Regulated Dress. - Page 2

My first three years were spent in a tech firm that modeled its dress code after early IBM - dark suits, white button-down shirts, striped ties. Our manager wrote a binder's worth of material on what to wear, where to buy, deals to be had, iron your own shirts or send them out? Very Dress for Success. Despite that, he was a very good manager.

After three months I branched out to different looks, and was never reprimanded. The thing was - they regulated LOTS of aspects of behavior, and it turned out that they were smart enough to look at the overall balance of a person and not pick at one or two incidents.

Aside from requiring "business dress" we're pretty much left to our own devices. I did have to chide one of the VP's for razzing one of the juniors for wearing a pocket square though.

I believe sock-suspenders are the most often-mentioned part of the IBM uniform. Did your firm's code include them?

The worst regulations I've run up against are "casually dressy" because they really mean Kenneth Cole. In any case, I'm often considered "elitist" because I simply pay little attention to "fitting in" and dress very traditionally. It has never hurt me. ----- "The problem is that they're not standardizing quality - they're just standardizing." "” Creative Communications for a Successful Design Practice, Whitney Library of Design

I believe here in California any public bathroom's labeling of Men's/Women's is only a suggestion, and therefor not regulated by law.

I don't know about other federal agencies, but we have a dress code here. During the summer months men are expected to wear business casual (long sleeve shirts but no tie or jacket required) and on Friday it is "casual." However, casual does not include shorts or jeans.

The rest of the year men are expected to wear a jacket and tie (suit or sports coat, your choice). Fridays are business casual as above.

One can wear business casual more often if you donate money to United Way.

I'm not sure what the rules are for women. Of course they are suposed to follow the same guidelines as the men (as appropriate). I say that in an annoyed way because women seem to be able to wear about anything (flip flops, track suits with writing on the ass, etc.) and no one challenges them from what I see. It is ridiculous. It's the minority, but it looks horrible.

LK mentioned not dressing better than your boss: I can't help it. He would give a huge chunk of his income to charity to be able to wear khakis and no tie.


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I've always found this a curious suggestion in the "How do I dress for my new job" threads. In my admittedly limited office experience, none of my superiors would even notice how I dressed, much less care if I somehow had higher-quality clothes than them. And in that case, I wonder how fragile the ego would have to be on a man who has risen to a VP-equivalent rank, is at least 20 years my senior, makes way, way more than me, and somehow thinks less of me because I wear better clothes than they do.

Does anyone have any specific experiences where simply dressing well (not dressing flamboyantly or outside the range of the written or unwritten dress code) attracted ill-will from one's superiors or peers in the workplace?

Well, as I understand it the issue arose when the "he" in question had decided to undergo the necessary procedures to become "she". A separate washroom was required for him/her during the transition period. Now that the process is complete, I am not sure if it is still used for others experiencing gender confusion ...

Nowadays, I have the hunch that you could wear a three-piece with boutonniere and bowler, or a clown suit, and the higher-ups wouldn't care either way so long as your work got done.

Our president, as a hobby, owns a rather high end and very avant garde mens' clothing store. He wears a lot of his store's pieces, so theoretically one could get away with a lot here (when no clients are coming by).

Frequently.