People + Fashion = Freaky Ideas

We don't really seem to have a "code" here. It's sort of business casual I guess but a couple of the guys wear dress slacks (UGH HATE THAT WORD!!!), button down shirts & ties. But the main partner dudes wear jeans most days.

I dress the way I did at my old job. Nobody has said a thing to me. And I'd like to see them try!

I'm always confused by people seem to think that khaki pants are OK for men but too casual for women. Is it the tie? My mother's dress code (at a County Social Services) actually spelled this out. Only she was all confused because it said "Dockers" or Haggar slacks, so she thought it was only those brand names that were allowed.

Where I worked last, there were four of us, two fat and two thin. Only us fatties were asked to never leave our office or open the door without putting on a blazer when wearing a sleeveless shirt.

Today I have on jeans, Converse low-tops and a '60s print camp shirt. Someone came into my office two seconds ago wearing an "I love New York" baseball shirt, a plaid mini and flip flops. The only people who dress up here are salespeople, poor saps.

I remember reading somewhere a woman's opinion that the dress codes were to prevent the younger women from flaunting body parts that might look better than the same on their female superiors.

Sort of. It's not really to prevent it, so much as punish whichever one is deemed "slutty." Dress codes are usually not specific enough to rule in or out clothing that might be on the line, this means certain v-necks, tight shirts, too short skirts or tight pants. So, who decides how low my v-neck or wrap dress goes? How tight can my shirt be?

This is like the high-school prom in Louisiana where students were turned away at the door because a teacher decided that they were showing too much cleavage: [link] There's a slideshow of pictures with that story, and I gotta say, it looks to me like the girls were being punished for the crime of having breasts while wearing prom dresses that had a neckline lower than a turtleneck.

Shit like that pisses me off.

I work for an engineering consulting company and they are pretty relaxed about dress code in my office. If you show up in a suit, folks think you must have a client interview. It is one of the things that keeps me here. Were I to change jobs, I'd probably need a nicer wardrobe.

Also, that outfit (again with a jacket and dress shoes-now I'm thinking flats would be cuter) would not look amiss on an account executive at a boutique agency like the one where I worked, or on a professional in one of the more creative fields (again, I can only speak for here).

But dress codes also hit larger women, poor women, women who prefer to be more utilitarian than decorative in their attire.

Feh.

If she was booted out of meetings, I'm guessing the outfit in the picture was the least of it.

Am I overreacting, or is this woman kind of a twit? The article has pictures.

She is, but honestly, that look is way closer to the business side than you'd normally see around here.

And I somehow suspect that if she were older, it's possible that no one would have raised a brow or complained, but Seattle business casual might not be anywhere near what it is elsewhere.

Is that even a thing anymore, anywhere?

I think you're not business formal with a skirt and no hose. Oddly here where people do wear T-shirts and jeans is the first place I've worked with a woman who wears suits every day. Not as simple as it is for a guy, but she has managed to get the suits themselves to almost blend into the background man-suit-style.

To be frank, I think bare legs are more casual than hose. I just don't have an urge to work anywhere that cares that much.

At my last job the gender generalisations that the article makes were in full force. Guys in my group got a talking to because they were caught staring at female employees as they walked by.

Not sure why I didn't get talked to, because I sure stared. There was a noticeable contingent of women testing or flouting the dress code in ways that screamed tits or ass.

Honestly, I think anyone who knows (and they knew) they're breaking the dress code rules should follow the rules for a while and see if they're still garnering unwelcome attention. It would have fixed these women's problem.

I still can't believe I've had a meeting here with a woman in shorts (not capris, not gauchos, not pedal pushers, not clamdiggers--SHORTS) and heels. Yikes. No written dress code (it would be impossible here, I think) is confusing.

Only us fatties were asked to never leave our office or open the door without putting on a blazer when wearing a sleeveless shirt.

Oh, nice. I hate people.

It would never occur to me that bermuda shorts would fall in the range of business casual. But I'd also go by what other people in the office were wearing. At my new job, I'm going to have to wear business casual clothes for the first time ever, and I'd rather err on the side of "too formal" than "shorts, woohoo!"