If you can dress down for the office, do you?

[MinnieMountain]

My employers have a permanent dress down policy now. I tend to wear my usual office clothes when I go in as I’d never wear them anywhere else. Most of my colleagues dress down.

I’m curious about what other people do. DH is permanently WFH but says he’d do the same as me.

On the rare occasions I have to go into the office I wear jeans and a jumper. Its a very casual vibe as we work from home full time and only venture into the office for quarterly team meetings as a bit of a social catch up.

I dress casually if I work from the office but I've never really had "office clothes" - before covid there was never anyone in jeans, but a real mix of suits, dresses, leggings and tunics, jumpers with dress trousers, lots of trainers etc.

Now everyone is just super casual all the time apart from the senior execs.

We don't really have a dress code at work as we don't really have outside visitors. I prefer to dress smart casual though as I like to differentiate between "work mode" and "home mode."

I used to work for a bank that had a uniform. A new department was opened in a non-customer facing dept and was staffed by roughly half new recruits and half existing staff who had transferred from high street branches.

All us who had trf from a branch, continued to wear our uniform, despite not needing to. The newbies asked why and basically it was just because it was easier as we already had it, were used to wearing it every day and it would get thrown away otherwise! Uniform wearing gradually stopped and was replaced with more casual clothes once items started getting worn out and weren't replaced.

I would probably do that in your position, contnue wearing my office clothes and gradually make the move to more casual once the garments start needing replacement.

We've had a "dress for the day" policy for a few years pre-covid with jeans and trainers being the popular choice. Now that I'm going back up into the office now and again I tend to wear a dress with converse or jeans/trainers but add a blazer.

To a limited extent. Our policy is ‘dress for your day’ - so jeans and a jumper are fine if you’ve not got a client meeting, but usual business dress is expected if you’ve got anything external.

I’m our marketing lead and at least once a week I’ll have a day when I don’t expect to have anything external facing and then someone drops me a message and asks me to pop into a meeting room for 5 to meet a client so I don’t really feel I can ever fully dress down! So I keep a suit jacket in the office and a pair of heels under the desk and tend to go in in a casual dress and cardigan most days, and just throw on the more formal stuff if I’m asked to join a meeting.

We are allowed to wear what we want, we might dress up for important meetings etc . I wear jeans etc most days.

I wear what I always wore. The money's been spent on it and I'll never wear it anywhere else (possibly a funeral) so might as well get the use.

I'll have a decision to make when the existing work wardrobe runs out but at the current rate that will be years and years into the future.

I wear jeans daily to the office and scruffy trainers. It doesn’t affect my ability to produce good work. A colleague comes in with a ripped t-shirt and combat gear. I work with exceptionally clever people at a prestigious academic institution.

Jeans a t shirt all day long

We’re all in jeans (unless we have an external meeting, and even then it’s chinos and open necked shirts) and I work for a financial institution (so hardly a bastion of relaxed office west historically). 4 years ago we were all suited and booted. I’ve kept my work wardrobe on the basis that I might need it in the future…

I'd gradually been getting more relaxed in my office wear over the years before Covid as it was and then I had a baby. I never really got round to losing the baby weight so none of my old clothes fit me but I haven't really bothered to buy new smart clothes. I have a couple of blazers that I'll throw on with skinny black trousers if needs be but otherwise, jeans and trainers will do me just fine.

I wear jeans, casual skirts, any sort of top, flat boots & shoes (not all at the same time).

A place I worked previously had a very relaxed dress code. I once saw the CEO looking like he'd just come in from digging the spuds! I tended to wear jeans and a half decent top, with boots, trainers or heels depending on my mood.

Current place is more smart-casual, I tend to wear more tailored trousers or chinos and always flat shoes because I walk further!

Working from home is more casual and often leggings or jogging bottoms. I only need to look presentable from the waist up for the Zoom camera.

We have dress down days and I find them tricky to know what to wear so tend to stick to my usual clothes. It always seems off to me that we have a dress code and yet it's fine to come in jeans etc when they decide it's for charity

Our dress code says that smart jeans and trainers are acceptable unless meeting clients; but I’d say that 95% of the office wears standard office wear, most of the men in collared shirts and smart trousers etc.

I’d feel weird dressing so casually at work. Plus I have loads of smarter dresses that I really like and wouldn’t know what to do with them all if I didn’t wear them to the office.

Interesting.

I used to go in suited and booted in my last role where I saw clients (solicitor) so maybe I’m just very used to it. Plus as PP said, the money has been spent.

I've got the definite feeling, at least where I work, that people are smartening up a bit. I think it's probably more economically sensible to wear what you already have and there's perhaps a sense that being seen to look more professional might be helpful if the going gets touch financially.

I generally wear smart jeans, blouse/tshirt and blazer. Either brogue/loafer type shoes or trainers. I’d consider a jumper a bit too casual, but only really because I don’t go to the office most days, so when I do it’s a nice change to be a tiny bit smarter.

I've never worked anywhere that you had to be smart. I wear the same to the office as I would to go and mooch around the shops at the weekend. In fact, sometimes I make more effort to go and mooch around the shops.

Yes, do remember that people can be exceptionally clever but at the same time have exceptionally poor taste in clothing - it really has no impact on the quality of work you produce.

We always had casual Friday and so far are still full-time casual unless we have a client meeting.

Everyone is different. Some do suit trousers and shirts, most likely because that's what they have and don't want to buy 3 new pair of jeans.

Some do jeans or chinos and shirt/jumper/T-Shirt/Polo shirt, often paired with trainers or casual shoes. No shorts.

Women are normally in jeans or casual dresses with tops you can dress up or down or just normal casual T-shirts. Often the female full-time staff still wears a bit more formal than the part-timers, I think it is part of not buying more clothes.

Leggings are a bit of a no-no unless worn under a dress or a very long tunic. No bare shoulders. Skirts should go to the knee but I know some younger staff was always pushing that length but it got never vulgar. Oh, no flip flops, open toe sandals are ok.

Ours is casual unless we’ve got clients in.

I’m old school, so don’t like to wear jeans and trainers. I tend to go halfway between casual and smart, so chinos, with smart top, or skirt and jumper.

mind you I hardly ever go into the office anymore so I wear the same thing when I go in. I haven’t even got s smart suit anymore.

Our office has been casual since it’s inception. Pre-kids I’d wear trousers, a tshirt, a cardi and shoes/boots.

now if/when I go in, I’m in walking trainers, fleece, Gillet - the same type of tshirt though!

Forgot the jeans. I definitely wear jeans, not nothing on my bottom half