I wear my clerical attire when I have semi-formal appointments or need to go into the church office. This often includes travel to the local Air Force base, where my family uses the clinic and occasional other services. This often means I go into one of the stores on base collared. The Filipino service members (of which their are many) have a very high regard for clergy and typically offer some token of respect. Occasionally, someone will ask for advice or confession (I won't hear confession in a parking lot or the produce aisle at the Commissary but I will offer to make an appointment to hear confession or to go to the base chapel and do so). Once in a while a militantly anti-Christian person will ask me if I got a license to molest children or make some other offensive comment, or just bellow "It's all fake." They are generally making themselves look much worse in the public eye than me. I have even fallen into some regular relationships by being dressed as a clergyman. Both of the fishmongers at my local supermarket talk to me every time I come in, and it's not just about buying some fish. One even asks me to bless him or pray with him briefly. And if I go to the Post Office or some such public place, people tend to be more polite.
I am glad, Father, to hear of you wearing your clerical attire and the effect it has. Of course, negative reactions such as accusing all clergy of being paedophiles is going to happen. Even that, though, could be an opportunity by challenging their views.
The problems in the Catholic church have caused many Orthodox priests who used to wear a cassock with a clerical collar to switch back to a zostikon and exorason (the traditional black robes of Eastern clergy), along with appropriate headgear. That said, the bad image of the clerical collar greatly annoys me, because this collar was not a Roman invention, but was developed by a Presbyterian minister; it happens to look good, and Rome has spoiled it for all of us. There is a potential solution however, and that would be for Anglicans to revert to what the collar was designed to replace, that being Preaching Bands of the sort John Wesley wore. Indeed, to this day, in the Hungarian Reformed Church, ornate preaching bands are used during services as an elegant vestment, and I think that would be appropriate for use in the summer at Evensong and Morning Prayer and the Litany, and other Divine Offices, when it is too hot to wear a cassock, surplice, liturgical stole or tippet, and cope. On the basis of the Ornaments Rubric I strongly support the use of the Chasuble during the Holy Communion service. I think a particularly elegant way for this to be done would be for clergy to, on days with Holy Communion scheduled, initially vest in an alb, cincture and liturgical stole (using the cassock and surplice with a black or red tippet on other days), and a Canterbury cap, for Morning Prayer, then donning a cope for the Ante-Communion, and then removing the cope and the Canterbury cap, crossing their stole behind their Cincture, or perhaps using a variant of the Orthodox stole (these have buttons uniting the two halves, but normally cannot be unbuttoned, but using a similiar device to allow for the stole to be crossed without having to “tuck it in” would be elegant), and then putting on a chasuble of the “Fiddleback” variety (these are more likely than not what was in use during the period covered by the Ornaments Rubric, and not the older Gothic chasuble, which I somewhat dislike, because it blurs the line between a chasuble and a cope. Caution might also be used with Sarum Blue; there are differing opinions as to how and when the blue color was used in vestments, and some evidence suggests that it or green could be used interchangably except during Advent or other fasts, or on Sunday, when the color red, yellow or white was mandated, but since it has acquired the force of a tradition, I cannot object to Anglican clergy wearing Sarum blue during Advent, with rose or pink colored vestments on Guadette Sunday, and this also corresponds with the Advent wreath. This might not have been the actual use of Sarum, but it looks good. What looks less good is the Roman-influenced overuse of green vestments. I love green vestments, but it looks like they were never mandated for all Sundays of “ordinary time.” The Orthodox use them on Palm Sunday, Pentecost and All Saints Day (the Sunday following Pentecost, to symbolize new life); I do understand the appeal of red on Pentecost however due to the tongues of fire (which the Orthodox represent by filling the church with leafy plants and flowers, which the Jews also do in their synagogues for Pentecost). Alas the rubrics of the York Rite appear to lack support for green vestments, with the colors being red and yellow, black and white, like, I would note with happiness, all the children of the world precious in the sight of our Lord. So if clergy in the Province of York were to use the old color scheme of that province, which does appear well defined and preserved, I think that could be lovely.