How working from home has changed how we dress for the office.

There seems to have been a significant shift in how business people dress. It is now acceptable for a more smart casual approach and not so much for a shirt and tie.  

Using the England World Cup squad as an example, four years ago in 2018, Marks and Spencers dressed them in shirts and ties. This time around, it’s a combination of polos or some opting for crew neck t-shirts/sweatshirts under their jackets.

As you can see here, the photo shows a combination of players choosing to wear different styles, some more formal with a traditional suit jacket, some choosing what we would call club jackets, some in shirts, and some with zip-up polos.

 

This is just a reflection of what's happening around us.

We can see that the trend is towards people expressing their personality with them at work by having more choices and more options to dress up as they see fit for formal clothes. But only some have the same kind of approach, and it's good to see that there are different choices.

Although this can be confusing for some, things have changed towards what is acceptable for a video conference call working from home, is now more accepted for the dress code for the office. And this change has no doubt been accelerated because of the pandemic.

We’ve recently seen the term business casual being bandied around. But what does that mean? Does it just mean being able to work in comfort? Well, from what we can see, the trend is towards less tailored formal suits, but definitely not joggers yet! 

There's a sort of moderate between ground that's smart but more relaxed. I.e. T-shirts that are not wrinkled and polo shirts or sweaters with blazers and jackets, collared shirts with long or short sleeves, turtlenecks, and basically anything that says that you're well groomed and well turned out. For several years now, we’ve seen jeans with jackets, and it’s still a style that's very popular at work these days.

The future of professional dress code is anybody's guess, but certainly, it feels as if we won't be returning to everyone wearing the same. People will be encouraged to express their style and wear comfortable items they feel confident in by having a choice.  People are certainly choosing customisation and making their garments their own.  So it's down to the employers really to provide some guidelines on this or options for uniforms in which quality, comfort, and fit create that right customer impression that is a business casual, less formal and more varied style.