Opinion
Melbourne's latest fashion accessory: the half-worn mask
Since the Victorian government made wearing masks outside the house (on the now almost non-existent occasions you are allowed out) compulsory in July, most Melburnians have got with the face-covering project.
If masks were a curiosity in March — strictly for students from SARS-scarred places such as Singapore and Hong Kong — by the time the government issued its mandate, most of us wouldn’t have been seen dead in public without one.
A mask worn correctly...Credit:Getty
Such is the social pressure to mask up that on recent mornings, I have found myself pedalling up the St George’s Road bike lane – out for “fresh air”, within five kilometres of home, officer – masked, but with my fogged-up specs in my jacket pocket. I’d rather risk falling off the bike than getting the side-eye from half the population of the inner north.
We have made it easier to comply by turning the COVID mask into a fashion statement, causing a pivot to sewing triple-layer rectangles with ear loops in fashion houses across the city. Sewing shops are rationing elastic.
Not everyone is complying: there is a small band of mask refuseniks, such as the infamous Bunnings mask woman. They are welcome to their on-the-spot fines, and they’ve made the rest of us more determined to do the right thing.
Well, almost. Between the masked and the unmasked is a small cohort that I will call the half-masked.
Some make a fairly cursory attempt, wrapping a scarf around the bottom part of their face. That is OK, allowed by the mask edict, even, and I am not here to shame them.
Others wear a mask, but not quite. Some are elderly people who don’t even seem to notice that their noses are uncovered. They may even have the mask on inside-out or upside-down. I spot them along Sydney Road all the time.
These are all accidental half-maskings, without intent. Norman Swan, physician and journalist, would despair, but at least they are having a go.
More insidious is the fully half-masked, the mask you see worn around the chin, with mouth and nose exposed.
This is deliberate, usually seen on a bloke, and sometimes accompanied by a takeaway coffee cup as an excuse. There’s something of the national character in it: yeah, I’ve got a mask on, but I’m not really wearing it.
It’s not like the American resistance to mask-wearing: the flag-waving, gun-toting, I-can’t-breathe anti-maskerism that’s another symptom of the USA’s dysfunction.
This is less political, more cultural, a sly middle finger half-raised to authority and convention, but not quite: a lazy she’ll-be-right, almost following rules and regulations that no one in his right mind would take seriously.
And if a cop comes along waving a $200 on-the-spot fine, you can always whip it back up with a, “Sorry, officer, just getting some fresh air.”
Lord knows, we need plenty of that.
Matt Holden is a regular contributor