Madam, - I agree with Barry Coffey (August 14th), who laments that, on a recent trip to the Gate theatre, so many of the audience were casually clad.
While I generally subscribe to the dictum "each to his/her own", I think what's at the heart of this is the loss of a sense of occasion, bound up in rituals, etiquette and formalities.
In former times an occasion such as a theatre visit would call for a certain mode of dress. Only a few decades ago dinner suits and an evening frock for men and women respectively would have been de rigueur.
Sadly, times have changed, and I agree with Mr Coffey when he asserts that our recently acquired affluence may have a lot to do with it. A kind of "who cares, I'm doing very nicely, thank you" mentality pollutes and diminishes everything.
Mr Coffey, an Irishman living in the South of France for a number of years, has probably just become accustomed to a more elegant mode of dress which still prevails in parts of the Continent, at least for now. That is why our "closer to Boston than Berlin" approach to everything, including apparel, comes as somewhat of a culture shock. At least he can console himself that in his new home he enjoys something resembling a summer. - Yours, etc,
DAVID MARLBOROUGH, Kenilworth Park, Dublin 6W.