It could have been worse. Having a male boss wear man-capris would have been, I think, more disturbing.
Infinitely more disturbing. :eek:
Oh, sure they should. How we dress – or, more broadly, how we look – provides instant visual information about us to those who observe us, very often the very first information about us they will have. Failing to dress appropriately to the occasion says you’re (a) disrespectful; (b) clueless; or (c) an iconoclast, and in 99% of work situations, the only one who can afford to be an iconoclast is the CEO.
People evaluate one another based on appearance. Everyone does it. It may not be (should not be) the only information used to reach a firm conclusion about a person, but it IS important information. If you dress badly and people still take away a positive opinion, it will be in spite of your appearance, not because of it. They – and you – will have overcome a significant negative which was the very first thing you presented them with. I speak, of course, of those who do judge others at least in part on appearance – but that is 99.9% of us, whether we want to admit it or not. If a person doesn’t get the job, or the date, or the promotion, or the role, because of how he or she dresses, are the evaluators “forcing” that person to “care” about appearance through “social and economic pressure”? If yes, then it’s nothing more than the Clueless One should expect.
Personally, I never open the pockets. Keeping them sewn shut preserves the lines of the jacket and prevents me from stuffing things in the pocket, which completely ruins the silhouette. This is maybe a bigger deal for women, who wear more fitted suit jackets. In fitted jackets, a cell phone in a pocket, or even a gaping pocket, makes the jacket look lumpy.
My credentials as an arbiter of fashion extend only to this tiara on my head, but IMO no, that’s not correct. Socks should blend in, either by being matched to your trousers or being matched to your shoes, and I think “match to shoes” looks better; the color line doesn’t get cut off at the low ankle but disappears up the pant leg. “Socks that are a different color than both the pants and shoes” is IMO a very unfortunate look. And don’t get me started on athletic socks for non-athletic events.
I’ve been invited to leave this thread on this matter. Are you inviting me back in? To be brief, I view this the same as racism or other bigotry. Yes, it’s a natural human instinct, but it’s one that should be struggled against and overcome on an individual and societal basis. We are each currently helpless individually to fight the tyranny of others on this issue and are forced to conform or face negative social consequences, but we do each have the power to fight against our own bigotry and instincts as oppressors to the extent that we recognize it in ourselves.
On the other hand, choosing to take one’s lunch at one’s desk is just a hateful barbarism!
Oh Moses, smell the roses.
Joseph A. Banks mentioned upthread is a good store for work clothes. It is kind of Brooks Bros. lite, in that it doesn’t cost as much. You could get a one good suit and then they have these Trios combos that have a jacket and three different coordinating pants. Right there you have almost a work week’s worth of clothes.
Some people don’t want to wear suits and ties to work and there are jobs that don’t require it. There isn’t much profit in spending too much energy getting upset about the fact. If you want to keep the job and grow in it, you’re going to have to dress the part.
The truly sad part of this (IMO) is the degree to which the occurs even on the bottommost rung of the retail ladder. I just got a job working retail, and am required to wear khaki pants that have no belt loops, or else wear a belt through my belt loops. This doesn’t thrill me because I hate wearing belts, but I will abide by the policy. But one of the reasons for the restriction to khaki pants–and no cargo pants-- is because when they polled the customers, many found a competitors’ employees more knowledgeable and reliable, simply because they dressed better. So, we’ve got a tighter dress code than they used to have.
Pity the poor oppressed slobs. :rolleyes: I suppose next I’ll be obliged to recognize the unfair stigma and tragic marginalization suffered by public nose-pickers.
I hate retail uniforms. I’m happy to see a hat or a smock or a name tag or something less obnoxious to identify the workers from the customers. The whole khaki and shirt thing is just hideous. Plus, half the customers are wearing the same damn outfit!
Eh…when I worked retail there was no ‘uniform’ - but because we were expected to “dress nice” with no guidance, dressing for work was a big deal. And could get pretty expensive. Two pair of khakis and two red/blue whatever shirts that you need to keep reasonably tidy sounds like it would have been a way better deal for a minimum wage worker than what I had.
It also cuts down on questionable calls. I was once sent home for wearing a blouse my boss felt was “too sheer.” For that era, it wasn’t sheer at all, and I had a cami under it, and a jacket over it, so you couldn’t see my bra. The woman sitting close to me came in the very next day in one of those really sheer black blouses made for people to say “what pretty lingerie you have” - and stayed the day. My boss really didn’t like me and spent a lot of time trying to get me fired and everyone else got away with a lot more than I ever did.
And - well - kids these days…we had a hard time convincing new hires a few years ago that pajamas were inappropriate work wear. And not just kids, I work in a pretty casual firm, and once in a while someone shows up in a tshirt that makes me wonder if they haven’t done laundry in a while, because THAT is not what I’d want written across my body at work. I think when you are Target/WalMart/Best Buy/etc., clear guidelines on what can be worn to work saves a lot of supervisor time.
Absolutely not. You`ll look ridiculous.
I know lots of well intentioned generally not-clueless people think it’s best (or even OK) to match their socks to their shoes, but I think it looks awful. It looks like you’re wearing a boot. It’s particularly bad because people in general wear black shoes way more than I do. Brown shoes with brown socks would look like you’re trying to make a make-shift boot. Black shoes and black socks is even more boot-like and in my opinion worse looking.
I think it comes up because it’s legitimately easier - people tend to have black shoes and hopefully brown shoes. It’s pretty easy to own socks that match. Even if you wear chinos 5 days a week to your casual office, hopefully the shade varies enough that you’d need various shares of tan socks to really match your pants well. Toss in grays and blues and god forbid an olive pair and that’s a lot of socks. But it looks infinitely better than the makeshift boot look.
For what it’s worth, I like patterned socks and if the base of the sock is say, tan, then whatever the accent color in the pattern is, say blue or red, I better have that color in my shirt or tie. You need so many socks to completely coordinate all your outfits!
Over the past several years, I’ve been coming across a lot of literature describing how Gen Y types (people under age 28 or so) are having a lot of problems in the workforce. After years of “helicopter parenting” and “everybody wins” competition (everyone get’s a Good Job trophy for showing up) and being told they are special little snowflakes, they come into the workforce expecting the work environment to adapt to their lifestyle, not the other way around.
I didn’t invite you in or out. But FWIW I find the equating of decent dress with racism to be so hilarious and simultaneously so appalling that I have placed it on the very short list of statements I won’t dignify with a substantive response, other than to say I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry at it.
My uniform tops are provided for me(I’ve got 3) and come with a nice reinforced spot where I can pin the namebadge so that hopefully I won’t develop holes in the shirt. Had I been unable or unwilling to acquire my own khaki pants, I could trade in one shirt for a pair of khaki pants. I opted to keep the 3 shirts, and wear my own khakis–acquired for my last retail job, where I did have to provide my own red shirts.
I’m not horribly upset with the dress code restrictions, just underwhelmed by the job in general, but my petty complaints belong in some other thread.
Black shoes with khaki is a much worse choice than brown or cordovan with grey, in my opinion. I admit I’m extremely biased against black shoes on men because they’re so damn boring, but it’s just not a good look.
On the other hand, cordovan looks better with a dark gray than any other color pant. Black is acceptable and more traditional for business, but cordovan belongs with dark gray pants.
You can wear shades of brown with gray, too though. It’s just harder and if you’re not comfortable you`ll probably look silly. It’s one of those things that GQ says is ok, but is realistically not for everyone. Unlike when they say you can wear sneakers with a suit, which is stupid on pretty much everyone.
I’m guessing our OP just doesn’t realize that these guys probably wouldn’t shop at Macy’s if you paid them.
What if someone is wearing these, with casual pants like cords or jeans, or even khakis?
https://www.charlesclinkard.co.uk/images/products/1190631596-72700400.jpg
I’d rather see an athletic sock than a dress sock with something like this.
With something like that, I suppose it would make sense to wear a dark colored wool sock. If one must wear something like that. But really, I think that not confusing that for a shoe that belongs at work is the best option.
The important thing is that the belt and shoes are the same color.
Black shoes/belt are generally fine with khakis. It’s a sharp, yet very boring “Banana Republic” look though. I call it “Boston Dot-com Happy Hour”. Basically, when I worked at tech companies along Boston’s 128 loop in the late 90s, most bars and clubs didn’t let in jeans and sneakers and most companies were more influenced by State Street than Silicon Valley. So that’s how guys dressed.
Cordovan is more suitable to dress pants than khaki’s IMHO.
Agreed that unless your last name is Timberlake, don’t wear sneakers with a suit. That was another annoying affectation of some of the nerdier guys I worked with in the 90s.
It depends where you live and work.