Is the office dress code a thing of the past?
We’re heading toward a “slippery slope” where the lines between “business” and “casual” dress have become blurred, spurred mostly by debates on gender equality. “The slippery slope may have started as a gentle incline way back in the 1970s, and become a bit steeper during the Casual Friday movement of the 1990s and the success of the Facebook I.P.O. in 2012 with its hoodie-wearing [bn’aires].” From women being forced to wear high heels at work to guidelines for woman on how to dress when they appear to testify on elections or ethics bills. And let’s not forget the uproar caused over the short hemlines of 90s TV lawyer Ally McBeal and the subsequent debate on male vs female dress code standards at the workplace. But the issue now goes beyond just gender. “There’s a strain of thought that says an employee represents a company, and thus dress is not about personal expression, but company expression,” Professor Susan Scafidi, a law professor at Fordham University and founder of the Fashion Law Institute, said. “But there’s a counterargument that believes because we identify so much with our careers, we should be able to be ourselves at work.”