Access to business attire as a widening participation issue in UK law schools

Abstract

ABSTRACT Despite the suit being the very iconography of the lawyer, access to business attire is a curiously overlooked aspect of academic work on our most marginalised aspiring legal professionals, namely widening participation (WP) students. This article seeks to address that omission. Taking an interdisciplinary approach drawing on fashion and textile studies, sociology, urban geography, cultural and gender studies, it frames the issue of formal attire and access to the same explicitly as a WP issue. It discusses the “hidden curriculum” surrounding professional dress, maps out the subtle and unexpected ways in which certain students can be excluded from the textiles marketplace, and problems within that marketplace itself. While recognising that WP categories can often intersect, the article takes a thematic approach, grouping the analysis around disability; gender; fast fashion, sustainability and class; the influence of the pandemic; and graduation. Although clothing loan schemes and limited bursaries are understandable solutions, the argument proposed is that these reproduce and exacerbate existing inequalities, and that choice, ownership and access to materials of quality which recognise the full funding implications of a professional wardrobe are essential if WP students are to have parity of access to correct and adequate attire with their non-WP peers.