Victoria park refuses ‘Victorian’ couple
For Sarah and Gabriel Chrisman, who describe their lives as “an ongoing research project” into the Victorian era, Victoria seemed the ideal destination to celebrate their 14th wedding anniversary last week.
The couple from Port Townsend, Wash., arrived by ferry and headed straight for one of the city’s top attractions, Butchart Gardens. As always, they wore Victorian-era attire — a blue print dress covering the body from neck to ankles for her and a plaid suit for him.
“Naturally, we were both also wearing hats.… Hats are just part of being dressed to go outdoors in Victorian culture,” Sarah wrote later on their blog, This Victorian Life.
But while the clothing may have been all the rage in the 1890s, for Butchart Gardens it was just too Victorian. To their disbelief, the Chrismans were told that if they wanted to enter, they would have to shed their “costumes.” They could wear old staff uniforms for their visit if they liked.
The couple tried to explain “that we really do dress this way every day and that there are firmly held convictions behind why we do so,” Sarah wrote. But the staff member “refused to believe us, and kept sneering that we were wearing ridiculous costumes that wouldn’t be allowed in Butchart.” She said the staff member cited another example of people recently refused entry: a man and woman dressed as a bumblebee and a ladybug.
Neither side would bend, and the Chrismans were refunded their bus fare and prepaid admission tickets and provided a taxi back to downtown Victoria.
Since they began their “experiential study of culture and technologies of the late nineteenthcentury” about seven years ago, the Chrismans have encountered some odd looks and rude remarks. But they said in an interview that this is the first time they have experienced an “institutional ejection.”
In a statement, Butchart Gardens said the Chrismans were treated with courtesy. As a compromise, they were told they could stay if Sarah removed her hat, but she refused.
(On their blog, Sarah called the suggestion an insult. “He is commanding a lady to take off her hat?” she wrote, adding that removing “one’s hat in the presence of superiors has been a social gesture of inferiority since the days of medieval feudalism.”)
Butchart Gardens said its policy prohibiting “costumes of any sort” is aimed at preserving “our tranquil atmosphere.” It said many international attractions have similar policies, including Walt Disney Parks and SeaWorld.
The statement says people wearing historical dress “could be mistaken for entertainers or interpreters hired by the gardens and could detract from the experience of other guests.” The no-costumes rule is posted on its website in an etiquette section that also forbids, among other things, rollerblades, skateboards, kites and the dispersal of cremated ashes.
The Chrismans see themselves as victims of intolerance, and they hope that by sharing their story, attitudes will change.
Attitudes about what is acceptable apparel have become too narrow, Gabriel said. “We’re not just saying, ‘Oh, other people wearing Victorian clothes shouldn’t be discriminated against.’ It’s that people dressing in whatever different way they want to shouldn’t be singled out.”
The couple considered filing a formal complaint of discrimination against Butchart Gardens but decided against it. Instead they prefer to remember all the “wonderful people” they met subsequently during their stay in Victoria.
Sarah quoted a Victorian writer, Hester M. Poole, from the 1880s: ” ‘A banished trouble soon starves.… Refuse to dwell in shadows when there is so much sunshine in the world,’ ” she said. “So we would prefer to stay in the sunshine. We don’t want to get dragged down into the shadows no matter how ugly people are acting.”