Last week The Guardian reported that a female employee resigned from Harrods over an ongoing disagreement with regard to
their uniform policy.
The “ladies” uniform policy states that women must wear “Full makeup at all time: base, blusher, full eyes (not too heavy), lipstick, lip
liner and gloss are worn at all time and maintained discreetly (please take into account the store display lighting which has a ‘washing out’ effect).”
Despite adhering to all other aspects of the policy (black trousers etc) Melanie Stark’s refusal to wear makeup to work caused such conflict with management that eventually she felt forced to resign.
According to The Guardian Ms Stark worked effectively without makeup for four years before management decided to enforce the policy. On one occasion she was sent home from work and on another she was sent to work in the stockroom.
Being a naturally beautiful human being, as well as based in London we asked Rock Legend – Denis Augusto what he thought of Harrods’ policy on makeup:
“As a curious and – let’s be frank here – brave person, I’d find far more interesting helping the Queen first thing in the morning with her slippers than attending a British Honour Ceremony. I mean, who wants to go to a shop and be patronised by a standard fancy cow rather than witnessing a good royal servant in her natural state?”
He then mentioned that a song from his new band Pistolettos might serve as an appropriate soundtrack to this story. It is called “Clone”, and, if we have done it correctly should be playing now.
Since we are well into our social media tools (did we mention you can like us on Facebook?) we decided to check out some threads on Twitter. Whilst some people said that the policy was clearly stated within the contract and staff knew what they were signing up for most users seemed to view the policy as “deeply sexist.” We tried joining the Tweet, but it just did not work out for us.
Being big into social and gender equality here at Newsnibbles we would never dream of instituting different uniform policies for different sexes. It is for that reason that we have given Graham a choice: He can chose to wear full makeup, blusher, lip and eye liner (not too heavy) or come to work with a brown paper bag on his head. He opted for the first option. The process has taken him so long to apply that he was unavailable to comment on this story. He is going to have to get up earlier.
You can read The Guardian’s report here:http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/jul/01/harrods-dress-code-sales-assistant?INTCMP=SRCH
You can “like” us here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/News-Nibbles/120796728006828
The Pistolettos are available for gigs, watch this space for details.
