Dress Code
One of the bar's defining characteristics used to be its goth and alternative dress code – which was routinely enforced. Customers who did not specifically conform to this style were generally expected to observe an all-black (or near to) minimum.
As a point of principle, it was regularly cited (often by goths themselves) as being incongruous with the scene's professed axiom of nonconformity. This is a specific instance of a widely observed paradox regarding the alternative scene as a whole.
This argument, however, does not acknowledge the dress code's stated and overriding purpose - which, as noted, was the preservation of the pub's hassle-free ethos - rather than the imposition of an arbitrary style.
Read more about this topic: Devonshire Arms
Famous quotes containing the words dress and/or code:
“... too much attention is paid to dress by those who have neither the excuse of ample means nor of social claims.... The injury done by this state of things to the morals and the manners of our lower classes is incalculable.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)
“Acknowledge your will and speak to us all, “This alone is what I will to be!” Hang your own penal code up above you: we want to be its enforcers!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)