The baker's new clothes

(published April 2001)

I have a confession to make. I intensely dislike our white baker’s jacket, blue hairnet and white baker’s trilby. Can’t begin to tell you. Sure, it’s traditional if you think that our industry began sometime after the after the First World War. Perhaps it’s hygienic, though given the state of some bakeries that I’ve visited (alas, not worked in), and some of the foreign objects I’ve seen in loaves, I don’t really fear the humble hair. The whole get-up has a whiff of laboratory technician, and I don’t make that connection easily.

You see, I don’t have a problem with being a tradesman, or a labourer who fashions lumps of dough into desirable loaves of bread. If I can be a good labourer, then I sit high amongst the men and women who shaped this country with their hands. There aren’t many of us who were forced through circumstance and lack of opportunity to become bakers. Many chose this work because it appealed to us.

As a baker I want clothes that I feel comfortable wearing, designed to take into account the way I move when I work. The present uniforms aren’t good enough. Many of you feel the way I do, and don’t even bother wearing a uniform at all. I’m proud of my work and feel that a uniform is appropriate. The regulations to safeguard our heath and safety must be taken into account. Surely there is a better way to dress in a bakery, a design that is as much about the way we work as the needs we must supply.

There is the other, slightly more emotive reasoning behind changing the uniform. At the risk of offending everybody, I think the uniform is the most ugly get-up I have ever seen. Why the blue coloured hairnet? Just in case it falls into the mixer and we’re not able to see it? Steady on, we may as well ban anything white in the bakery just in case it falls in as well. The trilby? I guess that was a fashion statement that passed me by. When I sat there watching the television comedy ‘Dinner Ladies’, I cringed. Perhaps we are an obvious joke to the modern man. Though I didn’t overlook the sweet socialist pathos behind the series (and yes I do have a sense of humour), when the baker made his appearance I wished for a moment I worked in a different trade.

Is there anything we can do to present a more enticing image to young employees. It’s a good thing to have staff who care about the way they dress , and to work in an industry that cares about it’s own appearance. There is a solution, and we can find it. How do we get pride back into our uniform? By fashioning a design that says utility, safety, and craftsmanship. But please, no blue hairnets.