I've been told I dress too smartly at work...

[Appletina]

and I've been told I need to dress more casually.

I tend to wear smart day dresses, or skirts with a top or blouse, from places like Hobbs, Reiss, Jaeger. I don't wear jackets or blazers or full on suits. I wear low heels.

I work with the public and apparently my dress sense could be perceived as intimidating and so I am to dress more casually... I think that's a ridiculous and patronising thing to say about the great British public!

AIBU to continue to keep dressing as I am?

Who told you this?

How do your colleagues dress?

Do you blend in with them?

But conversely, if i had a very smart dress code and an employee turned up in jeans and flip flops and I asked them to return in formal business wear, that would be OK I presume?
I would imagine everyone would say that's ok.
It's just the fact that someone (we still don't know who) has mentioned shifting attire the other way that people are getting het up.

Iamthewombat
Without us knowing the job and who said it none of us can tell the OP she's dressed in a way that fits the environment.
All some of us are pointing out is that clothing varies by context and organisations.

If it's some local office gossip being a bitch and management have no issue then the OP can feel free to ignore the comments and continue as normal.
If it's someone more senior who has given the advice/comment then it would be most silly of the OP to ignore it.

The OP isn't responsible for people's perceptions as such, but all the sarcastic "cardigans are intimidating, let the police know to change their uniform" are missing the point. At work we are presenting a particular image for the organisation and our attire helps create or reduce barriers with clients and service users. To decide "my dresses are fine, how on earth can cardigans be intimidating" without taking on board what someone is saying, assuming it comes from a reasonable person, would be really quite arrogant of them.

For example, here are 3 photos of workwear styles I've worn in different schools and different situations within schools. None of them have ever been an issue and all are smart, but not all of them would have fitted every school.
If someone appropriate gave me a nudge in the right direction then I'd probably take it on board.

I can spell it out if you like. It’s very unlikely that you will offend anybody - service users, colleagues, management team - dressed in what is generally accepted to be appropriate, decent, clean business attire.

Dressing in a significantly more casual way could be seen as disrespectful to those same groups. That’s why we have an accepted version of appropriate business attire. It shifts over time, of course, but it’s always there.

Asking somebody to move away from that, for no good reason (especially that a dress, whose label nobody can see unless they look, and a pair of low-heeled shoes, are somehow intimidating - see, I didn’t even mention the cardies! - and might make people feel worse about themselves or frighten them) is unreasonable. Surely you can see that?

Fair enough if the person works in construction, or in a laboratory, but otherwise? I don’t think so.

I’m wearing a Victoria Beckham dress today. I haven’t noticed anybody cringing in terror. Yet.

You’ve won it for me @ownerofdlurcher. I’d expect most employees to look at what their colleagues wore and adapt - like my bloke did with his clients.

Your doing the job not your clothes.
I don`t like the casual clothes look anyway.
It doesn't look professional either.
So wear what you like.

No spelling out is required. It's not about offending anyone. Perceived approachability and organisational norms is not the same as offending someone.

If the office gossip is being unpleasant and making comments over dress and being bitchy, the OP can ignore and continue as normal.

If someone more senior is advising them that their attire is could be having an effect on client approachability or that the organisation is more casual etc then they're well within their rights to make suggestions. That is a valid reason. Just like an employer who didn't want client facing staff wearing jeans or flip flops would be well within their rights to talk about smartening up.

It's that simple.

Unless the OP comes and tells us who has spoken to her about it, nobody can say either way whether they are reasonable or not.

Iamthewombat- you seem determined to argue that context is never an issue, and that people should be able to wear smart business dress even if their company's dress code is casual or if their role dictates that it is possibly inappropriate.
Obviously I would have to take legal advice if the situation ever arose, and I did take on an employee, but I can't see why it is unreasonable for an employer to have a casual dress code if they feel it is appropriate and to then seek to enforce this.

ownerofdlurcher
I don't get it either.
Deciding that a blanket style is universally appropriate save for practical things like lab work is to massively ignore the fact that organisations work differently and have different dress codes.

Some places I've worked have allowed tattoos and facial piercings. Others haven't.
Some I know of had mandatory suit for men and jacket policies for women. My workplace didn't.
My hairdressers all wear black outfits. Maybe they should refuse because they want to wear colourful dress and heels and there's no reasonable reason for the salon to have a public image.
A cafe near me has all the staff in jeans, closed flat shoes and the cafe top. Maybe people who work there should decide that shows no respect for customers and they want to wear dress and heels.

LolaSmiles- completely agree with your points.

It's just common sense that places have different expectations and part of life is slotting into them.

Office gossip - ignore and move on
Manage or someone senior offering constructive advice and feedback (even if you disagree) - probably worth listening to and taking on board.

The OP probably won't be back though to answer the question people have asked for pages: who said it.

The debate is about the person’s employer, or their colleagues, seeking to impose a dress code that departs from generally accepted business attire with no good reason.

If the cafe owner decided that the staff should wear smart dresses and heels, that would be impractical, unsafe in kitchens and would depart from generally accepted reasonable attire for people who work in cafes.

You note that some workplaces allow tattoos and piercings whilst others don’t, but that is not relevant. If the workplace REQUIRED tattoos and piercings, which is closer to the situation at hand, that would be unreasonable.

Iamthewombat- but there may well be a good reason.
If a person within the organisation who is more senior has decided that there is a dress code, formal or casual or whatever, it probably is for a reason- whether that is fitting in with client expectations, or coming across as being approachable, or about practicality or about corporate image etc. etc.
Surely within the workplace it makes sense to listen to your line manager and not assume that you know better.

”The debate is about the person’s employer, or their colleagues, seeking to impose a dress code that departs from generally accepted business attire with no good reason.”

Who gets to decide whether the reason the OP has been given is “good”?

Who decides what “generally accepted business attire” is in the OP’s workplace?

No one here gets to decide those things. Her employer does. And unless a dress code of any kind is discriminatory, they are absolutely allowed to make those decisions.

It’s very interesting to observe on this thread how incredibly unsettled many people seemed to be at the notion of someone else’s employer departing from what people consider “accepted business attire”, to the extent they think the employer needs a very good reason to do so.

People get very insecure when what they consider to be reassuring cultural and societal norms are challenged.

I 100% bet a man would not have got a comment like that.

Iamthewonbat is correct.
Stating that staff must not show visible tatooees or piercings is not the same as telling staff that they must have them.
Totally different senario.
Most employers state at interview if there are dress requirements.

Have you read all of the posts explicitly stating that a manager cannot compel an employee to dress more casually just because they feel like it? @QualCheckBot explains it very eloquently.

For the tenth time: nobody is saying that every workplace has the same dress code. However, if somebody is wearing the standard, accepted, appropriate business attire for their profession you can’t instruct them to go out and buy jeans, or cheap dresses from H&M, or hipster outfits or gold hot pants and a sequinned bra, to wear to work. Because it is not reasonable.

Not so sure about that @TirisfalPumpkin. When I was a community worker I had several colleagues who were told that their appearance (power dressing) was not helping them with the people they were supposed to be engaging with. 2 of them were male.

I have to adhere to a dress code.
There is no way I could rock up in jeans and flip flops, no way. My employer had stated this in our uniform policy.
However if someone were to say to me, don’t wear those black trousers, they look too nice, expensive etc I would think they had lost their mind.

Organisational image and presentation is perfectly reasonable.

What's unreasonable is anyone deciding "this is how I dress for work and I don't see why I should adapt to my organisation".

I didn't say the cafe owner was imposing dress and heels. You're missing the point. I'm pointing out that the cafe have a work dress code of flats, blue denim jeans and the cafe top.
If someone decided they felt jeans were too casual and disrespectful to customers and so decided to come in dress and heels, or skirt and the top, or cullotes etc because they decided that it looked like the respected customers more, cared more about customer service etc then the cafe would be well within their rights to point out that it's really irrelevant what the individual staff member thinks because it's their business and they've decided on the image they want customer facing staff to project.

When people set up businesses they spend time and effort thinking about image, reputation, branding, who they're working with, what their clients and customers are likely to respond well to (I mean there's a whole thing of market research and focus groups where some companies invest a lot of time and effort understanding clients and service user perceptions). They don't do all that so one individual can decide "actually I dress in this way and this is my work dress and I don't see why I should change how I want to dress... Your company's ethos and branding and culture is irrelevant to me because I know best for me".

Fair, Barbarians - just going off my own experience, it does seem to be mainly women getting pulled up on dress code. Men get a jokey ‘have you got an interview?’ - women get a talking to.

So surely the employer has a written dress code then?
My employer does.
Most of my previous employers have, whether it was a uniform or a list of dos and dont’s or a colour scheme.
I’m struggling to imagine an employer telling a member of staff that the policy is to dress down, be very casual, comfortable, however you want to phrase it. Telling the op to wear jeans and a t shirt and what ever she finds comfortable. Telling her that the image is one of comfort and they adopt a very relaxed approach to dress and her then turning up dressed as she described.
Of course I could be wrong.

I'd ask them to specify what is too formal about you workwear. Surely if your comfortable and doing you job it shouldn't matter which side of smart casual your clothes are.
I teach and Our dress code is smart casual( for everyone), but lots of people go for the more casual dude if things, lots if the look really scruffy and due to this we've been given a list of acceptable items ( both make and female). I buy all my workwear from the same places as you, but I don't see why where you buy your clothing should have any impact on your ability to do your job.

Shall I explain the cafe thing again?

If one of the employees decided to abandon the closed toe shoes/uniform t shirt/practical clothes worn by most people working in cafes dress code in favour of a Hobbs dress and 4 inch strappy sandals, the cafe owner would be within his or her rights to say, those shoes are not safe for the kitchen, it’s a health and safety risk and the dress code for this role, including a uniform t shirt, was made clear to you at interview.

If the employer decided that all the cafe staff would wear bodycon dresses and strappy heels, he or she would be unreasonable because that is not the generally accepted (practical, safe) business attire for cafe employees.

I’d get your ‘this is my business and I’ve thought hard about my branding’ argument if a member of staff turned up in ripped jeans and a swastika t shirt. But somebody arriving at work in an outfit worn by millions of women working in offices around the world, which most people would recognise as appropriate, neat business attire? How is that damaging your brand?

Actually, what seems to irk some posters is women deciding to wear their controversial Hobbs shift dresses to the office even if a colleague or boss thinks that they shouldn’t because it makes them look too posh.

Behave yourselves like good little girls. Do as you are told. Dress the way your boss tells you to dress, even if what you were wearing was entirely reasonable and appropriate and you have no wish to dress like a hipster or a nursery teacher liable to become covered in paint. Conform. Keep your head down.