For most of the last century, a sash meant you held a position. Mayors wore them. Committee chairs wore them. The Baker of the Year has worn one, uninterrupted, for eleven years.

This season, everyone is wearing one.

The shift began in the eastern districts, where a group of young blobs started wearing plain ribbon sashes with no insignia at all. Asked what the sash denoted, one replied: "nothing, that's the point."

Reading the ribbon

Traditionalists are unhappy. The Guild of Ceremonial Outfitters has issued a statement noting that an unearned sash is "not a sash but a strip."

The young blobs have taken to calling themselves strips.