Office workers have discovered the joys of working in slippers, T-shirts and sweatpants, and it seems they are balking at giving them up, says the Financial Times’ Brooke Masters.
Take a hedge fund event I attended recently in New York. Advertised as an industry outlook followed by cocktails, the early-evening gathering featured a panel of four in which the three men were not wearing ties, and the senior woman wore sneakers.
Style experts say that this is not an anomaly. Consultancy McKinsey identified a shift to more “casual” styles - for both office wear and work events - as a key trend in its report on the state of fashion for 2023. And terms such as “power casual” and “There is also growing interest in gender-fluid clothing that blurs the line between menswear and womenswear, by eschewing exaggerated silhouettes in favour of comfort and simple lines.
On any given day, some workers will be donning relaxed clothing and logging in from home, even as others dress up to make the trip to work. Meanwhile, bosses are doing all they can to foster the idea that coming together in real life is a treat. “It has taken a lot of pressure off over having the perfect outfit,” says Nancy Mahon, chief sustainability officer at Estee Lauder, the US-based cosmetics group. “We’re less ‘judgy’ than we were before the pandemic … There’s a lot more leeway on what is professional.”For her, that means “having an outfit that more represents who I am as a person”. She wears a knit jacket with a subtle red, orange and cream design when we speak, and adds: “I’ve leaned a lot more into colour; into comfort.
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