Dressing the part

LEFT TO RIGHT: Teachers from Suan Dusit Raghhabat University dressed for business. Staff at Sarasas Ektra School looking smart.

When the Nobel Prize winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer mused "What a strange power there is in clothing," I doubt he was thinking about Batman's bulletproof cape. More likely he was considering why we are more likely to trust a man in a necktie than one in, say, a ski mask and jumper. Clothes can tell you a lot about someone, and that strange power is, perhaps, nowhere more apparent than here in Thailand.

While college professors in other parts of the world famously favour ratty old jeans and threadbare corduroy jackets, your average Thai tutor is more likely to be found in an orange silk two-piece with starched collar and shiny buttons. And that's just the men. Appearance rules in Thai schools. No question.

The business end

James Shipton, director of English Language Services at the British Council, is all too familiar with the challenge of making sure teachers dress properly.

"Dress codes are always controversial," he says. "People can never agree on what to wear, and so unless you have something like a school uniform, you're going to have problems."

Few would disagree that life's too short to waste time quibbling over whether a particular pair of trousers are in fact jeans, or whether such-and-such a blouse is actually see-through. Shipton found the best way to deal with the issue was to strip the whole notion of a dress code down to two basic words - look smart.

"We explain that looking scruffy can be inferred as a showing a lack of respect or being impolite here in Thailand," Shipton says. "Teachers accept that. They understand that the [classroom] environment affects learning.

"There's also an awareness that there needs to be a distinction between teachers and students." While the British Council relies on teachers' common sense, other institutions take a more prescriptive approach. Ajarn Kanjana Charttrakul, head of Business English at Suan Dusit Rajabhat University in Bangkok, echoes James Shipton's view that teachers have to stand out. "As well as the teachers, we have almost 800 support staff at the university," she says. "The students need to know who is who." The university's strict dress code - men in smart shirts and ties, women in formal skirts or trousers - is also intended to reinforce teachers' authority. "Clothes reflect a person's personality," Ajarn Kanjana says. "Dressing smartly shows that you are efficient."

Ajarn Kanjana has also noticed a generational difference in what teachers tend to wear. "The senior staff prefers to dress in traditional Thai silk. But that proves quite expensive for younger lecturers, who tend to wear [more modest] clothes."

Putting on the Ritz

You don't have to be "of a certain age" to play dress up, though. Most Thai schools have at least one day a week when teachers can leave the Windsor knots and knee-length skirts at home. At The Prince Royal's College (PRC), Chiang Mai, for example, Monday is school uniform day, when staff is encouraged to dress like the students: women teachers in navy skirts and white blouses, men in similarly coloured slacks and shirts.

PRC, like plenty of other schools in the North, designates Friday traditional dress day, when students and teachers alike are encouraged to come to school in Lanna-style clothes. Further south, at Wat Pong School in Pattaya, Tuesday is the day for time-honoured Thai finery. At Sarasas Ektra School in Bangkok, they even manage to combine themes, with teachers choosing between traditional silk outfits and open-necked polo shirts.

If it's Wednesday it must be green

Take a look around a staff room next Monday morning and count the yellow tops. Yellow is, of course, very much the colour of the moment, symbolic of the day HM the King was born. Indeed, many schools have decided to designate Mondays yellow shirt day until the end of the year, in honour of the sixtieth anniversary of the King's accession to the throne. But did you know that if the King had been born on a Tuesday, we'd all be wearing pink? Wednesday would have been green while Thursday's colour is orange, and Friday's blue. The weekend's pretty colourful too, with violet for Saturdays and red for Sundays.

This colour coding has its roots in pre-Buddhist religious lore, when the great Hindu creator/destroyer Shiva set about creating the planets. As in English, the Thai word for Monday, wan jahn, refers to the moon, which Shiva created by wrapping the dust of 15 heavenly maidens in a yellow cloth. And so it goes throughout the week, with various subjects being reduced to dust and wrapped in different coloured cloths.

Many teachers take it upon themselves to follow this colour coding system - a kind of colour feng shui - while others pay respect to their town by donning municipal colours. It's common for teachers in the northern town Chiang Rai, for example, to wear the town's signature purple on Fridays. In Phrao, they manage to tick two boxes at the end of the week by donning traditional mor hom shirts, which just happen to be blue.

From button-down collars to green silk skirts, what a teacher wears to work can convey authority, respect, tradition, equality, loyalty, efficiency, status and - lest we forget - taste. Quite where old jeans and corduroy jackets fit into that is anyone's guess. A strange power indeed.