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?

Can't be bothered to trawl 23 pages to see if she ever revealed WHAT she did. Did she?

I think you need to name yourself more casually, @exaltedwombat. The other wombats won’t like it. You are prancing around as if it is all about you. I am a senior wombat, not your line manager, but I’m giving you this hint for your own good.

Depends on who said it, the context it was said in and if it seems like a legitimate reason. If it was constructive feedback by a manager and could be reasonably judged to be an accurate concern then yes, you are being unreasonable. If it been said by a manager or other collegue who wants to be surround by girls in mini skirts and stockings showing off their assets because they like the view then no, you are not being unreasonable. Do you have a dress code and is what you are wearing adhering to it?

The only way this can possibly make sense is if OP is a sex worker.

The wearers of those skirts are still wearing them, so clearly they haven’t had a ‘hint’ from a senior colleague. Why?

None of us know that they haven’t. They may not have acted upon it. That might be being dealt with also.

Also ‘too short’ is subjective. What the OP deems too short might not be what senior management see as too short. The OP may also be exaggerating for effect (no shortage of that on this thread)

Speaking of which can we drop constant banging on about the cardies. Everyone is clear that’s not the problem. They’re not even mentioned in the OP.

Anybody doubting the purity of the motives of the OP’s senior colleague will find plenty of examples on this thread of why the OP might have been asked to dress more casually. None of them to do with the comfort of clients/service users or in response to negative feedback.

The OP has been charged with the following:

• bragging about her wardrobe. Starting the entire thread to brag about her wardrobe, in fact.

• being an awkward type who digs her heels in and makes an issue out of everything, like a former friend of one poster. Projection, I think it is called.

• thinking that she knows best.

• having breasts that cause blouses to gape open. Flashing her womanly charms.

• prancing around as if the job is all about her (I am hoping that this comment was a joke!)

• looking smarter than her bosses, thus deserving the sack.

• not conforming to some nebulous secret nuanced dress code (eg the hipster cutting edge one. Still no news on how to dress like that! I am so disappointed), thus deserving to be ‘managed out’ by ‘the powers that be’.

Ultimately this is your employers decision. As long as they consistent and have the same rules for all employees it's not discriminatory.
Your clothes sound very nice but if they're not suitable for your role then that's the end of it really. Unfortunately you don't get to make the final decision on this.
It would be different if other people were wearing similar clothes and only you have been puled up on it or if men were allowed to wear high end high street clothes but women weren't.

Or op is a sex worker. All the facts fit with that theory too!

Well unless the short skirt wearers are sporting tights with the gusset around their knees, I’d say that the skirts are short enough for senior management to share the OP’s view.

Is it ok for the short skirt wearers to ignore dress advice from senior management, but not the OP? Why should she be expected to react immediately when her colleagues, who are by any objective measure dressed more inappropriately (if the OP is inappropriately-dressed at all, which I doubt) can carry on flashing their underwear? Is it because the OP needs to be punished for shopping at expensive shops?

Is it ok for the short skirt wearers to ignore dress advice from senior management, but not the OP?

No. And no one said it was.

But that’s their affair. Unless the OP wants to come across as a total child she cant respond with ‘but so and so does this’

You come on Sophe don’t be ridiculous. How can someone prance around when sitting behind a desk. Why are her colleagues still showing their upper thighs and probably underwear. Are they prancing or is that not all about them.

Oh dear. Did you pay any attention at all to the well-informed posts from Qualcheckbot? They explain exactly why you can’t single out one member of staff and make unreasonable requests relating to what they wear.

You stick with Flowery.

When I had a job in the NHS, sometimes meeting members of the public, I dressed in smart clothes as this made me feel in work mode and I liked getting dressed up for work.

I had to go to Board meetings too and people would say 'It must be Board day, Merlot has a suit on' as I put always put a skirt suit on because it fitted the formality of the day.

The thing is, everybody seemed to be the same, I wasn't out of kilter. The question is, are you?

I know lamthewombat I even listed the relevant statutes to back up what Qual said.

The ignorance on the law on a his thread is unbelievable. Anyone notice that Flowery insinuated this is her area of employment but won’t confirm if she’s legally qualified.

Probably bullshitting. Some excellent informed contributions though @genderfree

Iamthewombat

Anybody doubting the purity of the motives of the OP’s senior colleague will find plenty of examples on this thread of why the OP might have been asked to dress more casually. None of them to do with the comfort of clients/service users or in response to negative feedback.

Er, the OP herself in the very first post tells us she is in a public-facing role and that the person who made this comment said the way she dresses may intimidate the public. No need to speculate why this request was made when the OP tells us.

And for the rules lawyers here who query how and why there should be a dress code, I would have thought setting a dress code so as not to intimidate clients was a perfectly legitimate aim. Attracting, not alienating, clients is pretty much the number 1 aim of any business.

The only blouses I ever buy are the No Peep ones from M&S. Absolutely bloody marvellous invention. They have hidden buttons on the underside of the placket, which means NO GAPING. Game changer!

Ok @kazooboohoo. Tell us why the OP is intimidating clients in her smart casual work attire whilst the underwear flashers are not. Spare no detail.

Oh dear. Did you pay any attention at all to the well-informed posts from Qualcheckbot?

Qualcheckbot presumably works in law or the public sector and thinks judges and lawyers make the world go round. In the private sector this 1970s, On The Buses style "I'll take this up with the Union" stuff has been got rid of. If management make a reasonable request and you refuse to go along, they'll find a way of getting rid of such pains in the arse.

They explain exactly why you can’t single out one member of staff and make unreasonable requests relating to what they wear.

No one's told you one member of staff has been picked out. For all you know men in the same jobs have been told not to wear ties, which I would take as equivalent.

We’re not going around this AGAIN, are we? All of this has been covered. Read the thread. Are you Flowery resurfacing under a new name?

Dress for the job you want, not for the job you’ve got.

Officially the most frustrating thread of the year... and the most unreasonable without being actually unreasonable 🙄
can’t believe I’ve swiped through 23 pages looking for OP’s posts just to find out what she does... only to find NOTHING!!!
Unless you are the only person in the world that does your job (queen’s bum-wiper? In which case you probably are overdressed) or you work for a top secret branch of the government... why tf won’t you tell us what you do? No one actually cares except for the part where it’s relevant to the advice given!
I voted unreasonable purely on that part - not the actual dilemma part!

Oh dear Kazoo want some salt with that chip.

Lawyers may not make the world go round but they can protect workers rights. You do know that workers have rights don’t you. But you crack on thinking otherwise.

@exaltedwombat, no, she never did.

EVERYONE CAN GO HOME. After damn near 600 comments we FINALLY know who made the comment!!!! (information that would have changed the whole length of the thread if it had been in the OP).

And @DarlingNikita has given, in my opinion, the pretty common sense answer as a result.

THE ANSWER TO THE MYSTERY of who made the comment: It was a senior colleague, but not a direct line of report.

From DarlingNikita, in answer: Then you can either ignore it, or go to your direct manager and express concern and curiosity about the comment.

That’s it. Which pretty much would have been one of the first answers, I think, if OP had included this info in her opening post, or maybe, I don’t know, one of her 6+ other comments...

Well, having got to a certain age, I know that I want to be comfortable and professional. And I dress for me, AND I believe you should dress for the job you want (which may not be the current one... ). If they perceive a problem, they need to be more specific. Keep following your instincts, and dress to please yourself.