We're business casual here. The big boss wears polos and slacks most days, unless there's a big meeting. An officemate were's shirts and ties everyday but not a jacket, unless he's wearing a corporate polo.
We can wear khakis, but no jeans and only denim skirts on Fridays.
Today I'm wearing khaki capris, a floral kimino style faux wrap top, matching cami underneath, and open toe, stilleto sling backs. Yesterday I wore black capris, a button down 3/4 sleeve lavendar top, and ballet flats. My supervisor is wearing brown linen guachos, a linen floral top in beige, and brown sandals.
I'm going to need to buy some more shoes. Shoes confound me so.
I usually have a tiny bit of cleavage, mostly because anything that doesn't at least show a bit of boob crack makes me look like I have a uniboob. If it doesn't it's either too loose, so I look just generally shapeless or it's tight enough to show each boob seperately and I find that worse.
I'm wearing a black knee length linen skirt, a short-sleeved turquoise cotton button-up shirt, and black high heeled sandals. I almost always wear a skirt or dress, but that's mostly because I find them easier to buy. I keep trying to get work pants, and getting thwarted.
My office is actually really weird because my direct boss ALWAYS wears a suit, but the big boss and all the other nurses dress REALLY casually. Three of us who are secretaries/admins dress on the high end of business cash, and two are on the low end (I don't want to see the tattoo on your boob, thanks.)
i'm very lucky. i pretty much wear jeans, a t-shirt and flip flops to work every day. if i couldn't do that, i'd have to go out and spend a fortune on clothes. especially since i'm not as skinny as i once was when i had "work appropriate" clothing.
Remember yesteday when some people couldn't get into WX because they kept being redirected to "should" or whatever?
Now it's happening to me!
We were formal for a long time. About 10-12 years ago, that started breaking down. Oddly enough in light of the comments about dress codes being sexist (and I'll just point out that the sexism seems to be more in the wording/enforcement than in the concept of a code), it was the women that started dressing down first. OK, along with one man who was good enough at what he did that he thought he could thumb his nose at the dress code.
About 7-8 years ago, we went to the higher end of business casual. No jeans, no T-shirts, no sandals. Dress up if you're meeting with someone from outside. I've been known to push the envelope a bit with Hawaiian shirts but never been scolded.
I think the big difference between the sexes, clothing-wise, is that women have more gradations to work with. Men basically have four levels -- suit, jacket, khakis, jeans/shorts. And there's a pretty clear delineation between each level. Women seem to have more subtle gradations to take advantage of or maneuver through, depending on whether you like the idea or not.
