Work fashion has changed much over the years, especially office work fashion — fashion for what used to be called “white collar” jobs.
Not so long ago, the dress code for office jobs was simple: suits and ties for men, below the knee length dresses or jackets and below the knee length skirts for women. Aside from color coordination failures and other random lapses in taste, people looked sharp.
Sometime in the 1990s, formal began to give way to casual. Now, suits and ties make the backs of closets rather than people look sharp, as formal dress has been replaced by business casual, or what I call post-modern, office hodgepodge.
I’m torn on whether the change in office fashion has been for the good or for the bad.
I’m big on aesthetics. That’s a point for suits and ties.
I’ve also found that when adults dress like adults, they’re more likely to act like adults, though there are no guarantees. Score another point for suits and ties.
The big problem with a suit and tie, though, is the tie. A men’s necktie is nothing but a decorative hangman’s noose.
I like to be productive at work. I’m more productive when I’m not choking.
And ties are expensive. A nice tie runs $50 easy. So a tie is double strangulation. A tie will choke you when you pay for it as well as when you wear it.
Some guys who didn’t like spending their work hours choking would wear their ties with shirts that were an inch too big around the neck. You could always spot those guys. They looked like bobble-head dolls.
A better technique is to ditch the tie altogether. That’s pretty much what we’ve done.
From a practical perspective, though, the shift from suits and ties and dress clothes to post-modern, office-hodgepodge business casual has made life more complicated. Before, the line separating appropriate office attire from inappropriate office attire was clear. Now, it’s not.
The initial descent into office fashion decadence happened when some offices introduced “casual Fridays.” “Casual Fridays” was a ploy concocted by human resources people to boost office morale. “Hey, you’ve worked hard all week. As a reward, we’re going to let you dress down on Fridays. So, chillax! Go casual!”
A hasty move. To some people — many people, it turned out — casual and slob are synonyms.
In short order, people showed up for work in clothes one might wear to compete in a pie eating contest. Some people showed up looking like they had just competed in a pie eating contest.
So “casual Fridays” quickly became “business casual Fridays” — business casual meaning clothes less formal than suits and ties but more formal than pie eating contest clothes.
Well, thanks for the clarification.
And we all know what road “business casual Fridays” led down. Why just Fridays? What’s wrong with the other days?
Now every work day is a post-modern, office-hodgepodge business casual day.
Maybe suits and ties was a better rule. Except it’s nice not to choke while working. And I’ll eat pecan pie any time. Cherry pie is good, too. And apple.
Reg Murphy Center