Member-only story
A Casual Dress Code is a Lousy Substitute For Time Off
A blurred line between work and leisure hasn’t made made work any more fun — instead, it lets work eat into our free time.
Employers from Goldman Sachs to the Golden Arches have relaxed or abandoned dress codes. Silicon Valley tech employees are famous for their hoodie sweatshirts and grey t-shirts. Sales of neckties and business suits are at all-time lows. Hourly wage jobs that used to enforce a bland, a clean cut middle-American uniformity, now allow staff to wear piercings, beards and tattoos.
Dress codes that allow casual and idiosyncratic clothing might seem to suggest a more relaxed and playful attitude toward work. But they really reflect the expectation that employees spend their nights and weekends working. A distinctive work wardrobe doesn’t make sense if the workday never really ends.
As I point out in my book, Dress Codes, specialized professional clothing developed in the 18th century, just as the work ethic was displacing older values of nobility, display and honor. Before then, elites considered productive work beneath their dignity. Aristocrats wore elaborate, sumptuous, and often cumbersome attire suited to a life of leisure and social display. The business suit emerged from what some have called the…
