Dressing up for work

[Skywalker]

Yes I have noticed a big difference in my working career. When I started out in an office it was strict business attire at all times...eventually my company went "Casual Fridays" where we had to pay $1 to a charity to wear jeans or whatever. Now..in dear old 2022, its just a free for all lol

 

[slo]

I manage a Chiropractor’s office, so I dress in business casual every day. I actually enjoy it - it feels good to dress up for work

 

[1GoldenSun]

I'm personally looking forward to the day we all dress in a stretchy onesie a-la Star Trek

I'm not. That won't be a flattering look on me; people will be able to count my fat rolls.

 

[ronandannette]

Spin off from hoodie thread because I'm wearing a hoodie today which is rare.

Over my 35 years of working in an office setting things have gotten so casual versus in the past. I recall my parents wearing suits/skirts to the office and know I rarely see anyone in a suit.
I mix it up with either jeans/dress pants, dressier top with blazer or sweater. Summer capris and nice top.

There are couple people that do dress up more but they tend to be ones doing presentations, meeting with clients outside the institution, higher level meetings, etc.

I kind of miss having to dress up more. Use to actually wear skirts on occasion. Now it would feel weird with most around me in jeans.

Our office dress code completely unraveled during Covid. It's pretty much anything, anytime now. I mix it up like you do, because although I've gotten much more comfortable wearing casual stuff than I ever was before, I also have a ton of business-wear in my closet and it seems a shame to just let it hang there.

 

[tinkerbellandpeterpan]

I used to work in finance and had to wear suits especially skirt suits for client meetings. I now work in a warehouse/shipping company (long story) and can wear jeans/leggings/sweatshirts etc. I liked both and am comfortable in either environment. But not wearing heels every day is something I really don't miss.

 

[nene0182]

My company went from requiring dress clothes with jeans allowed on Fridays to a “dress for your day” policy about 5 years ago. I still wear dress clothes every now and then because I want to but most of the time I wear jeans. There are still quite a few things we aren’t supposed to wear like tennis shoes, opened toed shoes, capris, t shirts, sweatshirts, etc but no one is really monitoring it the two days of the week we are actually in the office.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

My first few jobs out of college were stuffy professional type places. The men wore suits and ties. Women wore suits, dresses, skirts and blouses or dressy pants. Every company had casual Fridays where nice jeans were allowed.

Then I started working at a software company where the dress code was all over the place. The engineers and tech people on the upper floors wore jeans, t-shirts and even shorts most days. I was downstairs in the marketing department where we always wore business attire. When I switched to the corporate office of a bank, it was totally professional dress all the time. Fridays were "business casual." Jeans were never allowed.

Now I work at a public elementary school. I can wear jeans everyday if I want to. In fact, it's amazing what teachers and school staff wear compared to when I was in school (about a million years ago). Some teachers still wear dresses or skirts. Others are in pants or jeans with decent shirts or sweaters. We can wear t-shirts as long as they don't have offensive writing or pictures. My DH works at a charter school. They are required to dress in business casual. He wears khakis, black, navy or gray pants with polos or button up shirts. He's allowed to wear jeans on Friday, but no t-shirts. Today I wore black jeans with sneakers and a shirt with a rabbit on it. No one could consider that offensive!

 

[_19disnA]

Think the dress codes in general at most businesses have become more casual/relaxed in the past several years. I knew some people who used to work at a company where the owners insisted everyone wear a suit/tie even if their job required them to sit all day in a cubicle and work on their computer which never made any sense to me. I have no idea how that makes anyone a better employee and just seemed like the boss makes rules simply because they can..................LOL.

Still think shorts & flip/flops are too casual for work, but the typical 'business casual' attire makes a lot of sense in most places.

 

[Southernmiss]

I worked at a bank in the back office in the 80s and 90s. Pantyhose and dresses, skirts, blouses or slacks were required. There was an occasional jean day at the 1st of the month to prepare commercial bank statements for mailing when we worked overtime.

I now work in a church office by myself. Business very casual is what I wear. Never shorts, but dressy capris, fun dresses, dress pants or colored jeans and sandals. Cold days leggings with a long tunic or sweater and a close toed shoe- not a fan of boots.

I feel it's appropriate as I may do anything from phone, receptionist, secretary, bookkeeping work to mopping a floor or hauling delivery boxes.

I did change during covid to a bit more casual with accessories- no lipstick (masking), and wear much less jewelry to match my outfit than before covid.

 

[DisneyHardin]

I'm an elementary teacher and we are very casual at our school. I usually wear jeans with a knit top. Some days I will wear a knit dress with leggings underneath. At the end of the school year (May into June) when it's really warm, I will even sometimes wear shorts.

 

[mrodgers]

Wow, where do you live where there are no brick and mortar stores? There are a lot fewer here than there used to be, but they are still there. My daughter does buy clothing online but that turns into a cycle of "ordering" "returning because it doesn't fit" ""ordering" "returning because it doesn't fit" mess. We still have JCPenney, Men's Warehouse, Macys etc. And my Dockers and Slacks the last 10 years have all come from Walmart.

We have TJMax. Never see anything my size (see the "Tired of being fat" thread, I am a member of that thread, LOL.) Kmart is no longer, Pennys is closed, Sears is closed. Target is so so. Boscovs clothing is lousy. And that's about it other than Walmart. Walmart and Target and both are pretty slim pickings.

For some reason, all stores and restaurants in my town are atrocious. When the kids want to run to Walmart, I run out and pick them up from mom's half hour away then drive half hour from there to hit my old shopping grounds. We had what was considered close by when I was married, arguably the best restaurant group in western PA outside of the big city. They opened one here where I am now and it's one of the worst restaurants I've ever been to.

I don't know what it is about here, but other than 2 local owned restaurants and Red Lobster (because it is staffed by middle aged or close to middle aged women and they are absolutely wonderful) everything is terrible.

 

[mylilnikita]

I have to wear a uniform at my job lol.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

When I first worked at the insurance company every week you had to earn the right to wear jeans by meeting customer service goal metrics otherwise it was business casual most of us wearing dress slacks, etc rather than skirts though. It was dumb, none of us were customer facing it was a call center, none of the big wigs came by, it was dumb but you could buy during certain times of year the ability to wear jeans on Fridays. After only missing 1 week of earning it in like 1 1/2 years they opted to drop that and you could wear jeans and t-shirt although there couldn't be writing on it unless it was sport team or alumni related even hoodies everyday although sandals still stuck around as dressier style rather than flip flops and leggings were not allowed. Much better for being 8 hours on the phone.

When I was in retail only JCP was dressy slacks and the like and that was annoying just because as a teen paychecks then had to go to work attire but being customer facing I at least got it more. MaxRave was intended to be more youthful. DSW was great until the store manager who came from WetSeal came around and then it got weird dress code stuff like "I challenge you to wear 3 pieces of jewelry today, men I challenge you to wear scarves), it was weird and dressy slacks were back on as more common although we could wear jeans it was more frowned upon. Spirit Halloween no one cared what you wore. And when I worked at the bookstore for my alma mater no one cared because we were students or just recent grads for the most part although the satellite location I worked at they did buy us all vests that had the mascot embroidered on it and requested we wear it from time to time..I was like hey if you want to buy me a $65 vest go for it I'll wear it.

I don't miss the dress slacks at all. I never wore them in my personal life so it was really just a waste of money for me personally. And dressier shirts same, never was my personal style save for a few I have.

My husband's prior company pre-pandemic went more causal too after being business casual (a tie was not wore). His present company is casual and he wears jeans everyday although he still wears polos or dress shirts on his personal level. My husband was an 18 year old wearing button up dress shirts even to college parties so for him he has plenty of those although he now favors polos. He wears this stuff in his day to day life with regular t-shirts around the house stuff or more chillin' wear so for him getting button up or polo shirts is not a waste of money. Dress slacks however he only wears with certain events we go to.

 

[JLTraveling]

My high school (private) had a professional dress code. They dropped suits a couple of years before I got there, but boys had to wear a tie every day, girls in dressy dress pants or skirts/dresses. Professional shoes, etc. And that was the last time I had to wear professional dress. Theme parks, I had a uniform. Residential mental health, it was all about jeans and sneakers (the program director wore a tie once, and was nearly strangled with it by an out-of-control client. He never made that mistake again). The voodoo shop, all black goth clothing required. When I owned a remodeling company, we wore (cheap) khakis and t-shirts. And now as a content writer working from home, it's mostly yoga pants. On the once in a blue moon video calls, even the CEO is typically in shorts and a t-shirt. I couldn't deal with dressing up for work everyday.

 

[kanne323]

I recently started a new job in a completely new career, and went from wearing scrubs and sneakers to business casual again (pre-pandemic, my hospital job was business casual but no sneakers.) I don't mind business casual, but I am slooooooowly building up my wardrobe again, and I'm struggling with shoes. Now that we are firmly in dress, boots, and tights season, it's a little better, as that's my preferred style. I do need to focus on finding some more clothes, but the 2.5 years in scrubs seems to have erased my ability to style myself, and I've fallen into black pants, shirt, and black cardigan most days... I need to mix this up a bit! I also got out of the habit of wearing any jewelry.

 

[luv2cheer92]

I work about 50% inpatient and 50% outpatient. When I'm at a hospital, I wear scrubs. When I'm at a clinic, half the time I wear scrub pants and a t shirt, half the time I'll wear stretchy/casual dress pants with a t shirt. Always sneakers. Have to be able to move/squat/bend/lift very easily all day.

But I really love that the shift has been to more causal wear for work.

 

[Jennasis]

I wear the rattiest jeans, tee-shirt, sneakers, yoga pants etc I own. I own a farm LOL.

If I'm dressing up it's in my horse show clothes, for horse shows.

 

[dcassetta]

My next to the last boss was famous for saying we should dress "like we are going to see our Grandma". A few folks pointed out that their Grandmas were just happy to see them, and didn't care what they were wearing.

I had a supervisor once say dress like you are going to church. But our pastor did not care what people wore. he was just glad they came. There were some parishioners that got upset because kids would come in their sports uniforms. The pastor said that was fine too, although he did ask people not to wear cleats - bad for the carpet!

 

[tvguy]

I had a supervisor once say dress like you are going to church. But our pastor did not care what people wore. he was just glad they came. There were some parishioners that got upset because kids would come in their sports uniforms. The pastor said that was fine too, although he did ask people not to wear cleats - bad for the carpet!

I went to a funeral in a church earlier this year and one couple came in Hawaiian shirts and shorts. He retired a year ago as a Minister, so I suspect his mind set was the same. He felt people being in church was more important that what they wore to church.