you turn out in casual wear. Imagine you inviting someone as guest of honour and informing him that he will be the Chairman of your wedding ceremony and he strolls in with sandals and a polo as though he is moving around removing cobwebs in the house. How would you feel? I don’t know where these state officials muster the courage to receive these guys, but to me, they should be asked to return since they are not ready for the event. Worst still, most of these events are mediatized on National Radio and Television, yet both parties don’t seem to care but if it is a normal person, they will tell you, the Minister or President cannot receive you in such an attire, giving the impression that being a celebrity is a license to violate state protocol and impose your own decorum.
Our leaders should learn to respect themselves, get to work, get busy and insist to be respected by their guests or the latter return. To me such invitations should be accompanied by a dress code, and the guests told that without that dress code, the guards won’t let them in. It is possible to insist to be respected. For instance, any event taking place at the Burkingham Palace in England is accompanied by a dress code, be it a wedding and guests are told that it is a royal event and indecency won’t be tolerated. To prove that these celebrities all know what they are doing, they obey it to the letter. No blouses or tops that expose your shoulders and skirts all below knee level for the ladies, and all of this is respected to the letter even by Hollywood stars. But when these same celebrities visit our own state institutions, they behave as though stars don’t have any idea about protocol and funny enough our administration tolerates it.
I blame our state dignitaries for all of this disorder. If you are hardworking, hardly having anytime to waste, delivering the expected results, transforming lives and impacting society positively, no one will tamper with your principles. In fact they would abide by your rules and instead struggle to identify with you so as to be proud out there that they are connected to that hardworking and transformational leader. If your guests can’t respect simple protocol, let them stay, besides, they are the ones benefitting from the honours you are giving them and not the other way round. You have work to do and if they can’t adhere to the decorum of events organized by senior state officials, then let them stay until they are ready or never turn out at all, because they might never get such an opportunity again. This gives an impression of lack of work or mediocrity on the host who wants to use the success story of the celebrity to cover up his mediocrity. Else, if you are hardworking in your athletics and I am hardworking in my administration, then for courtesy sake, let’s observe mutual respect in our encounters or stay on our lanes till we are ready to do so.
Dressing properly in order to meet someone is a mark of respect towards that person. Even GOD instructed Moses to make BEAUTIFUL robes for Aaron so that he can serve before HIM as Priest, and the day GOD was about to descend on mount Sinai, HE instructed the Israelite people to take a bath, wash their dresses clean for HE will come to them on the third day.
No hard feelings… Just my opinion…
I come in peace!
SHALOM!!!
