 The European Individual Women Chess Championship became the first tournament where the ECU Rule related to dress code became available.
Chapter B Article 1
The General Secretary of ECU Sava Stoisavljevic kindly gave her opinion concerning new regulation.
Anastasiya Karlovich: How did you come up with the idea to formulate a dress-code rule and implement it to the ECU Regulations?
Sava Stoisavljevic: We came up with that idea especially because we saw how chess players were dressed during the opening and closing ceremonies. We also noticed that during the games many of them were not wearing proper clothes. So, it was normal to start something like that. There is dress code based on special rules in many different sports and we decided to establish our rules as well. So this is the first European tournament where we are applying those regulations. I was here during three rounds and I've got an impression that we have to work much more on those regulations. 
"What do you think, is it acceptable to wear short skirts or open décolleté in the playing hall?"
Décolleté is partly covered in our regulations stating that in respect to shirts the second from the top button may also be opened in addition to the very top button. But, nothing is written in our rules about the length of skirts or dresses. There are several special rules in some companies which put restrictions on the length of skirts and dresses - not shorter than 5-10 cm above the knees for example. I can see that there are many players here who wear very short skirts. It's nice to see chess players with short skirts - they are very pretty girls, but I believe there should still be some limit.
What about tennis?
Yes, I have to admit they really wear short skirts. I just want to say that I heard many comments from spectators, coaches...
But do they complain?
(Laughs) No, they didn't complain but as I said there were lot of comments. So, the question remains open – I don't know if we should do something about it or not.
 A combination of women intelligence and beauty is very attractive advertisement in women chess. Don't you think that rules, adopted by ECU, and probably followed measures which can forbid wear mini-skirts can decrease the attention to women chess?
I have to admit that the players I saw here with short skirts looked very nice. So, in a way they are making chess more attractive for spectators. On the other hand... For many years I've been in the chess world as a player, an arbiter etc. Once, when I was working as an arbiter, I warned one player, even though there were no any rules at that time, because she was coming to the playing hall dressed like someone who was supposed to go to the beach. I think it's good that we started to do something with dress code and it's very important for the image of chess. In fact these rules will be more useful during men events. In general, all women take care about their looks and what they wear, there is not a lot of trouble with women, in fact and I'm sure there will be no trouble at all in the future as well. With men the situation is a little bit different. Anyway the European Championship for men will start in 20 days and we'll see what will happen there.
It's written in the regulations that players cannot put on caps or hats, except for religious reasons. Why did ECU decide to implement this rule?
When the Assembly adopted the rules they followed experiences from other organizations. It's clear that some exceptions must be for religious reasons. On the other hand, as an arbiter, I had many situations when I had to check if players had something under their hats. I can say that one of the reasons for implementing this rule was to avoid cheating. I know that a player who plays here likes to wear hats and during the technical meeting she was looking at me with sorrow... but what can I do?
The tournament is taking place in Turkey, the country with its own traditions. If this tournament would be moved to Mallorca for example could our players use more relaxed dress code or not?
Of course we should respect the traditions depending on which country the tournament is taking place in. For example in some countries women has to cover hair. In Europe we don't have such issues in general. But for me there is a bigger question – what will we do during the summer?
Don't you think that dress-code for women should protect men chess players who can be distracted by too open clothes?
It's a funny question and I don't think it can be taken seriously. We didn't think about that while making the regulations. |
