Do you think clubs, hotels and restaurants should have dress codes? I suspect that the answer is complicated. Of course, any establishment has the right to choose how it wants its guests to dress, but the restrictions it imposes often tell you more about the hotels and restaurants in question than the hotels themselves realise. Also read | The Taste by Vir Sanghvi: Why James Gunn’s Superman is the best since Christopher Reeve

Over a decade ago, my wife was refused entry into a club inside Dubai’s Atlantis Hotel because the bouncer took exception to her top. It was a modest, and unremarkable top from Marks and Spencer so we couldn’t see what the fuss was about. Of course, we always try and respect the sensitivities of every country we visit, so if the outfit had been vulgar or revealing, the bouncer’s objections may have made sense. But that was not the case here.

When we questioned him it turned out that it was not propriety that was his concern. Quite the opposite, in fact. His problem was that the dress seemed ‘ethnic’ and they only allowed people in western dress.

There was nothing ethnic about my wife’s top or the jeans she was wearing so he was wrong. But his objections........

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