Dr Basil Springer GCM has drawn on more than six decades of experience to argue that how a person presents themselves still shapes how the world treats them, in a column reflecting on his father's advice during his student years in England in the 1960s.
Springer recalls living under the same roof as his parents in England at the time. His father, he writes, cautioned him with the quiet authority of that generation: «As a Black man in England, if you want to be respected, you have to dress well.»
At the time, Springer says he regarded the advice as a heavy burden. He questioned why respect should be conditional on a collar and a crease. But he followed it, and found that it held true wherever he went.
That lesson, he writes, has travelled with him for more than 60 years. Today, whenever he travels outside the Caribbean, he wears a blazer and shirt without a tie, aiming to look respectable. Two lapel pins add a touch of style while reflecting his membership in Rotary International and the Commonwealth Partnership for Technology Management.
Springer acknowledges the practical question people sometimes put to him: why wear a blazer in Caribbean heat? Part of the answer, he says, is practical — airports and aircraft are often cold, so he is prepared. But the deeper reason, he makes clear, remains his father's lesson.
He illustrates the point with an anecdote from years ago, at a cocktail function during a Caribbean conference in Miami. Well dressed in jacket and tie and among the first to arrive, he stood with his hands behind his back when someone approached and asked, «Excuse me, sir, of which Caribbean country are you prime minister?»
More recently, Springer writes, flight attendants have twice remarked as he boarded, «You are well dressed this morning, sir.» On another occasion, an attendant approached him midflight and said, «I appreciate the way you are dressed. It seems against the trend of modern travellers, but it's nice to see somebody still adhering to old traditions.»
Springer places these moments in a wider argument about the age of casual everything — casual dress, casual language, even casual governance. There is comfort in casualness, he concedes, but there is also power in presentation.
His father, he stresses, was not talking about vanity. He was talking about what Springer calls the corporate governance of the self. «Your dress is your first board meeting,» he writes.
For Springer, the blazer he travels with is not a matter of nostalgia. It is a matter of respect — for himself, for others and for his father's wisdom.
Dr Basil Springer GCM is a corporate governance adviser. His columns may be found at
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