Black Clothes, Bright Socks and Other Interpreter Uniform Requirements
I like to say that my interpreting style is funeral chic.
Almost all of my clothes are black…black and dark blue. If I’m feeling extra, I might throw in a dark green. Why is that? I’ll answer that in a different blog.
Sometimes, though, that funeral chic can get a little depressing—and a little boring. At the very beginning of starting BIP, I somehow ended up with multiple contracts that required my shoes to come off and my socks to be exposed.
The horror.
The shame.
What if I had mismatched socks? Worse yet…holy socks. Something had to change.
That Christmas, I made an Amazon wish list, and right at the top were packs of fun socks. Bright colors. Funny pictures. Cupcakes. Animals. Smiley faces. Anything that made me smile. Most people would never see them unless I took my shoes off. And even then, if I happened to be sitting down, they might catch a glimpse.
Later, I dubbed it “The Interpreter Rebellion.”
We spend so much of our professional lives blending into the background. We wear neutral colors. We avoid flashy jewelry. We don’t want to distract from the communication happening around us.
But those socks?
Those are for us.
They’re the tiny reminder that even though our job is to stay out of the spotlight, we don’t have to lose our personality in the process. So, IMHO, I think we as interpreters should rebel.
Wear the fun socks.
Wear the dinosaurs.
Wear the cupcakes.
Wear the flamingos.
Wear the socks that make you smile.
Even if nobody ever sees them.
Because sometimes the smallest act of rebellion is enough to brighten your entire day. And if another interpreter catches a glimpse of them? Well…that’s just our secret handshake.