The wrong trousers: how sporting dress codes can create an image problem | Emma John
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Magnus Carlsen’s jeans put the spotlight on chess’s sartorial intransigence but it is not the only sport struggling to adapt. Wallace and Gromit is a festive TV staple in many a household – but it wasn’t their wrong trousers that scooped the post-Christmas headlines. That honour belonged to Magnus Carlsen, disqualified from a chess tournament in New York for wearing jeans.
![[Emma John]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2017/10/06/Emma-John,-R.png?width=180&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The orld No 1 – who also happens to be the only current chess player most people can name – had balked when he was told to change his attire ahead of his third-round match at the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships. Walking out of the event, Carlsen shrugged that he would “probably head off to somewhere where the weather is a bit nicer”. Instead, he returned three days later after governing body Fide had agreed a more “flexible approach” to its dress code.
![[Judd Trump lines up a shot]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8ee7196edc7b056929db305021a20fb49adf0b6c/0_0_7413_4942/master/7413.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The fact that chess even has a dress code will have been news to many. Some of us assumed elite players show up at tournaments looking like accountants because, you know, they’re good at calculations. But apparently, left to themselves, they’re a bunch as prone to scruffiness as the rest of us: the stipulation for business attire was born of a growing concern among officials that standards were slipping to dangerous levels. There can’t be many sports that explicitly state competitors must be “free of body odour”.
![[Peter Wright in action at Alexandra Palace]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cb2ed32cf0c8837b36709b652584eb9cc3211366/0_0_5258_3550/master/5258.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Ironically, chess is so worried about its image problem that it has actually created an image problem. Carlsen is chess’s biggest – let’s be honest, only – superstar. The 34-year-old Norwegian is knowing enough to have responded to disqualification by posting a selfie captioned “OOTD”. (And you, dear reader, are, of course, knowing enough to appreciate that stands for “Outfit Of The Day”). The outfit in question was utterly unremarkable: a blue shirt and pin-striped blazer paired with smart, dark denim. It fell to menswear expert Derek Guy to point out that Fide’s hastily updated dress code – permitting jeans with an orphaned suit jacket – now wilfully endorses a fashion crime.
