Do you have a separate work wardrobe?

[pestothepenguin]

I don't mean physical wardrobe but do you have specific work and non work clothes? Do you include coats and shoes?

I'm teacher and have an exclusive work clothes shoes and coats . I never want to put my work stuff on out of work even though the coat and shoes are nice!

Yes, business type clothing for work and very casual for home. I prefer to have the separation, my last job was v casual and I just wore the same clothes all the time which felt weird.

This sound exciting!

As a teacher I had a distinct wardrobe and I really liked having ‘work clothes’ and normal clothes as a kind of emotional distinction between work and home. Now I work in an office with quite a casual dress code which has blurred all that. So I have a pair of ‘work jeans’ which I don’t like wearing at weekends 😂 I just can’t get used to the idea that I could dress the same inside and outside of work.

As a side note, I found my teacher outfits were not even office appropriate these days. Schools seem to engender quite a dated, semi- corporate dress code that made me feel a bit self conscious in an office where the look is either casual or somehow subtly updated. Donated so many pairs of my cropped trousers.

I WFH and don't need to be super-smart, so I just wear what I want when I want.

I've updated some of my clothes recently after getting into a bit of a rut, and feel really like 'me' at the moment.

Yes - completely separate.
It isn't that my work clothes aren't comfortable (silk blouses, wool trousers) but more that I don't want to lie on the sofa in them and get them all creased up, particularly as they all need dry-cleaning. The minute I come in I change into "home" clothes. I have another wardrobe (jeans, knitted dresses, or cotton dresses for summer) for "weekend"/ "not work but going out."

I do now that I’m in a ‘smarter’ job than my last one. I actually like having a separate work wardrobe and psychologically the childhood habits comment rings true. My Mum worked full-time (1970s-80s so relatively unusual) and had a very smart work wardrobe which I always admired. I used to love going with her to the department store each season when she chose a couple of new pieces (always Jaeger or Country Casuals). Don’t enjoy the shopping for myself as much though!

I used to, but since changing jobs I go in twice a month and it's casual so I don't anymore. It does feel like there's no difference some days but even in my old job I was starting to dress a lot more casual.

I have some lovely dresses and trousers that I'll occasionally put on but my work clothes are generally what I wear on a day when I need to look put together or want to look nice.

General day to day clothes are jeans and a jumper in winter, shorts and tops in the summer.

Yes I do. I have a couple of coats that I wear to and from work and also at home, but the rest of my work clothes are for work. I wouldn't want to wear them at home. They don't reflect me at all - they're just a series of black and grey trousers, dresses, skirts, jackets, boots and cardigans. All machine washable, all boring.

Yes, 💯