SUBJECTIVE.
Whenever this comes up, and again look over this thread, it all comes down to being very subjective - and thus going to be enforced differently (or not at all) and this is my biggest problem with this. Second, it's not applied across the network, which leads to confusion and stupidity - what if I start in CNS (no dress code) then fly to, oh I dunno, CBR via BNE or SYD? (dress codes). If I wear thongs in CNS it's fine, then I get turned away in BNE? What message does that send?
but the whole subjective thing is the key.. everyone has a different idea of what "appropriate" is.. and it seems more and more these days we (as a society) spend way too much time worrying about what others are doing or wearing. If some person is wearing thongs and ripped jeans in the lounge.. honestly if they are well behaved and clean I could care less. It's none of my business.
Frankly I prefer to dress more casual when I fly because it's more comfortable. I rarely wear shorts (the community is grateful
) and never thongs, but if I did so what? I usually wear a (clean) polo or tee when flying (and working for that matter). and my personal standard is to be clean, wear deodorant etc and be presentable but comfortable.
Recently I sat near someone in a lounge who was dressed quit nicely but had a really bad BO issue. I don't blame them per se - we can't sometimes help our situation, and there could be any reason for it, but I was really wishing he had some deodorant or even aftershave to try and mask it a bit. I am not saying that someone like this should be refused entry, but often it is things like this that can and do affect others far more than someone wearing thongs (unless their feet stink! ) and I consider things that affect others in the area to be far more important than personal clothing choices.
.. and as noted many times by many of us... it's often boorish and gross behaviour, eg feet on furtniture, loud phone calls or face time, inappropriate language at loud levels or poor treatment of staff or others that frankly is a bigger issue for most of us regular flyers.
I know some would like it to go back to the day when everyone wore their "Sunday Best" to fly and all that, while others would rather everything to be super casual.. this is our society.. and this is also why dress codes like this are so subjective and cause so many issues. Decent intention, but a real issue in practice (and I agree with the problems for the staff who do enforce these things - they're the bad guy in the public eye)
imo