Robert Chalmers doesn't like... Dress codes

Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Not in those trousers you're not. It's mid-afternoon, and I'm in reception at The Royal Hotel, Scarborough, with my ten-year-old son Christian, debating in a very civilised way (this is The Royal) whether we'll be allowed in the restaurant.

"We don't like people having dinner in the main restaurant in jeans," says the receptionist, giving me a politely discouraging look. The manager arrives, and the surreal but familiar debate begins. "If you think I'm bad," I tell them, pointing at my son, "look at him. He's made no effort at all. He's wearing a hoodie. He makes me look good."

The manager casts an eye over us. I can tell he's a decent man, underneath his impeccable suit and tie. It's raining heavily. I think we're in. "No," he says. "I'm afraid not." But he's so charming, and the Royal is so warm and inviting, that an idea strikes me.

"How about if I take off my Olympique de Marseille hat ..."

"Well ..."

"I haven't got a tie, but I could get a really smart shirt. And look at my jeans; they're practically black."

"Where are you staying?" asks the receptionist. "The Crown Spa."

"Have they let you in their restaurant dressed like that?"

"Yes."

"All right," says the manager. "A shirt." Everyone seems happy. Until we get out of the door. "I do not want," says Christian, "to go to that caff."

We're obliged to settle for La Lanterna, one of the best restaurants in Britain, which has made the transition into the 21st century.

How would this scene be viewed by extra-terrestrials? I won't say an alien super-race, because I think the British attachment to formality would bewilder a Neanderthal.

Twenty years ago (when dress codes were not yet outmoded in our major cities) while researching the subject for my first-ever magazine article, I was thrown out of most of London's prestigious venues including Claridge's, the Savoy, the Ritz and more than a dozen restaurants popular with City bankers.

Most places have long since abandoned or relaxed their rules. I was recently shocked to see people lounging around in T-shirts at Claridge's: the place where, two decades ago, I was turfed out for putting my tie in the bin.

You can have breakfast in jeans at the Ritz these days, though men still have to wear jacket and tie in the evening. I remember the manager who threw me out of the Savoy's American bar explaining that. "For people coming here, this should be a memory that lasts a lifetime." (It certainly was for me.)

Of course, you wouldn't want to have dinner next to a man wearing Bermuda shorts and a Chelsea shirt; it's a sight that would test the strongest stomach. But that's a little different from quibbling over somebody's footwear. My real problem with the dress code is that, unlike at some private function, where formality is universally applied, dress codes in most public establishments are not imposed even-handedly.

If you enter the most staunchly traditional premises in the company of Benicio del Toro and Johnny Depp (and this is a situation to which, from my line of work, I can bear personal witness) nobody will even think of bickering over your shabby jeans or Mr Depp's Che Guevara T-shirt. Neither – and I had this experience in a well-known establishment only yesterday – will all hotels enforce the smoking ban if you are with Somebody Incredibly Famous.

Dress codes linger most tenaciously in our once-majestic seaside towns. My favourite hotel in Cornwall has a sign which effectively instructs male patrons to dress up as Alan Partridge before entering the restaurant, though I've never seen it enforced.

The battle will never end; it will just take different forms. The poet John Cooper Clarke, who has extensive experience of the problems caused by bold and unconventional dress, told me that Tesco's, having decided it would be a good idea to keep its stores open all night, has puzzlingly announced a ban on shoppers wearing pyjamas. "They're kissing goodbye to the whole lucrative night-starvation market," Cooper Clarke said. "And they forget that most people in pyjamas are more modestly dressed than your average teenager. Tesco sell jeans that show the crack of your arse."

Do dress codes even work? A couple of years ago I visited a pub outside Manchester which displayed a sign reading: "No jeans or trainers." In the gents, I came across a young man who was perfectly attired for The Royal: beige chinos, brogues and a white formal shirt. He was lying on the floor near the urinal, in a pool of vomit. Scrawled on the wall, in very unsteady handwriting, was the message, "Burnley Suicide Squad Kick To Kill".