Slob City

Anne Hosier

Tuesday, Feb. 24, 1998 | 10:10 a.m.

It was without the slightest trace of irony or self-consciousness that the young man in plaid shorts, a pink Hawaiian shirt and sandals stepped up to the counter of one of the more elegant hotel-casinos in Las Vegas on a recent afternoon to register for a room.

After all, he was hardly the only person in the marble lobby committing crimes against fashion.

Just beyond a spectacular arrangement of lilies and gladioli, a pair of white-haired women in shiny sweatsuits shuffled by, their bulky fanny packs securely buckled across their bellies. In the corner, a group of teenagers in threadbare jeans and windbreakers talked and laughed. And far beyond the throngs of denim- and sweatshirt-clad, backpack-toting tourists, in the velvet-cordoned baccarat room, a man in a sleek wool suit took his chances against another high-roller wearing a baseball cap.

To be sure, the scene here was considerably less hard on the eyes than at another casino down the street, where Budweiser jackets, muscle shirts and flip-flops comprised the fashion statement of the day.

Still, it begged the question:

Shouldn't somebody rein in these fashion outlaws?

In the old days

Once upon a time there were rules -- albeit unwritten ones -- about the clothing casinos deemed acceptable.

Back in the days when movie stars and wealthy businessmen came here to play, glittering jewelry, exotic furs and expensive suits formed part of the scenery on the Strip.

"They would come to see the shows and gamble," says Frank Shane, a retired maitre d' who spent nearly four decades hosting the rich and famous at the El Rancho, the Flamingo Hotel and the Desert Inn. "They all looked glamourous. Women wore beautiful gowns, and men would wear tuxedos," he remembers. "It was like meeting royalty every night."

At the Flamingo Hotel, owner Bugsy Siegel insisted on formalwear after 5 p.m., says Christiane Le Bon, owner of the now-defunct Las Vegas finishing school Charm Unlimited.

That is, until the day a cowboy whom Siegel had unceremoniously booted from his casino went across the street to the New Frontier and promptly lost $1 million, Le Bon says.

"Since then, they don't enforce a dress code in Las Vegas," she says ruefully, "because they're so scared of losing customers."

Come as you are

In fact, apart from a few basic guidelines at some of their more exclusive nightclubs and upscale restaurants, most casinos don't even have dress codes for their guests.

"We just want people to have a good time and be themselves and not have to worry about wearing a tie (or dressing up)," says Dana Olliges, marketing and public relations director for the Hard Rock hotel-casino, where guests can come as they are to all the restaurants and nightclubs.

"People are on vacation and they want to somehow relax," agrees Craig Gilbert, director of food and beverage at the Rio Suite hotel-casino. At the Rio, general guidelines exist only in a few select nightclubs and gourmet rooms, in order "to create a place where people can go and have a special occasion." For the most, part, however, the atmosphere is intended to be relaxed.

"If you're wearing a suit to work every single day, when you go away, you still want to dress up, but you don't want to be forced into specifics."

The Mirage encourages guests to dress appropriately, particularly in their more expensive restaurants, says Jenn Michaels, director of public relations. "We just want to maintain a level of elegance for our guests."

Still, there are no hard and fast rules on the subject at the Mirage. Nor are there expected to be any at the soon-to-open luxury hotel Bellagio -- despite persistent rumours to the contrary.

"I think it's highly unlikely we would ever turn anyone away," Michaels says.

Forgotten formality

Le Bon, a former international model and etiquette instructor -- who is perhaps the closest thing Las Vegas has to a Miss Manners -- finds this trend unfortunate.

At a recent casino opening she attended with her husband, she was "appalled" to see guests arriving, not only in blue jeans, but "dirty blue jeans (with) dirty hair! How can you do that to the people who give you such a beautiful structure, such beautiful architecture?"

Le Bon, who now goes to casinos "as little as possible," nevertheless dresses up in designer gowns on those occasions when she ventures out to a show. In the company of some of the aforementioned tourists, however, she often feels conspicuous, like "a retired queen of Sheba."

"I think it is very indecent of people not to respect the other people who like to get dressed up."

Shane is inclined to agree. "People come to town and feel when they go on vacation they just want to let their hair down," he says. "There's a place for everything. But some people don't feel that way."

Back when he hosted at casinos, Shane wore a tuxedo every night. "I feel like a million dollars when I get dressed up in a tuxedo, and I think the average person feels the same way," he says.

"I would like to see us get back to the formality we had years ago."

So would Yoshiko White of Hamada Tours, who escorts Japanese tourists around town.

When her clients first arrive in Las Vegas, many are surprised at the level of dress they find in casinos.

"Most expect it to be fancier," says White, who sits primly in the lobby of a local casino, wearing an elegant navy wool suit and scarf. In Japan, many people still believe that an evening out calls for a different standard of dress, she says. "The men put on suits, and the women wear nice dresses."

When they find themselves sitting in a restaurant among people in cut-offs and T-shirts, however, "sometimes they're not glad to see that."

Tracing the shift

So when did casinos start transforming themselves into a parade of fashion faux pas?

Shane first noticed a shift from formal gowns and tuxedos to cocktail dresses and sport coats in the mid '60s. But most agree that the '80s is when the standards for dress in casinos really began to take a nosedive.

Not coincidentally, this is around the same time that local casinos and tour operators began touting Las Vegas as a family entertainment and vacation destination, says Gerald Celente author of "Trends 2000" and director of the Trends Research Institute, a research consulting firm in Rhinebeck, N.Y.

"It used to be just high rollers, excitement-seekers and conventioneers," Celente says. "But then they made these family gathering places, and they did it with a bargain-level fee. So you run the gamut now.

"It's a reflection of how gambling has touched every segment of society."

On a broader level, the baby boomers have also propelled this trend, Celente says.

"This is the generation that first dressed down the schoolroom," he says. And as they grew older, this demographic group also transformed the workplace and other public arenas, such as airports, and even churches. "In the old days, you didn't even think of going to church without a hat and gloves," Le Bon says.

Says Celente: "The baby boomers are aging and as they move through society, they take with them their habits and attitudes."

Inevitably, however, the pendulum always swings back.

And while the Generation Xers hardly constitute the kind of social and political force that the vast baby boomer generation does, their emerging penchant for music and clothes from the swing era seems to herald a return to a more glamourous era. "We're seeing the early stages of a new jazz era starting to develop," Celente says.

Kick it up a notch

When Marge Dudley of Tucson visited Las Vegas for the first time several years ago, she was somewhat surprised at the casual level of dress in the casinos. After all, when her husband came here 25 years ago, he wore a coat and tie in the casinos.

Dudley hadn't expected to see formal wear, but she did think people would be "far more (dressed) than they are."

Still, Dudley doesn't think it's such a bad thing for casinos to let guests wear whatever they want: "Las Vegas is a town of its own," she says. "You can't compare it to any normal town."

"It's a place to get away, where you can be casual, kick back and be yourself," says Cathy Sage, a hypnotherapist from Reno, who doesn't think dress codes "would go over at all.

"People who come to casinos, their main reason is to gamble. And sometimes you'll be sitting there for 12 hours, or even 24 hours. And you don't want to be sitting there in a ballgown."

Dudley, who formerly worked in a "very exclusive" hotel, where guests adhered to a dress code, thinks "if you start putting on restrictions, you risk losing business. It's safer not to."

But Celente, who counts hotel owners (though not casino owners) among his clients, disagrees.

"(Customers) are dressing down to a level where they're going to dress so low, they're going to start pushing out another segment of society," he says.

"I would say they'd be doing themselves a service by upping the dress code a couple of notches."

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