what to wear to work?
hellooo barnes & noble

written by: Nancy Shohet West

I waited until 10 months had passed at my new job before confessing to my boss that the week before my start date, I had scanned the company's website looking for pictures of employees. It wasn't quite the same as perusing the freshman facebook before college orientation -- I wasn't checking them out, exactly. I just wanted to see what they were wearing.

It didn't help. My company produces health science technology and instrumentation. On the website, I found plenty of images of mass spectrometers and mercury monitoring gauges, but not a representative outfit in sight.

Forty-eight hours before I was due to report to work, I could answer any question about the product lines, but nothing about the hemlines. I knew the difference between the biosciences division and the biopharma group, but hadn't found any kind of resolution to the simple question of Evan Picone vs. Ann Taylor.

People my parents age tell me that what to wear to work did not used to be such a mystery. Office clothes meant a narrow range of attire. These days, it seems to me that the only people who know exactly what to wear to work are those who don polyester uniforms or aprons at the door. It wasn't that I hadn't paid attention during the interview process; in the two interviews I'd had there, I'd met only two women, one at each visit.

What was odd was that both of them, from different departments and on different days, happened to be dressed the same way: a cashmere sweater set and tailored wool pants.

It's a classic corporate casual look, so it did provide me with some information, but it was still just one outfit. It was like writing a paper on Spanish cuisine based on one serving of paella.

My attitude is that the fewer quotidian choices I have to make before leaving the house in the morning, the better. A good day is one in which I have my outfit already determined and set out the night before; a great day is one in which I've already decided not only what to wear but also what to make for dinner.

I know it makes me sound boring, but I would argue that the opposite is true: Having the trivial decisions taken care of gives me more time for bigger thoughts. Like whether to spend my lunch hour at the bookstore or taking a walk.

Back in the early 1990s, when the expression "business casual" came into usage, I worked for a small publishing house where we got into a bit of a gender war over clothes. Enlightened by a well-executed ad campaign from Dockers, our male leadership team said proudly that Fridays in the summer would be casual, "because when the weather turns really hot, it's nice to be able to dress comfortably."

My co-worker, Rose, immediately disagreed. "I have plenty of nice summer clothes that meet the office dress code," she said. "What would be nice for us women would be not to have to wear skirts and panty hose in the winter."

The men conceded that their notion of comfortable attire for summer was sexist.

"Let's make it casual dress for any kind of inclement weather, whether that's a heat wave or an ice storm," they declared, and so we switched to casual Fridays in the summer and in the winter. The men enjoyed their short-sleeved polos all summer; the women were happy to wear pants and wool sweaters in the winter.

Rose had an issue with this as well. "What about the internal kind of inclement weather?" she demanded. "There are times when my need to dress comfortably has nothing to do with the forecast. Haven't they ever heard of fat days?"

Having won the latest round, though, we women chose not to share her viewpoint on internal inclement weather with the male leadership team. Instead, we all bought a few loose-fitting skirts.

I concede that I'm overly fixated on my office wardrobe. I worry more about what to wear to work than I ever used to worry about what to wear to school, even in my most peer-pressured, conformity-driven adolescent days.

I was traumatized by an eight-year tenure at a very chic workplace in Boston. Surrounded by Europeans who could pass for models, I was occasionally called out for wearing something that came from -- brace yourself -- last year's Ann Taylor collection.

People there spoke about business wardrobes by label rather than by item of apparel. It wasn't suits vs. separates; it was J. Jill (fine) vs. Talbots (frumpy).

To make things easy, I simply shopped for the same items the other women in the company bought, but a few weeks later. Or sometimes a whole season later, in which case it was no longer acceptable. Moreover, they had the perfect shoes and accessories for each outfit; I didn't. I was like the goofily enthusiastic marching band member: grinning, perspiring, and always a step off.

My inability to keep up fashionwise was something of a departmental joke: My manager used to tell me that I was absolutely welcome to take a two-hour lunch as long as I returned with shopping bags.

It turned out there was an easy solution to the problem of never being chic enough for that company: go to a different business. As a writer, I had options across many industries.

I found my perfect niche, wardrobewise, in scientific technology. Now, surrounded by scientists, analysts, and engineers, my clothes look just fine. Knowing that co-workers are not looking disparagingly at my clothes has boosted my self-esteem immeasurably. Secure in my frumpiness, I'm a much happier employee.

Nonetheless, it might be time to think about job-hopping.

I took one of those lunchtime trips to Barnes & Noble recently, and guess what? The employees now wear aprons. Surrounded by books and dressed in standard issue. Sounds like workplace paradise.

  Published: Boston Globe, May 20, 2007

[ back to top ]