In the High Court in London, or the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid, there is a dress code. It is unspoken, yet strictly enforced by the collective gaze of the bench, the bar, and the public gallery. Most advisers will give you the standard script: “Wear a dark suit. Look conservative. Be invisible.”
The implication, charmingly, is that justice has a uniform — and that anyone who declines to wear it must have something to hide. Which raises an awkward question we rarely put on the record: if the law is genuinely blind, why does it insist so firmly on what you wear when you stand before it?
When we discuss legal strategy or complex disputes, counsel and solicitors will spend hundreds of hours on witness statements and disclosure bundles. Yet the first piece of evidence a tribunal receives is the visual one. Before you speak a single word, the way you carry yourself and the clothes you choose to wear have already begun to tell a story. If the courtroom is a stage, you ought to know whether you are playing the lead, the villain, or — worse — the extra a judge has decided to convict by lunchtime.
The Rise of ‘Courtcore’
The term “Courtcore” has recently migrated from the fashion pages of Vogue to the strategy rooms of top-tier law firms — which tells you everything about which industry takes presentation more seriously. Chloe Welling’s recent piece in The Guardian on Rebel Wilson’s defamation trial captures the phenomenon precisely, observing that how one presents at trial can carry real consequences — however irrelevant to the legal merits it ought to be, and however much we pretend otherwise.
Take Gwyneth Paltrow’s “quiet luxury” during her Utah courtroom appearance. Olive-green coats, cream knits, a $1,500 Smythson notebook — these were not fashion choices but a sophisticated legal strategy. They signalled a woman who was composed, successful, and fundamentally “too busy for this nonsense.” She did not look like a defendant; she looked like a wrongly inconvenienced professional.
Contrast this with Kim Kardashian, who testified in Paris dripping in diamonds against prosecutorial advice — a deliberate reclamation of agency from the men who had stripped it from her. Or Gisèle Pelicot’s printed silk scarf, gifted by Australian women’s networks, which transformed her presence into an international emblem of solidarity.
It is no accident that the most-discussed examples of Courtcore are women. Dress speaks as a closing argument before opening statements; it simply speaks louder when the body wearing it is female. The visual evidence a courtroom is willing to collect on a female body is far more granular, and far more freely admitted into the public record, than anything it gathers on a male body wearing the equivalent of a uniform.
Set these women beside the men who shared the same news cycle, and the asymmetry sharpens. Johnny Depp arrived at the Fairfax courthouse in a careful rotation of three-piece suits, scarves and waistcoats; his “rock-star” eccentricity was received by commentators as authentic personal style, even as the same press dissected every cut of Amber Heard’s blazer for evidence of artifice. Harvey Weinstein, in turn, shuffled into a Manhattan courtroom with a walker and an ill-fitting grey suit, performing frailty as a defence strategy that no serious observer accused him of staging. A woman attempting the same theatre would have been called manipulative before opening submissions.
The default male suit is unmarked — a uniform that performs neutrality and is read as such. Every female choice, by contrast, is admitted as testimony the witness did not know she was giving. Paltrow’s restraint, Kardashian’s diamonds and Pelicot’s scarf are the same evidentiary process applied to a single category of body, returning a different verdict on each. If, as we shall see, adjudication is never quite the neutral exercise it claims to be, then the courtroom doorstep is one of the quietest places that its bias does its work — and it does that work, predominantly, on women.
These are recognitions that appearance is a closing argument in itself. “Courtcore” is, at heart, the polite admission that judges and juries judge — and that they begin doing so the moment you walk through the door.
The Theatre Has Always Been Political
The critical legal scholar Duncan Kennedy spent much of his career dismantling the comforting fiction that adjudication is a neutral, technical exercise. In A Critique of Adjudication (Harvard University Press, 1997), he argued that judges routinely decide in “bad faith”, presenting ideological preference as the impartial application of legal logic. If that is true of trained jurists — paid to be impartial and robed to remind themselves — it is plainly more so of jurors, who arrive in the box with a lifetime of unexamined assumption and twenty minutes of induction.
Kennedy pressed the point further in Sexy Dressing, Etc. (Harvard University Press, 1995), where he treated dress as a coded site upon which culture inscribes power. Clothing, in his framing, mirrors what he called the “eroticization of domination” — meaning that what a person wears in public space is read against scripts the wearer never authored, and frequently never read. Lindy Chamberlain learned this brutally in 1982: condemned as “overdressed” in 36-degree Australian heat, she was wrongly convicted of a crime that, we now know, never occurred. Her sundresses spoke more loudly to the jury than the forensic evidence. The dingo, sadly, had no stylist.
The robe does not exorcise prejudice. It merely tailors it.
The Humanist Dilemma: Two Different Theatres
In a practice that bridges the Common Law and Civil Law worlds, and that increasingly extends across London, Dubai, Madrid and the wider international circuit, two distinct theatres of justice become visible — and they ask very different questions of the person standing in the dock.
In the Common Law tradition — England, the United States, the offshore jurisdictions — the court often acts as an umpire between two competing bundles of rights. The traditional advice is to “neutralise” the client. Counsel places clients in a charcoal-grey box, strips away personality, and prays the tribunal will focus on statute and precedent rather than on the human being in front of it. The goal is to be unmemorable — which is itself a curious legal strategy when liberty, money, or family is at stake.
In the Civil Law tradition — Spain, France, much of continental Europe — and in the hybrid systems of the DIFC and ADGM, the system is rooted in a more human-centred conception of justice. Here, the person matters. Family unit, social standing, and moral character are not background noise; they are part of the evidence. When dealing with family disputes, succession, or proceedings touching reputation, the tribunal is searching for the human truth behind the documents — and is not easily fooled by a borrowed suit.
If I am conducting “human due diligence” on a case, I look at how the client presents. A self-employed builder forced into a stiff pinstripe not worn in a decade looks as though he is wearing a costume. A small business owner pressed into formal court attire that has no relation to her daily working life looks the same. A judge — whether sitting in the Temple, the Audiencia Nacional, or the DIFC Courts — can smell a costume from across the room. Authenticity, in court, is the ultimate currency. Pretending otherwise is the most expensive false economy in litigation.
The Strategy of Authenticity
The provocative truth is this: the most effective “look” for court is not the most conservative one. It is the one most consistent with the version of the truth you are telling.
We routinely act for clients whose lives do not fit a standard box — tradespeople, family carers, small business owners, expatriates, working parents. If your case rests on your reputation as a steady worker, you should dress like one. If your defence depends on your role as a protective, grounded parent, your attire should reflect it. The witness box is no place for fancy dress.
The goal is to eliminate cognitive dissonance — the discomfort felt when two contradictory impressions collide. If a witness speaks of being a meticulous, detail-oriented professional yet appears dishevelled or in clothes that do not fit, the tribunal subconsciously begins to doubt the testimony. The visual and the verbal must be in perfect harmony. The alternative is to spend half your evidence-in-chief explaining yourself and the other half being disbelieved.
A Practical Guide to the ‘Protagonist’ Look
- Avoid the ‘Defendant’ Uniform. There is a specific look that screams I am trying to look innocent: the ill-fitting borrowed suit, the too-bright tie, the unpolished shoes. If you look as though you are trying to play a role, you look as though you have something to hide. Your clothes should belong to you and to your life.
- The Power of Restraint. Quality and tidiness speak louder than expense. Conspicuous consumption — large logos, flashy jewellery, hype brands — reads in court as arrogance or disrespect for the gravity of the proceedings. Clean, well-kept clothing in neutral tones (navy, charcoal, beige) signals substance, regardless of price. Court is not the moment to debut anything.
- Respect the Venue, but Keep Your Identity. The venue dictates formality; it should not erase your DNA. In London, a smart blazer and tailored trousers, or a clean dress with a cardigan, are a respectful middle ground. In the Gulf, a thobe or traditional attire signifies dignity. In Madrid, a tidy professional dress or a sober suit reflects the European appreciation for form.
- Attention to Detail. If you are fighting for your home, your residency, your inheritance, or your family’s future, your appearance should reflect a life worth fighting for. Clean, groomed, composed. Dirty fingernails, scuffed shoes, or unkempt hair suggest a lack of control over one’s own narrative — and judges, regrettably, tend to extrapolate.
Non-Verbal Communication and the Bench
Judges are human. They are trained to be impartial, but they remain subject to the same psychological cues as everyone else, and pretending otherwise is a sentimentality the profession can no longer afford. A tribunal that sees a client who has taken trouble to present themselves perceives that the client takes the court’s time seriously.
Attire also affects the wearer. Enclothed cognition — the documented influence clothing exerts upon the wearer’s psychological processes — means that dressing in a way that feels empowered and authentic produces a better witness. You speak more clearly, hold your posture, and withstand cross-examination with greater composure. The suit, in other words, is partly for you.
The Closing Note
The law is often presented as a cold collection of codes, treaties, and regulations. At its heart, it is a human drama performed in a high-stakes environment by people who have agreed to pretend they are above it. Welling is right that presentation carries real consequences. Kennedy was right that the tribunal’s claim to neutrality is, at best, partial.
Next time you prepare for a hearing, do not simply ask your counsel what should I wear? Ask: what story does my appearance tell, and is it the story we want the tribunal to believe?
If you are the lead in this drama, do not settle for a costume someone else has picked for you. Wear the truth. Make sure that when you stand before the bench, the person the tribunal sees is precisely the person you claim to be in your witness statement.
In the theatre of the law, authenticity is the most persuasive argument you have. Everything else is just wardrobe.
Fernando del Canto
Barrister (England & Wales) · Abogado (ICAM, Madrid) · Registered European Lawyer (King’s Inns, Dublin)
Tenant, Outline Chambers · London · Dubai
Outline Chambers advises clients and instructing solicitors on cross-border legal matters across the United Kingdom, Spain, the European Union, the GCC, and the wider international circuit.