<p>Believe it or not, in the 90s when some places started going to business casual, a lot of wifes complained it was more work for them. They used to send suits and dress shirts to dry cleaners, but with business casual (polo shirts and khaki pants), they had to wash and iron them. I told them to just pretend they are dress shirts/pants and send them out to be cleaned too.</p>
<p>I prefer the business casual environment that I had at the startups and a financial company whose IT/IS group was business casual as we weren’t meeting clients. </p>
<p>Not only is it much more comfortable, especially in hot Boston/NYC summers where I’m commuting via subway, but also because business casual clothes IME can easily be washed and dried at the local laundromat/apartment laundry machines whereas with dress shirts, suit jackets, and pants…they often have to be dried cleaned. </p>
<p>As such, business casual also means I save money and time on dry cleaning bills and can launder my work clothes along with everything else without any issues. Once the standard load of laundry is done, everything is taken care of. :)</p>
<p>Moreover, I can do other things around the house…including work from home as needed without the aggravation and time it would take to run stuff to/from the dry cleaners.</p>
<p>I’ very only had one job where I’ve been able to wear jeans or shorts every day and I really didn’t care for it. I didn’t feel professional at all. I just left a human services job for one that is more business oriented and I am going to have to step up my game a bit (although no pantyhose is still ok 
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<p>Sent from my SCH-I405 using CC</p>
<p>I’m amazed that anyone is still business-dress these days. My industry and clients all went business casual - with a very loose definition of “business” - in the mid 1990’s. I think of industries that are still business-dress as being very dated, to be honest.</p>
<p>If I have a client or a QC person in for the day…I get “dolled up”. But that only happens once a month, if at all. Right now, I’m in my flip flops, black tee shirt and jean capris. Hair is caught up on my head with two pencils. </p>
<p>Reason # 478 to be your own CEO.</p>
<p>my office really likes people to wear ties… my job (and the job of everyone in my office) is to stare at a computer screen. Wearing a tie does not make me better at my job. I understand the desire to have people wear a tie if they are representing the office in front of customers, but we could wear a tie (+jacket) if we are going to do that. When we have to share what we learned from the computer screen, we can wear a tie then.</p>
<p>also, it is 90+ with huge humidity in DC in the summer. Wearing full business attire is idiotic and serves no purpose except to satisfy antiquated societal views.</p>
<p>i work for uncle sam</p>
<p>^^^My first job out of college in the mid-80s was as a newspaper reporter in a small Ohio city. The men had to wear ties and were not allowed to wear beards, although moustaches were OK. One of the reporters followed the letter of the law and wore his tie every day but it was always loosened, never cinched up, and his collar was always unbuttoned - it was his way of sticking it to the man. He also wore a large moustache.</p>
<p>We have a business professional dress code mostly because people don’t understand that business casual is NOT flip flops in the summer and jeans in the winter. So no jeans. Period. Not died, not white, nothing with jean seaming. And no flip flops…nothing that goes flip, flip, flip when you walk down the hall. The biggest change I’ve seen is that women are wearing sheath dresses with bare arms this summer which I’m sure has everything to do with Michelle Obama. You rarely saw women with bare arms in the office without a jacket or covering until the last couple summers. The men seem to be sticking with the pants and collared shirts, although in the cooler seasons you see more ties and most of the guys have a sportcoat stashed on the back of their door. No different clothing “rules” for Friday. </p>
<p>Before this company I worked somewhere ‘business casual’ and HR was always struggling because there was jeans all the time and inappropriate tops (and bottoms) on women and t-shirts on the men plus the $1.00 flip flops going on. HR finally changed the wording to 'business professional." </p>
<p>OP, I don’t know what to tell you about ‘changing the culture’ but remember not everyone wants to dress down to go to work and certainly men are not relegated to wearing worsted wool in the summer, nor do men need to wear undershirts when it’s hot (or even dress shirts which tend to be thinner material and almost “need” an undershirt and I love a guy in a seersucker suit (my H just wore one to a wedding). Maybe have him invest in a nice cotton summer weight khaki suit or olive suit and a short sleeve Oxford if he has a dress up office? My H loves linen in the summer, also. Sounds like he might need a summer wardrobe makeover?</p>
<p>I think it is so much harder for (some) women to do business casual. Men just wear khakis and a polo every day. It’s harder for them to dress inappropriately. But we’ve all read or heard the horror stories of one woman’s dress (linen sheath with sling backs) versus another’s (spaghetti strap bathing suit coverup with no bra, and rubber flip flops). It makes describing a dress code very tricky or detailed.</p>
<p>I worked in banking when a suit and hose were required regardless and I do not miss that at all! On the other hand, it was easy to decide what to wear in the morning and what to shop for. Now women are faced with an array of dresses, skirts, capris, “dress” jeans, and related tops. To say nothing of the footwear to go with all of them.</p>
<p>Men still just throw on the polo shirt and khakis!</p>
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<p>Seems that any job requiring “field” work should involve dressing according to the situation. News reporting seems like that type of job (should a reporter dress the same for reporting in a court room, a construction site, a beach, a nature preserve, a church, a school, etc.?).</p>
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<p>What’s wrong with someone wearing jeans in a non-customer-contact office situation? Or the T-shirts or flip flops?</p>
<p>DH no longer wears a tie everyday. He only wears a suit when he is doing a presentation or doing direct client work. He does not wear jeans in his office. He still wears a nice dress shirt and dress slacks…just no tie. In the colder weather, he will wear a nice sweater.</p>
<p>As a teacher, the only time jeans were allowed was for fundraising for charities. We could pay to wear jeans once in a blue moon. Because I worked with very young children, I wore slacks most of the time.</p>
<p>*What’s wrong with someone wearing jeans in a non-customer-contact office situation? Or the T-shirts or flip flops? *</p>
<p>I’ll answer this for me. At some point, casual starts to look like, “I don’t care.” And I want to work in a place where people care - at least a little.</p>
<p>That being said, I am very grateful that my once pretty buttoned-up profession (and company) has embraced business casual. I think it gives women LOTS of options: pants, sweaters, jackets, skirts, dresses, etc. I loathed wearing hosiery every day. </p>
<p>What industries aren’t business casual now?</p>
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That’s only an interpretation by ‘you’ - not something that’s true or real.</p>
<p>I just went to my first day of work today. I had my suit on, as usual. I saw a guy walk by wearing a black western suit, red shirt, cowboy boots and hat. I asked “who is that?” They said, “He is Y, he reports to you, and he likes to dress like that.” Hmmm…</p>
<p>*Me: At some point, casual starts to look like, “I don’t care.”
GladGradDad: That’s only an interpretation by ‘you’ - not something that’s true or real. *</p>
<p>OK, that’s true. But isn’t that the case for every observation we make?</p>
<p>I think my industry is not only largely business casual now but largely working from home… but we are the headquarters, so the rules are more strict. We also aren’t allowed to leave at 5 if there are enough important visitors around to notice. 
Appearances really matter to my CEO… I am not sure if that’s a bad thing, even if it is old fashioned. We run a tight ship, there are no exceptions.</p>
<p>I don’t know, I can’t help but think of all the arguments in favor of uniforms in public schools because people apparently need to dress a certain way to know it’s time for work.</p>
<p>I love working from home. A few years ago a bunch of us all dressed up in our pajamas for Halloween at work. whenever someone asked us what we were supposed to be we replied with “a telecommuter”. It got quite a few laughs!</p>
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Yes but what I mean is that just because you make that conclusion doesn’t make it true - i.e. plenty of the people you perceive as not caring because of their dress actually do care and some people who dress to your approval may in fact not care. I’m sure you’ve run into examples. I’m just saying that I don’t think one can generally equate the formality of dress, especially in an area where formality isn’t required, as ‘not caring’. They really have nothing to do with each other. People just need to be open minded to the fact that someone wearing jeans (or shorts or flip-flops) is actually capable of doing work, perhaps a great deal better work than someone who just happens to wear a suit, and in fact it’s the way the business world is going.</p>
<p>I think this can especially happen with generational differences - i.e. the 55-70 y/o who spent a significant part of their career dressing formally vs the 21-35 y/o who didn’t. The fact that the younger group doesn’t dress as formally doesn’t determine or indicate they’re any less dedicated to the job than the older group. I think the older group needs to be more open minded on the point. (btw - I’m in that older group but anti-formal-dress).</p>
<p>Until we stop wearing clothes altogether (something not for me) people do form perceptions of one another based on what comes out of our mouth and how we clad our bodies. It shows a respect for the self, also, that a little effort is put into cladding the body. I don’t think guys have to necessarily wear suits, but they can certainly pull themselves together enough to not look like they just got done mowing the lawn and women don’t have to come to work looking like they just left the beach IF they have an office dress code. It also shows a little decorum…something that seems to be absent in society these days. </p>
<p>I think it’s just fine if an office decides that they are going to be casual and they really don’t care what people wear to work. But if an office has a dress code I think it’s rude and self centered for people to think that it means everyone but them. And people will prevaricate with white jeans, tan jeans, brown jeans anything to continue wearing their beloved jeans in a no jeans office. Ask any HR person in a “no jeans” office.</p>
<p>I think it has nothing to do with capability of doing a job and everything to do with understanding the culture one is in.</p>