No One Knows What to Wear
Image: Adobe Stock
Is your social calendar filling back up? Are you traveling again? What does your in-office workweek schedule look like these days? And what are you wearing for all of this?
You’re leaving the house more and more, returning to an active life with greater choice and freedom to walk out the door, sans mask (mostly), and be within less than six feet apart from someone. There’s a lot of uncertainty about what to wear.
Last week the Wall Street Journal published a piece on returning to the workplace wardrobes, highlighting a variety of responses from employees and employers on the expectations and actions of how company policies are dictating (or changing) associates workplace attire and how associates are choosing to dress when they show up for work. To no surprise, there isn’t complete alignment.
This shouldn’t be as complicated as it seems. General Motors CEO Mary Barra edited their policy back when she was the company’s HR leader to two words: Dress appropriately. Encouraging as this may be too many — to take a free license — it also creates problems. Lack of clarity can get you in trouble. More specificity with guardrails (not walls, there’s a difference) coupled with mutual respect and expectations can allow for a happy medium.
I recently wrapped a consulting project with a corporation on articulating new changes to their dress code policy with visual examples of do’s and don’ts (with highlighted product photos of what is appropriate and inappropriate). It worked wonders and helped reduce doubt in attire choices which can quickly lead to much more complicated matters (stress, anxiety, distraction, to name a few).
Dress codes have existed for centuries (look back to sumptuary laws), and they’ve been both serving and defied by collective groups. They aren’t going away. And this doesn’t solely apply to office attire. Social events and gatherings include dress details on invitations as a guide to not making a faux pas. Some restaurants and clubs have strict sartorial rules. When not adhered to, you’re denied entry.
We’re living through a ripple effect in this significant shift in life — this is your chance to reinvent your style, get clear on it, stop following trends, be more authentic, and adhere to a combination of work, lifestyle, and your own set of dress codes. I’ll leave you with a quote by Richard Thompson Ford from his book, “Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History” —
“For self-expression in attire is never as simple as bucking convention and wearing whatever one likes: it requires one to evoke dress codes and subvert them simultaneously.”
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