Your attractiveness is a culmination of numerous things, one of which being how you dress.

There is no clothing in the world that can compensate for my face.

I wear short sleeved shirts at times in environments where you are expected/required to wear a shirt. Occasionally out of spite to those that hate them. I’m old enough, and definitely ugly enough to no longer care about my image. It’s very liberating tbh.

…rt ?

yeah – it’s a short sleeved shi…..

…rt.

OKOKOK It’s a Polo shirt – does that mean I might get some then, or not?

It’s a bit sad how much some people seem to care about what other people wear. Product of being a dull office drone I suppose. 😉

I’ve been wearing shorts and a t-shirt (not always the same one 🙂 ) in to work for weeks now.

Cycle in, cool down, shower,
Fresh Shirt, keks and socks every day.
Smart Jeans go 4 days at work
Cycle home again, shower, fresh Keks

Jeans / shorts will go a couple of days (Depending on what that time entails) normally everything else gets worn for a day and then washed

Would never wear the same shirt 2 days in a row

OKOKOK It’s a Polo shirt – does that mean I might get some then, or not?

Dress down friday or self employed?

I think if it’s your own business then you’re OK, but if it’s polo shirt and chinos on a friday then you’re fecked 🙂

It’s a bit sad how much some people seem to care about what other people wear. Product of being a dull office drone I suppose

Nothing in the world has any aesthetic value? 😉

What about flip-flops? I love wearing flip-flops in the office.

Hmmmm….
STW, home of the £10k wristwatch and the 3 day shirt 😆

So, barely meeting dress code, not bothering to wash work clothes. STW you surprise me.

Oooh with your cunning word play, you’d think I didn’t bother to wash my work clothes, apart from I do, just not obsessivley.

All Appraisals in last 3 years, “Unklehomer presents himself smartly in the workplace.” So raspberry noises to you sunshine. 🙂

Nothing in the world has any aesthetic value?

I think you might win ‘straw man of the month’ award with that little gem. 😆

Junky, wearing the same shirt two days in a row is minging, soz my lovely, but it is.

You are entititled to your opinion and we disagree but that does not require “mingig ” – can I call you names for your choices? Would this thread work better if I started suggesting you all had OCD were the perfumed brigade who cause asthma attacks when you walk past etc?

Clearly folk disagree but to suggest that if you dont change a shirt every day for an office worker makes you smell like a tramps underpants,is a “personal hygiene problem, is minging and all the other stuff written here is way OTT.

Really I wonder WTF you do that 8 hours sat there makes you smell – finishes with equally rude and pointless insults because we disagree.

Its a strange world when folk think we need to change all clothes every day when you do a sedentary job and then think they can call you names due to them being overly worried about cleanliness [ whilst going to bed in sheets they have not changed for a week]

Amusingly, it’s the uniform, along with the black engineers’ troos and black shoes.

I, however, have been subverting it by wearing a pair of Wranglers all week [until today as mentioned], short sleeved shirts and Airwalks and yesterday the same pants for 2 days in a row by mistake.

I have my own office FWIW, and I was told-off when I was busted sloping about in flip-flops 🙂

Help! The dirty people are ganging up on me again mummy! 😆

It’s ok Patrick Bateman, you can always go on a murderous rampage to sort us all out. 😛

Careful. As I recall, there is a regular contributor who really does have OCD and is (rightly) offended when folk make light of the condition.

I’m wearing a t-shirt and three day jeans which obviously marks me as the worst kind of pleb. However it’s a Rapha t-shirt which obviously marks me as smug and superior. Do I look up to or down on the chap sat next to me in a short sleeved shirt? As I don’t pay much attention to his clothing normally I can’t tell you whether or not he was wearing those clothes yesterday. Should I sneer just to be on the safe side?

It’s ok Patrick Bateman, you can always go on a murderous rampage to sort us all out.

PB is top of my list of “Fictional Characters you wish were real”

In all seriousness, we recently relaxed our dress code for when people aren’t in meetings or are travelling.

Now it’s fine to wear casual gear provided you’re still smart, which is great, because i’ve always found sitting in a suit in my office all day completely pointless and more uncomfortable.

Trouble is, I went to the shops last night to pick up some casual gear for wearing in the office (think chinos and casual shirts rather than shorts and t-shirts) and I actually gave up and resigned myself to wearing suits. Everything either made me look like some sort of preppy Yank, or an absolute fud 🙁

Plain, unfussy navy suit and a plain shirt (no tie) is universally accepted everywhere 🙂

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7jlGRq8xZ4[/video]

Polo shirts are not work shirts, they should be banned beyond 26″ wheels, cast back into the dark ages where Golf was deemed both a form of Business Acceptance and Brown nosing yer Boss.
Simply not acceptable, nor are shorts.

Modern offices accept formal/casual mix with structured forms, for a reason. What you do in your own time is entirely up to you, but if you came into my office wearing a Polo Shirt I’d be the first to point & laugh.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzf1_6ROslI[/video]

And what if it’s the uniform? Personally, I think uniform is pretty pathetic – but then the world turns on these shallow outward showings of power, or impracticality [see suits:

“I’m soooo rich and important I don’t have to wear practical clothes that facilitate my life and hard manual work because I have lots of do$h and can pay plebs to do it for me”
]

I hate dressing up. Really fracking hate it.

Trouble is, I went to the shops last night to pick up some casual gear for wearing in the office (think chinos and casual shirts rather than shorts and t-shirts) and I actually gave up and resigned myself to wearing suits. Everything either made me look like some sort of preppy Yank, or an absolute fud

Probably should have tried somewhere other than ASDA.

Probably should have tried somewhere other than ASDA.

I think I did a tour of every high st shop in Scotland last night, which reminded me why I never go shopping.

All my clothing purchases are outdoor wear, going to TISO outdoor experience is far more fun that John Lewis/M&S/Zara etc on a Thursday night! 🙂

What you do in your own time is entirely up to you, but if you came into my office wearing a Polo Shirt I’d be the first to point & laugh.

I arrange all my corporate business in a polo shirt (banks, insurance companies, brokers etc)

Nobody points and laughs.

But then I am very good at my job and people seem to want my services. So they judge me on that rather than on some strange set of clothing snobbery rules.

I arrange all my corporate business in a polo shirt (banks, insurance companies, brokers etc)

I assume you’re doing this for your own business though? Therefore you’re the client and can wear whatever the heck you want + there are varying degrees of “corporate”.

To use an extreme example, Bobs Widgets v JP Morgan will involve different client, different advisory firms, different contact partners/reps, different cultures and therefore different dress.

As odd as it may seem, when I was in private practice I probably wouldn’t dress the same to meet with a director of clinical services at hospital as I would a director of the EIB. both “public sector” employees, both involved in the same deal, both with entirely different expectations of what is appropriate business dress for a meeting. Not always, but most of the time. Sad, but that’s the world we live in.

These days I care less and just wear a plain suit and plain shirt to pretty much anything. Easier 🙂

If he’s selling his services, doesn’t that make them the client?

If he’s selling his services, doesn’t that make them the client?

If he’s arranging banks, insurance etc, then it sounds like they are the ones providing their business to him?

I assume you’re doing this for your own business though? Therefore you’re the client and can wear whatever the heck you want + there are varying degrees of “corporate”.

No. They are my Clients.

I’ll not be wearing trousers again till October (bar next Friday which is my wedding). Been in shorts since about July. They get washed as needed, which in the recent humidity has been every 3-4 days. In winter I wash my jeans once a week.

I wear jeans until they are dead, but rotate a few pairs. washing them is purely an emergency procedure, food, blood etc. T shirts and shirts between one and three days depending on what I have been doing. Shower twice a day, eat healthily and use deodorant, body spray etc.

Some of you genuinely scare me. Incinerating shirts after an hours use, totalitarian dress codes that must be adhered to, shirt and trouser based rules. Madness!

Never understood workplace dress rules outside of safety wear and police, paramedics etc. Do suits or smart trousers bestow powers on the wearer that they would not possess if wearing shorts or jeans?

How some of you can ride a mountain bike without dying from the horror of it all is beyond me. Chain grease, lubricant, dirty, sweaty grips, nature in all its abhorrent, muddy, watery glory. Minging 🙂

I don’t wear trousers.

But then I am very good at my job and people seem to want my services. So they judge me on that rather than on some strange set of clothing snobbery rules.

Same here. In fact if anything there’s a possible counter snobbery in some environments. If for instance I see a scientist in a suit, it starts raising alarm bells that they may be concerned about things other than the task in hand.

Do suits or smart trousers bestow powers on the wearer that they would not possess if wearing shorts or jeans?

Client/business expectations.

When you employ a [insert random tradesman] to do a bit of work for £500, you don’t mind if he turns up in a battered van, in his jeans and t-shirt. However, if he turned up in nice van, in a nice polo shirt with his company name on it, he’d probably have exceeded your expectations. You don’t necessarily expect him to turn up like that because it’s not the norm.

Imagine you’re spending £5m on legal/financial services on behalf of your company. If the people you had just hired turned up to the first meeting with the directors (your bosses) wearing jeans and t-shirts when everyone else is dressed in business dress. How would you feel? Does that meet your expectations of someone who you are about to hand over £5m to for their advice? Sure, you can say “who cares what they wear, all i care about is the quality of the advice”. That whole argument is total bullshit, I cringe whenever I hear it, it’s only valid once you’ve proven yourself and in may cases that’s AFTER you’ve done the work for the client. Doing many types of business in this country has been done in formal business attire since god knows when. It’s disrespectful to your client to turn up for a meeting wearing what you’d wear to the pub on a saturday. If their expectation is that you wear a suit, you wear a suit. If they don’t care, then it’s up to your company to decide what sort of image they want to project.

It’s all about expectations. If you think you can abolish hundreds of years of etiquette and tradition by being the guy who turns up in jeans and a t-shirt, you’re wrong. And whilst that tradition still exists, there is an expectation that you’ll observe it. People make judgments about people around them. What are you trying to say about your professional attitude/business by ignoring social norms? That you’re a maverick? That you’re so good that you don’t need to wear a suit and the people who’ve just given you loads of cash should look past that the first time they meet you?

I still don’t get what’s so wrong with sticking on a suit and shirt. Hardly top and tails is it?

[/quote]I don’t wear trousers.

Bravo to you sir. I don’t own any trousers or suits. The only time I foresee buying a suit is if I change jobs and need one for interviews. Even then I will resent every minute of wearing it.

but if you came into my office wearing a Polo Shirt I’d be the first to point & laugh.

Really? You would point and laugh at somebody for wearing an item of clothing you don’t like. If you are seven then I apologise, otherwise…..really? 😯

Really? You would point and laugh at somebody for wearing an item of clothing you don’t like. If you are seven then I apologise, otherwise…..really?

This is STW, there’s plenty on here who laugh at people based on the wheel choice they make for their mountain bike 🙂

That said, i think bikebouy may have been joking

At one of my previous employers, we used to have regular “dress down” days. I don’t recall anyone suddenly becoming less competent or professional just because they weren’t wearing a piece of knotted cloth around their neck that day.

peterfile – don’t want to quote your entire post above. I fully understand where you are coming from and respect your opinion, but personally I couldn’t care less what another individual chooses to wear regardless of what I was paying them to do. Their ability to provide the results I wanted or paid for would genuinely be my only concern. Fella rocks up to do the plumbing dressed all smart, doesn’t make him a good plumber! 🙂

This is STW, there’s plenty on here who laugh at people based on the wheel choice they make for their mountain bike

I am still quite new around these parts, but slowly getting used to it 🙂

but personally I couldn’t care less what another individual chooses to wear regardless of what I was paying them to do. Their ability to provide the results I wanted or paid for would genuinely be my only concern.

I think that’s what I was getting at. Until you’ve got your results, you have no proof of their ability, so you go what’s available to you, part of that is your impression of them.

What it boils down to more than anything else, is that for some businesses, it’s just the done thing. Challenging it doesn’t really bring any benefit to be honest, no matter how stupid or pointless it seems.

I could turn up to my current employer wearing causal clothes, but i would be taken for a quiet word if i went to meet a client like that, my employer expects its staff to wear suits. My previous employer would have thrown me down the lift shaft if i’d even turned up to the office in casual wear. Crazy, but not really my choice!

If i could wear shorts to work i would 🙂 Would probably make me work better too since i’d be more comfortable!

EDIT: it’s also occurred to me that my own experiences might be a bit non representative since almost all of my dealings with people in a business context will be with other professional advisers or banks, so it’s probably a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy!

but if you came into my office wearing a Polo Shirt I’d be the first to point & laugh.

Where I work our CEO and CFO often turn up wearing Polo shirts…..