Dress Decoded: The Past, Present, & Future of Workplace Attire
The Suits of our Labor.
Even as recently as 2019 BC (Before COVID), 34% of companies saw no problem with employees wearing casual attire. As remote work continues to blur the lines between the personal and professional, the next battle in the war against formalities is our wardrobe.
Now that 50% more employers say they plan to rely at least partially on a remote workforce post-pandemic, the uniform of officewear's-past seems poised to go the way of J-Crew – out of work and out of style.
Casual work attire has already been synonymous with the tech industry for decades: Steve Jobs first stepped out with his iconic black turtleneck and jeans in 1983, serving as both "anti-fashion" statement and an early signal of Silicon Valley's growing contempt for the extraneous "monkey suits" of Wall Street.
While Zuckerberg's hoodie would go on to embody the caricature of casual workwear that we think of today (although he recently traded his monochrome hollister zip-ups for $2,000 Italian cashmere), even Wall Street has joined the relaxation revolution: Goldman Sachs has had a "firm-wide flexible dress code" since 2019.
In this weeks Casual Friday special report, Wonder undresses the evolution of both men and women's workplace fashion and etiquette and what it meets for the runway ahead.
Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg
Source: Hollywood Reporter
The ins and outs of workplace fashion.
Whether the elbow tap will take its place is yet to be seen (That's if you ever see your coworkers again) but it wouldn't be the first time the workplace has evolved with the changing times:
1900s
At the beginning of the twentieth century, many workers started wearing the “middle-class men’s suit" in contrast to knee-length frock coats worn during the 1800s, consisting of three pieces: jacket, trousers, and a waistcoat.
1910s
A man’s daytime suit comprised a single-breasted jacket with narrow lapels paired with straight trousers made with lighter fabrics and simple designs. Men also wore boater or gambler hats and two-tone boots.
During this decade, the American Ladies’ Tailors’ Association designed the “suffragette suit” to free women from tight-fitting hobble skirts.
Additionally, legislators made it mandatory for women workers to wear corsets and dresses with hemline shorter than one inch from the ground.
1920s
Men started to embrace bow ties and Windsor knots for their neckties, leading to club collars being replaced with pointed spread collars.
For women, "Boyish" silhouettes grew in popularity as they abandoned tighter dresses. Thus, straight skirts and tailored suits with curveless cuts became the new fashion trend during the period.
1930s
Superman-inspired men's suits with extra broad shoulder pads, thin waists, and tapered legs became popular. The jackets featured wide, pointed, and elongated lapels to emphasize a broad torso.
Marcel Rochas from France created the first pantsuit in 1932. During this decade, women's silhouettes became softer and long dresses featured feminine embellishments, such as bows, necklaces, and ties.
Popular men's and women's work styles of the 1930s
Source: Fashion History
1940s
A new trend of "utility fashion" was adorned by workers during the second world war due to fabric rationing.
As more women went to work, the traditional work attire like dresses and skirts was replaced by pants to do manual work comfortably.
Neckties featured bright patterns with widths sometimes reaching up to five inches.
1950s
Classic sweaters with sloping shoulders became popular with women, along with narrow pencil skirts and "separates" (blouses with skirts or pants.) The complete office attire included hosiery or stockings with thin stilettos.
Men typically wore single-breast buttoned suits with pocket handkerchiefs. Alternatively, a skinny tie less than two inches wide was paired with “skinnier” suits.
1960s
This era was one of the first to represent relaxed work culture with workers wearing army coats and denim jackets to the office over bright colors, vivid patterns, thin ties, and slim-fitting shirts.
In 1966, the Hawaiian garment industry came up with the idea of “Aloha Friday” to encourage businesses to let employees wear Hawaiian shirts once a week at work.
Referred to as the "decade of leg", with the rise of miniskirts, as the structured look of post-war attire became more relaxed, as the rights of women were promoted with the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and a Presidential Executive Order in 1967 banning discrimination in hiring and employment based on sex.
The Feminine Mystique was published by Betty Friedan in 1963 and was widely credited with triggering the second wave of feminism in the US. Women had a wide range of hairstyles, typically strongly volumized with hairspray.
1970s
The wide lapels from 1930s began to reemerge in the 1970s with colorful leisure suites, bell-bottom trousers, and kipper ties. Pantsuits were frequently worn with tie-neck blouses and wide-lapel blazers with feminine prints.
Women's pants became so widely accepted in the 1970s that the US government allowed girls to start wearing pants in public schools in 1972 under Title IX of the Education Amendments.
Pantsuits became popular among working women to display their masculine edge and equality.
Elvis Presley's role in the 1961 film "Blue Hawaii" popularized the Hawaian shirt worn to the office for casual Aloha Fridays
1980s
The growth in pantsuits was a reflection of the growth of women in the workplace as the role of women in management jobs increased from 20% to 36%. Sales of women’s suits rose by almost 6 million, bringing in $600 million profit, between 1980 and 1987.
Alternatively, men suits featured pinestripes, suspenders, and padded shoulders. Skinny leather ties also became popular among men during this period.
1990s
The "business casual" attire typically featured khaki pants, buttoned collared shirts, turtlenecks, and sensible shoes. Additionally, the Aloha Fridays trend swept the US mainland with a rebrand as Casual Fridays.
During this period ties conformed to a more uniform width of four inches with three basic knots types (Windsor, Half Windsor, and four-in-hand.) and women opted for blazers with bold chunky jewelry.
2000s to today
The 2000s saw the rise of minimalism, with men and women wearing blazers. Women typically wore muted pantsuits and men wore suit coats and grayish ties.
Slim-fit tailored suits worn with solid colored shirts is popular among men, while women wore separates, casual blouses, cardigans, short sleeve dresses, and open toed shoes.
Athleisure wear, designer sneakers, and cashmere hoodies became popular among millennials as workplaces relaxed dressed codes in the workplace with formal attire becoming more of a personal choice for employees.
Legal changes to fashion in the workplace were introduced in the 2000s as well. New guidelines that prohibited “enforcing dress codes, uniforms, and grooming standards that impose different requirements based on sex or gender.” were announced by the NYC Commission on Human Rights in 2015, leading to a deviation from the typical suit in the office.
The cast of Seinfeld perfectly encapsulated the workplace attire trends of the 1990s
Dressing for the Job you want…
The transition to casualwear has allowed organizations to place more emphasis on employee performance than appearance, with 90% of employers citing lax dress codes as a move to be more accepting of younger generations.
The same study also revealed that workplaces have drastically adjusted dress codes beyond just attire. Visible tattoos (35% of companies who previously saw this as unacceptable now accept this), casual attire (34%), non-traditional hair-colors (34%)andnon-traditional piercings (33%) have all become normalized.
Nearly 3 in 4 employers allow their employees to work from home today, with 50% of those couch commutersnot following a defined dress code for remote working.
But the ghost-of-workplace-future likely won't arrive in Soylent-stained sweatpants: A recent survey found that those who dressed in business-professional, business-casual, and smart-casual attire were all more productive than those who dressed in gym clothes and pajamas.
Here's what American professionals will more likely be looking (fashion) forward to:
Gemma Boothroyd, a retail analyst at GlobalData, argues that the shift away from suits to "smart" and casual styles has been existent for years, and was only accelerated by the pandemic.
She believes that wearing suits will return post-COVID-19 because of the rollover from delayed and canceled functions during the pandemic.
Nonetheless, comfort dressing has become an irresistible fashion force during COVID-19 and will still be here to stay. The global athleisure market was valued at $155 billion in 2018, and is expected to reach $257 billion in 2026.
Now that the WFH framework has been deemed indispensable, the next universal uniform will be a fusion of "luxury wellness" aesthetics combined with the sleek professionalism of workplaces' past. Known as "next-gen athleisure," the emerging category of clothes will cover all bases and are described as slack, self-respectful, efficient, indulgent, flexible, and impressive.
Net revenue for the athleisure brand Lululemon rose 22% to $1.12 billion in Q3 2020.
Source:Bloomberg
For deeper insight into the history and evolution of workwear, shifts in communication, vacations, and a focus on Women's experiences in the workplace, check out our research here.
How can we make your work more comfortable today?
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