"She wears her collar up,"

I was told. I knew what the speaker meant and it was not intended as a compliment.

The speaker was an old acquaintance from my student days. At the university in question there was a sort of "dress code" I suppose. The vast majority of students were aware of it.  

It only applied to one item of clothing and that was the polo shirt. There were a lot of polo shirts around at the time. I had three... one on, one off and one in the wash. They were made of the sort of material that did not need too much care and attention. Yes, convenient when you are spending sixty or seventy hours a week at lectures and then in the law library. 

You could look up from your case notes and see the students either side of you wearing something similar. Mine were sober colours I suppose. Fire engine red, sun yellow, sunset orange and other bright colours do not suit me but there were plenty of those to be seen. Mine were blue and green and navy. I had actually bought mine before returning to university.  I had no idea there was any sort of "code" attached to the wearing of them.

"Where did you go to school?" I was asked. I explained because it is often something students there did want to know. This was my first day and I did not want to appear stand offish or unwilling to engage in conversation.

"Oh, then I am just letting you know that you are supposed to wear your collar up," my informant kindly told me.

I must have looked as puzzled as I felt. Why would I wear my collar up? It sounded uncomfortable to me. Collars like that are made to sit, not stand.

"It means you have been to a fee paying school," I was told. Really? That was enough for me to leave my collar down. I couldn't care less what sort of school you went to. It is much more interesting to find out what sort of person you are.

I have no idea whether the practice continues. I hope not. It is a long time since I have been back. 

But among those I grew to be particularly friendly with nobody wore their collars up. Some of us may have had the "right" to do so but we chose not to do it.  We never really discussed it then but we understood it. All these years later we do not need to say more than someone "wears their collar up" to understand what sort of person we are talking about.