According to Gallup, 41% of respondents said they wear "business casual" clothing, which the survey-takers described as clothing such as blouses, dress pants, dressy jeans or skirts for women. Gallup described "casual street clothes" for women as things like casual jeans, T-shirts or leggings.
I'm a guy and I presume business casual means slacks and a collared shirt. Casual street clothes to me would be . . . I don't know. Maybe casual jeans, T-shirts or leggings? I've never heard clothes described as "casual street clothes" and that's despite occasionally being in the room while Mrs. Brad watches "Project Runway," where designers dress their models in papier-mâché dunce caps and sleeves that connect their arms to their shoes.
Back to work clothes: The biggest shift since 2019 (according to Gallup) is a dramatic drop in the percentage of respondents who wear business professional, which is "suit or equivalent" for both men and women. Was there some landmark event that happened between 2019 and 2023 to explain the cause? I mean other than the Dodgers winning a fluke World Series after a 2020 baseball season that was cut short.
The main point of the Gallup survey is that most workplaces – Gallup included "uniforms" as a possible answer, so this survey appears to cover restaurants, offices, the military, schools, professional sports, etc. – embrace casual dress.
What a difference from my childhood. My dad was an accountant and he wore a suit to work. Slacks, jacket, tie. He wore shiny shoes. He had one of those Dick Tracy-type raincoats for bad weather (and I grew up in Eureka, so he took that raincoat to work about 200 days a year).
My friends' dads had a variety of jobs, but almost all of them wore suits or uniforms. They worked at the mills or were plumbers or worked in a nursery. They all wore suits or uniforms. My friends' moms who worked all wore dresses (or pantsuits if they were "liberated").
There was no "business casual" in the 1970s as far as I knew. Of course, as far as I knew, nobody's dad was cheating on their mom. As far as I knew, drunk driving was funny and smoking wasn't too bad. It was the 1970s, man.
My current workplace is business casual. I generally wear jeans and a collared shirt, although T-shirts are OK. When I started there in 2014, slacks were required, so times have changed.
Most of my career at the Daily Republic was as a sports editor, so my staff and I all wore a uniform. Well, kind of. We generally dressed in shorts and either a T-shirt or a jersey. And basketball shoes.
It was fantastic, but at one point, management decided we should dress "professionally," That meant someone would cover a softball game or track meet in a 100-degree heat and have to wear pants and a collared shirt, which made them the only person in attendance dressed that way.
Finally, management relented and let us resume dressing like slobby college kids.
Turns out that Daily Republic management in the 1990s was just ahead of its time. Relenting to allow casual dress (if jorts, a second-hand New York Giants football jersey and Nikes is "casual") simply put them 30 years ahead of their time.
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment