THE JOURNAL
In 2020, millions of workers moved their jobs from cubicles to bedrooms, creating a work-from-home economy coordinated through Slack, Zoom and Google Docs. Five years on, that experiment looks to be winding down. In April, Google informed some remote staff that they would have to return to work or face termination. Meta and Apple now require at least three days in the office, while JPMorgan, Amazon and The Washington Post are phasing out remote work altogether.
For workers, the shift raises a familiar, but tricky question: how to dress for the office. It’s not just that some have grown accustomed to pyjamas and sweatpants – although those are comfy – but office dress codes are inherently confusing. When Goldman Sachs sent a memo to some 36,000 employees announcing they no longer needed to wear a coat and tie, the firm didn’t say what should take its place.
Management merely advised staff to “dress in a manner that accords with the company’s and clients’ expectations” and to “exercise good judgment”. In other words: you figure it out.
This is why questions about how to dress for work are rarely settled. Hard-written rules have been slowly replaced by softly coded norms, which has caused endless confusion. No formula works for everyone since so much can vary depending on the industry, company, region and even job position. Still, if you’re left with no other direction, there are some guidelines on how to return to your workplace in style.
01. Hang onto the jacket
The business suit has been in slow decline for over 50 years, yet nothing satisfactory has taken its place. The default business-casual formula – button-up shirt with trousers – rarely looks compelling, as it clings to the suit’s aura of professionalism while discarding what made that uniform appealing in the first place. A tailored jacket is unique in that it’s built from layers of haircloth, canvas and padding, which are sewn together and shaped through specialised techniques, such as pad stitching, darts and ironwork. In a skilled tailor’s hands, this can result in a distinctive V-shaped silhouette that other forms of clothing can’t easily replicate.
If you can, hang on to the jacket. You can soften some of the formality inherent in tailoring by swapping the suit for a sport coat. Start with a navy single-breasted sport coat with notch lapels, which will be your most versatile garment, and then add two brown sport coats in seasonal materials (tweed in the autumn, wool-silk-linen in the spring). These can be dressed up with a necktie and trousers or made to look a little more casual with the right T-shirt and jeans.
A well-tailored jacket will enhance and broaden your shoulder line, making your waist appear slimmer in comparison. If you’re worried about looking too formal, consider getting a jacket with softer shoulders, which will look and feel more like casualwear. You can underline that casualness by wearing it with plain white sneakers – something a full suit rarely accommodates.
If sport coats don’t work for your office, look for another “finishing layer”. For wardrobes built around dress shirts and tailored trousers, a wool cardigan or suede Valstarino jacket works well. If your clothes skew more casual, a chore coat or trucker jacket does the same job. The right finishing layer will add visual interest, pulling the whole ensemble together.
02. Don’t dress like you’re at the beach
Men have slowly moulted their layers for more than a hundred years, first losing the business vest, then the jacket and eventually the tie. In many cases, the dress shirt has gone, too. But some barriers seem harder to cross than others. A few weeks ago, Robert Armstrong at The Financial Times suggested it’s time to reconsider shorts in the office, which received swift and fervent pushback online. Even in an age when some men don’t wear socks, the idea of seeing male knees remains divisive.
As Vanessa Friedman rightly pointed out at The New York Times, shorts have become one of the last holdouts because there are still certain clothes that signal we’re not at work, so wearing them in professional spaces feels subversive or even disrespectful. “In our psychographic wardrobe, [shorts] represent leisure and sports,” she wrote. “Which may be why they seem to be the last frontier of dress code revisionism.”
To be sure, there are specific workplaces where you can wear shorts, but you likely already know if you’re at one of those places (say, if you work in a store that only sells shorts). For all other situations, use common sense. If it’s something that you’d typically wear to the beach or the gym – open-toe sandals, stringer tank tops, stained tees – it’s probably not a good idea to wear them when you want to signal reliability and professionalism.
03. Add some texture
Some workplaces embrace total freedom; others demand strict conformity. Most fall somewhere in between, leaving people to navigate the balance between looking competent while still wanting to present themselves authentically. When people want advice on how to dress for the office, they are often looking for ideas or even permission on how to dress more stylishly within their workplace norms.
An easy way to do this is to add texture. If your coworkers are mostly wearing plain white poplin dress shirts and slim-fit chinos, consider switching to more textured variations of this same uniform, such as nubbier Oxford-cloth button-downs (ideally with a full collar roll) and five-pocket cords, which look dressier than jeans, but are more interesting than khakis. Similarly, textured sweaters offer an easy way to improve basic outfits in the cooler months. Instead of smooth, plain-coloured merino crewnecks and V-necks, consider classic Arans, beautifully twisted cable knits, flecked yarns, unusual blends, or spongey Shetland wools in earthy colours. Texture adds visual interest to plainer outfits without requiring you to coordinate patterns, which means you don’t have to spend too much time picking an outfit in the morning.
04. Do some basic upgrades
People seeking office style advice often aim to strike a balance between dressing well and avoiding unwanted attention. An easy way to do this is to consider materials. If T-shirts and jeans are the norm at your office, consider getting something made from mercerised cotton. Mercerisation is a finishing process that improves lustre and dye uptake, which can make a T-shirt look more polished. Similarly, raw denim can give you the personalisation you’re seeking, as the denim improves over time, breaking in and developing fades that reflect your actual lifestyle.
If your office is about polos and chinos, consider a finer gauge knit instead of the more common pique cotton. If the polo has a more interesting neckline – say, if it has a collar band or skipper collar – it will look more stylish than the plain, floppy polo collars you see in every mall. Chinos can also be distinguished by cut. Or, even better, upgraded to wool trousers in seasonal materials such as tropical wool for summer and flannel for winter.
The easiest upgrade is with your shoes. Plain sneakers can be acceptable in most offices today, so long as they’re not so beaten that they look like they should be retired for gardening. But you can always improve an outfit with a classic pair of boots, Derby shoes or loafers.
05. Focus on fit
In the film The Talented Mr Ripley, Tom Ripley (played by Matt Damon) and Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) wear clothes that aren’t too dissimilar from what you’ll find in most offices today. Yet, the film is constantly cited as a source for style inspiration because the cuts, silhouettes and proportions are more flattering. They wear slightly fuller, high-waisted trousers, classically cut Oxford shirts and comfortably rounded jackets. The spot of vacation style comes through in the retro-styled knits and optic white trousers – possibly too casual for the office, depending on your job. But the film is proof that, if push comes to shove, you can make a basic office uniform look stylish if you pay attention to fit.
Returning to the office doesn’t have to involve a wardrobe overhaul. If you’ve grown used to at-home comfort, look for soft knits in more professional designs, such as long-sleeved polos or textured sweaters. There are also tailored trousers nowadays with elasticated waistbands, giving you the ease of sweatpants but in a more presentable form (wear them with untucked camp-collar shirts, so no one knows). If you pay attention to some basic elements – fit, texture and material – you can choose a couple of smart pieces that work with your existing wardrobe, allowing you to feel confident at the office.
The people featured in this story are not associated with and do not endorse MR PORTER or the products shown