As a woman, I think there is a lot of very good advice in this thread. Nothing conveys professionalism as well as a well dressed employee (male or female). That being said…
So, you think that just because you don’t deal with the “public”, then it doesn’t matter that much how you dress? This summer, HallGirl did some temporary work at one of our local State offices. It was a job in which no one dealt with the public, except occasionally over the phone. She showed up for her first day on the job dressed accordingly to professional standards–sleeved blouse, linen pencil skirt, pantyhose, low heels–and she was amazed at the lack of quality of dress by the employees. (This is not a slur on all “state employees”.) She was horrified that there were people there not only in jeans (ill fitting at that) and tee-shirts, but sneakers, flip-flops and sandals. The only people who were dressed professionally were the “higher ups”, and when she made her way around the office (in being introduced) everyone assumed that SHE was a “higher up” (at 19!).
She told me that not only did she would have felt uncomfortable wearing tee-shirts and jeans to work (unless she was cleaning someone’s house, or clearing out their garage!), but that it was really difficult for her to take someone seriously who had a kitten plastered across her chest on her tee-shirt, after the employee flip-flopped through the office.
People are going to make assumptions about you, regardless whether you want them to or not. Some of those people will “count”, and some of them won’t. What impression of you do you want them to make?
I think there’s a huge difference between wearing a sport coat and ironed slacks and T-shirts with kittens on them. I honestly didn’t think (and still don’t) that I’m dressing “wrong” in any way.
I am listening and taking some tips for myself. I want to be well dressed, but my default sense of style is too low key. I am making a formula for myself, I think, similar to those of the guys.
My husband also hate dress socks, and after many tries to get comfy dress socks, he just wears a pair of athletic socks with dress socks over the top. He obviously has somewhat narrow feet, but it works well for him.
To give some background as was requested in a earlier reply.
I am in Los Angeles and work with the insanely wealthy. I’d prefer not to say where. Half my time is divided between a small office and evening events. Shirt and tie in the office and suit or at least sport coat at night.
I do wear the khaki pants/blue blazer quite often. Now would black shoes be acceptable with this ensemble? Or would it depend on something like the shirt and tie?
My black three button suit is usually reserved for special events. Leaving the bottom button undone looks silly to me. Maybe it’s just the way my suit sits on my body (broad shouldered but also pear shaped).
In the office I tend to wear… ugly ties. That’s my style honestly. If it was a big in the 70s and its a tie, count me in. But when I dress up for events I tend to wear conservative dark colored ties with designs or solids.
I also try to avoid wearing dress socks. The black athletic socks work well enough.
Ouch. Working with the wealthy in LA? I’d highly recommend that you ditch the khakis, post haste.
I would strongly urge you to check out the outlet malls in your area for places like Nordstrom Rack or the Joseph Banks outlet. You can easily pick up slacks like these for around $50 or $60, and they will certainly look nicer, most likely last longer,and probably be more comfortable than your khakis. You can get them in khaki-like colors if that’s your preference, but face it: you’re living in a very style concious city working among folks who know something about wardrobes. It’s time to move up.
Again, it bears repeating that you should notice how your employers or customers dress, and try your best not to dress more casually than them.
I never liked black shoes with khakis. Brown is a much safer choice.
Some folks like blue blazers (I don’t care for them) but check out getting a sportcoat in a non-blue color. Not too long ago, I picked up a cashmere sportcoat from Nordstrom Rack that is insanely nice, and it was marked down to one-fifth of its original price. I’m sure you can imagine that it was still not exactly cheap, but damn is it a nice piece of clothing. I wish I could sleep in it.
with every passing year, in every passing job, the dress code for me has tended to disintegrate. when i was doing an architectural internship in 1998, i was wearing ties every day. sure, i was in a windowless room building models with all kinds of noxious stuff, but i was, for the most part, okay with dressing up. i got pissed when i spilled superglue on ties, but those were the breaks.
my first job out of school we were expected to always wear dress shirts and slacks. so i wore ties maybe 2 or three days a week. no “casual” fridays or anything. once again, i was perfectly cool with that.
so now i’m at my third job, in an office of, at most, 5 people. usually at least two are out of the office. i started out with ties and stuff. but we had a sort of unspoken casual friday. so i wore jeans maybe twice a month, becaus eit just seemed wierd. then i saw my boss dressing down so i started wearing short sleeve, knit shirts. no problem. my boss dressed down a little more. i wore sneakers on friday. he starts wearing jeans during the week, i follow suit.
so now, i wear jeans about 3 times a week, sometimes with decent looking t-shirts (no print or logos), i never wear ties, i never iron anything, and i’m fine with that.
plus my headphones are pretty much part of my ensemble. now, if i couldn’t listen to music at work, then there would be a HUGE problem.
Okay, well in L.A. you can probably get away with almost anything between white tie and tails and total nudity. (And in some places…)
I’m fifty years old. When I was twenty I thought that people shouldn’t judge me based on how I dressed, but on how well I did my job and what kind of person I was. Five years later I got my first job that required jacket and tie on a daily basis, and I slowly came to realize that, in the real world, far more is decided on the basis of appearance than we might wish. Rail against it if you like, but don’t expect to change it.
I also learned that the secret to not minding, or even enjoying, being dressed up is the fit. If your collar’s too tight, you will hate wearing ties. If the collar fits properly, and doesn’t choke you, the ties won’t be a problem. Make sure that whatever you buy (especially shoes) fits comfortably off the rack or is tailored to you.
If I were working around insanely wealthy people and hoped for some form of advancement (promotion, new job offers, becoming a gigolo to a rich old biddy) I would not be trying to figure out how little I could get away with. I would go immediately to the Armani store on Rodeo Drive, and spend two or three months salary on three or four suits, a bunch of shirts (custom made would not be out of the question), and all the other accoutrements that the very nice sales people there thought I needed.
In my experience, very wealthy people notice this kind of thing much more than us middle-class slobs. I’ll refrain from repeating any blanket and possibly insulting stereotypes about the rich, but I think you are more likely to impress people (and thereby help yourself) by doing a good job and wearing Armani than you are just by doing a good job. Consider it an investment.
I’ll close with one of my favorite quotes, from a friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of tranquility that religion is powerless to bestow.”
Okay, now I have a men’s clothing question. My husband bought a new outfit today to wear to his office Christmas party tomorrow night. He even bought the first tie he’s owned in years (yes, I know … don’t say it). He’s a very casual boy.
So anyway, the shirt is dark blue, the tie is multi-colored, and the slacks are medium brownish. (I think. He said "a little darker than regular khaki color.) So the sales guy told him that he should wear black shoes with this ensemble. I would have gone with brown, personally. Though I will admit I haven’t seen the outfit yet. What do you guys say? If he does go with black shoes, we have to go buy him a black belt, because he doesn’t have one. He hasn’t worn his black shoes in YEARS. I told him that he could absolutely not wear black shoes with a brown belt and he said, “But I don’t think those kind of rules apply to men.” I said they most certainly do, and his purse has to match, too.
I always wear brown shoes with khakis. In theory, black shoes go with a navy blazer - I wear black wingtips and a black belt when I do the blazer/dark jeans combo for casual wear - but I’ve always thought black shoes looked oogy with khakis.
There are so few hard-and-fast rules with men’s style. Don’t screw with this one - people see it and think you don’t know what you’re doing.
You think nobody notices your ankles? Well, they do, especially if you are wearing sweatsocks. There are a lot of dress socks in the world. Keep looking for ones you like.
And regarding khakis–A beautifully tailored and pressed pair of khaki slacks is one thing. A rumpled old pair of Dockers is quite another. The former is appropriate for a “business casual” environment. The latter isn’t appropriate for any white-collar environment. Even in a “casual” environment, a guy would be better off wearing neat jeans and a nice collared shirt than rumpled old Dockers. It sounds like the OP and BBVL are not in “business casual” workplaces, so they shouldn’t be wearing cotton khakis.
Men have a lot more options these days as far as dress goes, especially within the realm of “business casual.” For example, an attorney I was working with today had on a pair of wool slacks and a fine-gague turtleneck sweater. He looked sharp. He had to go to a client meeting, so he topped it with a camel-hair blazer, and he looked really sharp, though still “business casual.” The other attorneys in the office today were definitely dressed “casually,” but still maintained a professional image, with neat jeans and sweaters and leather shoes. It’s the details, not the types of clothing that count.
I couldn’t agree more. I think a lot of people’s opinions on dress clothes are rooted in that awful feeling of being forced to wear ugly and ill-fitting outfits to boring and annoying events involving getting pinched by Great Aunt Bertha. But we’re grown-ups now, and we don’t have to wear our shoes a little big, so we’ll grow into them, or a little small, because we’ve grown out of them, or just not right, because they’re cheap and you’ll probably only wear them this once. But so many adults are set on believing that nice clothes have to be uncomfortable, or too cheap to invest in the good stuff, including tailoring.
One more time, to the person wearing Sketchers–just try on a pair of wide-width dress shoes. Makes all the difference. Trust me, people notice that you aren’t wearing the right shoes.
Also, my hubby wears cotton dress socks made by GoldToe. He likes them and they avoid the sweat problem with other dress socks.
Isn’t it about time for iampunha to run nekikid through this thread?
Buy a copy of Malone’s “Dress for Success”. His style advice is excellent, and, because he focused on classic styles, hasn’t gone out of fashion – and won’t. Of course, not everyone works in a bank or a law office. State government offices, high-tech firms, and so forth have different, but no less important dress codes.
I’m glad we haven’t had any militant “It doesn’t matter how I dress, people should respect you for who you are.” types crapping all over this discussion. Blatently ignoring dress codes is itself a sign of gross disrespect.
I know other people have mentioned spending the extra money on alterations, but I’d like to really mention the one really cheap alteration that I see so many guys unaware of; your pants are too short. You can buy them unhemmed and get them altered for practically nothing so they fit you. This is especially a problem with those damned khakis that you buy prehemmed and launder yourselves - they shrink. Pants are supposed to break at your ankle, not stop at the ankle.
I’ve always been a strong advocate of a liberal – that is to say almost nonexistent–dress policy, especially for jobs with no public contact. And, actually, even for jobs with public contact: if I put myself in the place of the customer, I just can’t force myself to care what the person serving me has on. On the other hand, I have begun to wear suits to work regularly–though not every day–because I like how they feel, and the image they project. But I do appreciate making that decision on my own, rather than being forced to.
