Something must be done. It has spread like poison ivy at summer
camp, engulfing our culture and taking all prisoner. Someone
must halt the spread of business-casual attire.
You don't see a problem? You feel more like yourself in
"relaxed" biz-caz duds? Peek outside your cubicle. Tell
me what you see. Besides blurring the crucial barrier between
work and personal life, besides plunging the dry-cleaning
and hosiery industries into jeopardy, the move to business
casual does other damage: It legitimizes and endorses a
fatally unimaginative aesthetic. Call it frat reunion. Call
it "clothes my wife bought me." Give it any bastard moniker
you want, but don't call it style, and don't think it signifies
workwear democracy. A polo shirt is no more "neutral" than
George W. is "a regular
guy."
Say what you will about the now near-extinct business suit--at
least it lent dignity to the proceedings. The sartorial
line between work and life was respectfully observed. It
was assumed that you probably did not wear your suit at
home or on weekends. Your unique identity glimmered mysteriously
in the small details (a Masonic ring, a daring 'do, a flash
of crimson slip), and you could savor the ceremony of loosening
a tie or sliding off stockings at the end of each workday.
Since you spend the lion's share of your alert adult hours
at work, and you pass those hours in work clothes, your
best opportunity to express your personal style is not at
Paley's Place, not at Panorama, but, like it or not, at
the office.
Supplanting traditional dress codes with the pernicious
biz-caz approach, however, has set adrift any style-minded
worker seeking to navigate the sea of twill and spandex.
It's enough to make even the hoariest corporate whore cower
and cringe. Bare midriffs and shower sandals swim before
the eyes in a phantasmagoria of fashion indeterminacy. Business
casual is supposed to be the gleaming beacon, a unifying
aesthetic everyone can appreciate and share. In other words,
it is the new uniform. Me, I'd prefer the suit.
The origin of business casual is murky, but it may have
started at a 1990 Canadian United Way fund-raiser that prompted
employees to "pay" (i.e., donate) to dress casually at work.
Wherever biz-caz came from, both company management and
clothiers have gobbled the concept like a chicken does a
junebug (according to a survey conducted by the Levi Strauss
Co., nearly 90 percent of employers allow relaxed attire
at least one day a week).
Biz-caz is designed to embrace professionalism and comfort,
to increase productivity and loyalty while putting employees
at ease. It is designed to be basic, universal and as neutral
as a cube of tofu. But the biz-caz look is little better
than a preppie pastiche of pro-shop wear with heavily branded
"basics" like Dockers. It isn't you. It isn't anybody really.
At least with a suit, your accessories tell a story. But
biz-caz routes us to a predictable clique of mega-retailers
who are armed and ready with their natural-fiber response
to this soi-disant revolution in work attire.
It's also a big scam. In many cases, a biz-caz ensemble
costs significantly more than a decent suit (have you priced
a pair of khakis at Banana Republic lately?). And if you
choose to cut costs by making biz-caz your off-duty apparel
as well, you pay to lose the opportunity to draw a line
between your work-self and yourself-self. Either way, the
company wins. Think about it: This business-casual routine
is all a ploy to make employees feel as though the company
is giving them something. But unlike raises, promotions,
time off or bright, roomy offices, letting employees wear
Dockers is free. Considering the feast of fat benefits
that employers could offer their hardworking minions, biz-caz
is a water biscuit and a cup of decaf.
There is hope. My exhortation to the young and employed:
Be subversive in your dress. We're not talking patent offense
or pornography; let's not lose our daily bread over this
one. Just do your bit to create an atmosphere of subtle
unease, a single mutinous layer in the strata of sameness.
Let 'em know that whatever managerial mumbo-jumbo the boss
sprinkles over the biz-caz offering, you won't swallow it
wholesale. Some examples I've beheld on our very streets
in Portland: a shrieking pink cape over the innocuous Long
Dress; an immaculate seersucker suit (on a man well under
70) with gumsoles. Too batty? Then take the preppie uniform
to its inevitable nth degree, and make the same blue polo
shirt and khakis your daily raiment, Einstein-style. Resist
the imposed skim-milk dilution of your idiosyncrasies, your
self, your soul. Wear that dress-code violation as the badge
of honor it is. I dare you. I salute you.
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Willamette Week | originally
published January 26,
2000
|
