Coworker snapped at the dress I'm wearing

[user1471867483]

I’m wearing a three-quarter length thin white crepe fabric sleeved dress with black ric rac at the bottom. It’s quite sheer, but it’s lined and I’m fine wearing it. It’s boho and vintage. I have thick black tights on with it and black ankle boots. My coworker, who works next door, came in and said, “Aren’t you cold in that”? I said, “No, I’m fine”. She said, “No you’re not”.
Well, I am! I wouldn’t have worn it if I wasn’t OK in it.
The dress is a bit like this:
https://froufroufrocksboutique.com/products/ent-ecru-plus-ric-rac-midi-dress
What I’m really asking is why has what I’m wearing got anything to do with anyone?

I look back and cringe sometimes at the stuff I’d wear to work.

Put your personal style to one side for a moment and consider whether it’s appropriate for the place you work. I thought I was being independent, myself etc with my style at work but look back and cringe at some of the inappropriateness of it.

Edited as duplicated.

We don’t know where the OP works so how do you know it’s unprofessional? My old boss would wear a bikini top as underwear, you could see the halter neck. Unprofessional in a bank, totally acceptable in the office we worked in.

Whether it’s appropriate depends on the office culture and field you work in - magazine designer yes, lawyer probably not, but I agree colleague was probably trying to communicate something like that to you.

However it’s brought back happy memories of my DS’s lovely year 3 teacher who always dressed like she’d rolled in from a festival at 3am and not got changed, that dress is very her! Officially she was inappropriately dressed, but she carried it off.

Hahaha! This was my first thought too!

Thanks for this. I’m halfway through the first page and it’s amusing. I wonder how many people on that thread are still around, or if they’ll get a shock to get a sudden ‘thanks’ notification.

not my business to comment on your dress sense and not your co worker's either. If your boss says something, then that's a different story

It would be totally fine in my office. Mumsnet opinions in WFH and office attire are usually quite stiff though.

I think that’s fine for office wear with the thick black tights and ankle boots, as the tights won’t be a lot different to leggings.

Yes, a bit ‘I’m mad, me’. 😁

That’s silly. It very much depends on where you work.

Me too.
And I'm also wondering what the "sparkly mop" thing (referenced by a PP) is.

Mumsnet isn't called the nest of vipers for nothing ...

I mean, she was wrong to comment and would've been wrong to comment even if you'd walked in wearing a Big Bird outfit / draped in the Palestinian flag / in scuba gear. Presumably you have a manager whose remit includes the lovely task of reminding staff about appropriate office wear if it comes to that. Imo this is along the lines of the coworkers who look at what you're getting out of the fridge and say, "Oooh, a salad, you're being very healthy today!" Just inappropriate and irritating. Ignore.

She said hers is 3/4 length. Did you read the full OP?

What's the usual dress code?

It doesn't really look like office wear to me, but if that kind of thing is the norm in your workplace, just ignore- it's none of your colleague's business what you wear if your managers are OK with it.

She said it's 3/4 length...

I’m afraid I do agree that unless it’s very much a wear what you want vibe and people take comfort very seriously with that then this isn’t really an office dress. But I will say that my previous 10 years have been spent in investments firms and then a solicitors office so I’m speaking from a place where we always had to be super presentable and quite ‘city slick’. If we’re talking about a little industrial estate style office in a little village in Yorkshire then we’re obviously on slightly different pages!

Is it longer that the one in the photo? If so fine, if it’s really short then you’ve probably got a lot of bum on show.

I used to work with a girl who thought leggings and a short top were fine. Every line of her knickers was obvious and the leggings were stretched to being almost see through in parts. Not a good look.

Most of the others are old fashioned except one who looks like she's going to a nightclub each day. She wears skimpy clingy mini dresses. A male coworker once told her that her outfits are too skimpy 😱, but she's ignored him.

In the OP it says her dress is 3/4 length so how could it show her bum?! The neckline in the example is way too high to show cleavage, too!

What the heck is the model holding, though?

from the title I thought it was going to be really short or tight or cleavage-showing. Not a fan of it but it doesn’t seem to be any of those. She obviously just doesn’t like it and thinks it’s ridiculous and couldn’t help herself in letting you know. It’s better to know what people are like 🤷🏻‍♀️

Is 1 small passive agressive/backhanded comment now what we are calling 'snapped at'.

Seems a massive over reaction and really not worth posting about.

'Snapped at' to me would equal raised voices, ranting, swearing etc... its when someone is losing control of their temper its not just sharply saying 'no' lol.

She is pretty rude and unless she is your superior telling you that you need to look more office/business like, then just ignore her.

That said, a floaty white dress kind of has beach vibes. But if you have dressed it warmly with tights and an additional top - and your workplace is causal - then there is no problem at all.