I was embarrassingly underdressed

[Peridotty]

We had a Christmas photo shoot for our class (I am a graduate student). We had photos done in front of a nice building. I turned up in an old jumper, black jeans and converse shoes whereas everyone else was dressed in corporate gear (suits, ties, nice dresses and heels or brogues). I stuck out like a sore thumb and I am so embarrassed! I saw the photos and because I am wearing white and everyone else was wearing grey, navy, black I was also very eye catching. I keep cringing inside. The memo was to dress nice but I thought wearing a suit would be overkill for the Christmas photo so I wore a jumper and jeans instead.
Do you think you would be cringing ?

Black jeans on a photo can look like trousers so they'd be fine, but why would trainers and an old jumper be "nice"? Do you mean old as in you didn't just buy it but it's shapely, looks tidy etc or old as in a but slobby?

@SummerHouse

Who cares. You are the casual Christmas angel promoting kindness to feet and comfort in the workplace. You are a message that it's not about what you dress in but how you do your job. You are a lesson in everyone being different, inside and out. Own it baby!

Op isn't employed anywhere 🙄

They'd say dress casual if they wanted jeans and old jumpers. Dressing nice means nicer than normal- a suit would be fine, even if everyone else was wearing jeans.

@UniBallEye I am a graduate student at a very prestigious university think Oxford/ Cambridge type and an annual Christmas photo is always taken in front of nice buildings and then sent to everyone as a Christmas card, pinned on fridges etc.

@SleepingStandingUp I am afraid it’s a bit slobbier than I thought it would be! It’s straight down, white with lots of holes in (that’s the pattern), chunky knit. It’s my favourite jumper and it usually looks nice in photos if I am wearing jeans with it.

*We are talking about graduate students here.

When I was doing a PhD some of my fellow students' ideas of dressing nice were to have a shower and not wear the T-shirt that said "Fuck you I have enough friends already" on it*

This!

When I was a grad student no one would have dreamed of wearing anything approaching business wear. I would also have turned up in jeans- maybe done my hair, but that’s it. Make up wasn’t worn generally either. Even for the bosses, “smart” would be jeans and a shirt rather than a t shirt.

Like pp said, forgive yourself, move on. You don’t have to keep the photo, and any of the other students will be concerned about how they look, not you.

@Peridotty oh, I am tired today so that wasn't immediately clear to me, sorry!
Did you wear a Christmas jumper? If it's something that's done every year I still don't quite understand how you got it so wrong?
Did you not speak to your classmates at all about it?

Seriously just laugh at yourself. It's not a big deal and most are likely to smile or giggle at it rather than give you the death stare.

Oh, what is a graduate student? I read that to be work placement type thing.

@UniBallEye and if I were your boss I wouldn’t be impressed by your lack of reading comprehension…

If it's an annual photo, you must surely have had some clue how it's supposed to look, based on previous years

[quote Peridotty]@UniBallEye I am a graduate student at a very prestigious university think Oxford/ Cambridge type and an annual Christmas photo is always taken in front of nice buildings and then sent to everyone as a Christmas card, pinned on fridges etc.[/quote]
So you damned well knew what the norm was.

And chose to ignore it.

Even if you have wardrobe gaps, you can still ask friends to lend

@Thingstodotoday...luckily I am the boss, but am very tired today!

You need to go and buy some good (not formal) interesting clothes- a really good pair of boots, a dress, a top or two, or good Jeans, a couple of decent jackets.

@UniBallEye last year I wore a dress, but it’s my only dress. I didn’t want to wear the same thing again. I thought a navy blue dress suit wasn’t exactly festive though. I have very few clothes so picked my favourite old jumper to wear. I wore black jeans to be more ‘formal’ than blue. And I am tired, mummy to a one year old. Absolutely exhausted every day!
@SummerHouse I’m studying for a masters

@trollopolis I didn’t choose to ignore it but when they said ‘nice’ I genuinely thought my favourite jumper was ‘nice’. I thought they meant ‘just don’t turn up in scrubs’

Surely if this is a yearly thing and you've been to it before you'd know that what you chose to wear would be underdressed compared to the others.

It's not the end of the world, OP. I understand why you're embarrassed, but forgive yourself.

@Tee20x I don’t think the last time was as formal as this time though. I mean, the guys still wore suits but the girls wore casual dresses. Different people in the photos and the new people all decided to dress up to the nines

This must be a wind up surely?

You picked your favourite old jumper? Could you not have borrowed something if you couldn't afford to buy something? What did you wear to your uni interview? What would you wear when you have a job interview? I just can't believe this is true. If they wanted you in jeans and a jumper it would have said dress casual.

Couldn’t you have stood at the back ? That would have dealt with the jeans and converse.

It's one of those things, you might find it cringe but in the grand scheme of things who cares, no one died, no one was hurt, people might of noticed but they won't be thinking about it in years or even days to come, cringe about it and move on, we've all done cringey things

I feel for you. I wouldn’t have thought dressing nice was a dress code, what on Earth did they mean? I wouldn’t have thought it meant suits and corporate wear.

@viques for the group photo I stood at the back but then they wanted a class by class photo which meant it was me and 4 other people.
@headinthecloudsnow I own a navy suit but didn’t think this was what they meant by dressing nice for a Christmas photo.

Dress nice to me would be smart casual