Yes to ditching workplace dress code

As we examine the carnage caused by COVID-19 – the empty tower blocks, the ravaged food quarters, the embattled live performance scenes – many previous norms are being challenged.

And one question is uppermost in our minds: what exactly will we be wearing at the office?
One widely read piece in The Atlantic stated that “After the Pandemic, the Office Dress Code Should Never Come Back”, paired with the intriguing subhead: “Are ‘fancy’ sweatpants here for good?’”

To those two questions, I offer the following answers: I agree, and yes. If COVID-19 has taught us anything – apart from that we all look horrible in Zoom conferences, our every acne scar and wart on hi-def display – is that we don’t necessarily need to physically be in the office to be productive.

Clad in our comfy pyjamas and Ugg boots at home, friendly cats purring at our ankles, we have discovered another truth: we don’t need to obey the old office dress code. It no longer serves its physical, cultural or psychological needs.

We no longer need crippling high heels. We don’t need shiny black business shoes. We don’t need ties (if we ever needed them in the first place, except to prevent soup from staining our suits). We no longer need to wear pink on Wednesdays, Hawaiian shirts on “casual” Fridays, 37 items of “flair” or other corporate boiler suits of conformity.
Now that it has been proven that our clobber is not preventing us from hitting our KPIs, we should be free to wear “mandals”, yoga outfits, Crocs with socks, basketball shorts, jeans, Little Black Dresses, activewear, and, yes, sweatpants to work. If you can do your job while wearing an Elvis costume, a wetsuit, hippy attire or a suit of armour, why should anyone care?
In my first job, I took a shine to wearing sweatpants to work, before a kindly colleague quoted Karl Lagerfeld: “Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants.” Broken by peer pressure, I returned to wearing brown slacks.
Yet that didn’t stop me decades later working dressed as a pirate for International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Much merriment was had and productivity was in no way harmed by my eyepatch, shoulder parrot, puffy pants and plastic cutlass. (And yes, I have also fulfilled my journalistic duties while wearing an Elvis costume).
It is pleasing to learn that history has proven Lagerfeld wrong. Sweatpants have at last won the office fashion war. Haute couture has given way to haute couch. And I for one couldn’t be feeling more comfortable.