What Are You Wearing?

I have been in the workforce long enough, 43 years this year, to remember when what you wore on the job was almost as important as what you did at work.

Aside from anything requiring a set and standard uniform, my first real professional job came with a published booklet on workplace dress code detailing how one must present oneself in order to be allowed to work there. In both retail and corporate atmospheres, dress codes covered everything from the top of your head to the tips of your feet- and ladies always needed to be in heels. Nylons were an unquestionable absolute and they were only acceptable in black or beige. Dresses were required to the knee-- No pants whatsoever. Hair needed to be in what was described as a ‘natural’ color, meaning, black, brown, red or blonde, despite whatever color your natural hair really was. They meant no other hair colors in case you were going to try to get creative. Minimal jewelry was often described as ‘tasteful’.

For men, the dress code was simple...wear a suit. Men could take off the jacket. If a man frequently worked around machinery, his shirt needed to have short sleeves and the tie needed to be clip-on (so that they did not end up losing a limb or getting strangled) but in general the male uniform was a dark suit, a long sleeve white dress shirt, a tie, black dress shoes with black socks.

Things started to relax at workplaces in Lancaster in the 1980’s. Bigger cities, larger markets, and more progressive and creative industries had seen changes long before that, but we tend to be a bit conservative.  Men began to wear sport coats without a tie, although an emergency tie was usually kept on hand. Women were much more behind the men in terms of permissible comfort, and the revolutionary female pantsuit was quite a leap forward. Men began hanging up their jacket or sports coat and began going around the workplace in just a shirt. Ladies' pantsuits slowly and eventually gave way to dress slacks with blouses and sweaters but often, just like the men, they kept a blazer or jacket on hand in case they had an important client or a meeting to attend. 

Radical changes to workplace attire came in the form of two new concepts: the Logo company shirt and Casual Friday. At first, the Logo shirt was created for trade shows so that the company representatives could be seen and found by their clients in a sea of booths and displays. The company found that other staff members liked the shirts and wanted to have some too so often they provided them. Long before that, larger companies had been providing company ties, pins, t-shirts and things for casual or sportswear, but the new trend was generally an embroidered, better-quality dress or golf style shirts for men. It became acceptable to wear the company shirts to work, showing company pride, and with that came a more casual accompanying pair of slacks and shoes.

Casual Friday was at first born from marketing Hawaiian shirts and Levi’s Dockers, and as a way to boost morale in the workplace during times of recession when raises were off the table. Getting to dress down was part of team building efforts or even tied to community service or as an award for performance. According to an article in the Atlantic by Megan Garber, published May 25, 2016 (and I paraphrase) “Casual Friday was a gateway drug pioneered by Hewlett Packard and it gained force as a cultural phenomenon in the 1990’s when business casual became normalized.” Men began showing up in the office dressed for golf even if they were not going to go that day or did not even play. True Casual Friday’s for women meant jeans were allowed at work, but it took an unexpected worldwide phenomenon to make Monday through Thursday jeans acceptable. 

The pandemic shut downs changed everything in terms of work wear and dress code. Workers sent home no longer had to worry about conforming and if they did at all, it was only on the top half and that was only when viewable on electronic device cameras. Those who still went into a workplace, which was largely, empty could wander around their ghost town office buildings in jeans or really whatever they wanted to wear like leggings, workout clothing, or the new all-inclusive term ‘loungewear’ (which are basically one step up from nice pajamas). Upon returning gradually to the new normality, the strict guidelines evaporated in all but the most conservative industries and of course those in industries where uniforms and clothing centric dressing was required.

 In the 2022 real estate practice, attending a gathering of professionals and having 90% of those people in jeans is normal. Seeing someone in a full dress suit is not, unless they are a lawyer or very ‘old-school’ conservative.  Most people will joke and ask them if they are going somewhere special later that day- and usually they are.

The concepts of individuality and personality have come along with the changes to the work wardrobe just as the permissibility of displaying tattoos, piercings and even rainbow hair colors have gradually seeped into the professional landscape. Diversity, equity and inclusion has brought us all an awareness of ethnic, cultural and racial differences, which are now allowed to be acknowledged in the way people dress and even style their hair. The bottom line is that in professional concepts the mantra has changed from ‘dress for the job you want’ to ‘I want to be judged for the strengths I bring to the table’.

One of the best ways that the pandemic changed all of us is the increased ability to be individual and creative in the way we clothe ourselves. If people find that they liked things the way they were before- at any certain point in time- they can now revert to the way that they liked things the best and go with that. However if they love the freedom to be situational and to decorate themselves by how they feel when they wake up that day, now they can. The freedom found upon coming out of a pandemic just may be the way we present ourselves to the world and having no one ask us “What Are You Wearing?”  

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