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!"

The twit was in marketing, which in my experience is very businessy-dressy, as professions go.

Also, I don't see any shorts, even formal bermuda shorts, as work-appropriate in a business-casual environment. I don't even like to wear capris, though I've been wearing them to move books the past couple of weeks. The library director wears capris a lot, and I think to myself, I know we are in academia, but you should not look like you are at the beach!

Capris always look comfortable to me, but I don't look good in them. Which has made pants shopping difficult for a couple of years.

If you show up in a suit, folks think you must have a client interview.

Yeah, I'm probably over dressed here. I usually wear a nice skirt, button down top and heels. Though some of my newer coworkers and my boss sometimes dress like that too. Lately, I've taken to wearing jeans with the tops to dress it down a bit.

Today it's white short sleeve buttondown with a kelly green sweater vest (normally worn with white linen circle skirt trimmed in battenburg lace) dark jeans and green 2 tone heels.

Capris are almost muffaletta, aren't they?

A lot of those cropped pants cut the calf in such a way as to make the wearer look stumpy and short and long-waisted. I'm not sure why anyone would sign up for that, but plenty of women do.

The more narrow-legged cropped pants, or ones that end at or just above the knee--as in, anything that says "leg midpoint right here!!!1!!" doesn't do that so much, and those look fine to me.

I only hate dress codes when they are unstated, or badly stated. If you tell me "dress professionally" or "just look at what everyone else is wearing, you'll figure it out", well, no, I won't. I would rather be told explicitly that skirts must be at least below the knee, pants down to the ankle and necklines above the collarbone than try to guess what's okay and what isn't.

Can we all agree than manpris are a no?

I own 2 pairs of capris and they are purely comfort, as opposed to fashion, items - they are elastic-waist, weekend-bumming-around, don't worry about sitting on the floor or the ground or whatever, no modesty issues pants. For hot weather. For cold weather, I call them "pants."

WRT manpris...

On the bus I ride there are a bunch of young men who wear the baggie, long, pants around crotch look. Some of them are short. When they wear the big athletic shorts, I always wonder if they know they look like they are wearing manpris. Seriously, the shorts go to the ankle!

Also, I don't see any shorts, even formal bermuda shorts, as work-appropriate in a business-casual environment.

Only in Bermuda, really.

To be frank, I think bare legs are more casual than hose.

I agree. Walking around bare-legged in a short skirt is a whole different vibe than one with hose. In a long skirt there is a bit more wiggle room.

If you tell me "dress professionally" or "just look at what everyone else is wearing, you'll figure it out", well, no, I won't.

Yeah, see, I'm a grown up and think that telling grown people EXACTLY what they can and can not wear is ridiculous. And why should I trust the fashion judgement of someone just because they were put in charge of deciding the dress code. They may think formal shorts are okay! Or dresses over pants!