The Fall Of The Business Suit - Cheddar Explains

in the early 1920s the modern business suit began appearing in offices as the century progressed Styles modified slightly but it largely remained formal it wasn't until the 1980s and 90s that office attire started to trend towards business casual now fast-forward to 2019 fifty percent of reported companies allow for casual wear in the office which is up for the 32 percent reported in 2014 here at cheddar we have a casual dress code so it's up to employee discretion on what to wear well normally I just wear what I would wear any other day jeans a t-shirt or a tank top I normally wear sweater jeans a good amount of athleisure I usually come to work with jeans and a knit top and sneakers however some take this freedom a little too far though so how did we get from buttoning up suits to slipping on t-shirts it can actually be tied back to a series of events catalyzed by one single shirt in Hawaii in the late 1940s the city of Honolulu was searching for a way to give relief to employees during the hot summer months as well as attract tourists so it launched a campaign called Aloha Week which encourage workers to wear aloha attire for an entire week each year in the 1960s one man took it a step further Wilson Cannon jr. the president of the Bank of Hawaii began coming to work in a loja shirt every Friday the Hawaiian fashion guild took notice and launched a campaign to promote the extended tradition by shipping aloha shirts to members of the government an order for the idea to gain traction was instated because of guilt of you know manufacturers and people who sold Hawaiian shirts on the islands and they wanted to sell more shirts what I think is interesting about it is that it kind of came from a sort of capitalist vantage point of wanting to sell products that didn't come from wanting to make workers happy or give people expression the effort was successful I know loja Fridays were officially introduced in 1966 the tradition even inspired this popular song called Aloha Friday [Music] meanwhile the mainland slowly took notice of this new trend starting in Silicon Valley the Aloha shirt became popular on the west coast as tourists and soldiers brought them back from Hawaii hewlett-packard had begun its own version of Aloha Friday's this tradition of informality originally began in the 1950s as a beer bust where HP employees could crack open a beer at the end of a Friday shift over the years this ritual involved and what was called blue sky days workers were allowed to dressed casually at the end of the week the company also encouraged employees to use this time to be more innovative and craft new ideas at the same time there was a new population beginning to emerge within the workplace that's when women start to enter the workforce you can't have a uniformity of gray flannel suits anymore when all of a sudden women are walking around and it's considered taboo for a woman to be in a pantsuit what are women gonna wear how are they gonna blend in they automatically add a diversity their diversity of wardrobe diversity of clothing this diversity of wardrobe encouragement to break away from the norm and in the 1980s this meant khakis and a button-down by the early 1990s the trend of casual wear in the office had made its way to the East Coast but without any official guidelines it caused confusion amongst workers and some dress and appropriately Rick Miller who was working in public relations for Dockers said quote people were showing up in Hawaiian print shirts or sandals and shorts frankly there were concerns on the part of management the work might become too much fun the levi strauss company spotted this as an opportunity to launch a unique marketing campaign in 1992 the company sent out a brochure titled a guide to business casual wear to 25-thousand HR managers throughout the country it featured tips such as keep wrinkled stained or dirty clothing out of the workplace and casual does not mean sloppy you can dress casually and look professional the brochure pictured several different outfit ideas that included Dockers and Levi's jeans in order to promote their brand Levi's claims that this eventually evolved into was now known as casual Fridays by 1995 a survey by Evans revealed that 9 out of 10 companies allowed for casual wear at least once a week it became increasingly evident that sporting a suit didn't necessarily mean success in the workplace that means we just dress like we would at home but you're not at home no we did this casual Friday so yeah I know and you told me that already what are you doing casual Friday we're just coming into our work but we dress casually Steve Jobs wore turtlenecks and Mark Zuckerberg was down in sweaters in 2016 JP Morgan the largest US bank by assets implemented a business casual dress code for all employees workers no longer had to wear suits and pant suits and could Don khakis and polos Goldman Sachs a well-known Wall Street firm followed suit in 2019 it looks like the trend of casual wear in the workplace is here to stay major companies such as Google and Twitter offer a casual dress code option in the past both companies have been ranked on some of the best places to work list it's no surprise that employees appreciate flexibility within the office in fact 33% of employees said they would turn down a drop off or quit if there was a conservative dress code required an additional 33 percent said they would rather have a casual dress code than 5,000 extra dollars in annual pay I think we're now at a point where clothing is more about identity than being appropriate in giving scenarios office dress codes at their core are about this idea of appropriate what is and what isn't appropriate it looks like the trend of casual wear in the workplace is here to stay the traditional 95 schedule is also changing new research shows that one in five employees work remotely and more than half had the option in fact 43% of workers stated they would rather work from home whether it's working from home summer fridays or unlimited vacation progressing towards a more casual office environment appears to be key in attracting talent so the next time you pick out a pair of jeans and t-shirt from your closet for work just remember your outfit choice was inspired by the simple tradition of the Hawaiian shirt what are your thoughts on an office dress code have these changes gone too far tell us in the comments below and while already here be sure to like them subscribe to the channel and go ahead and click on that notification bound to be the first to know when we post new videos

Channel: Cheddar

Views: 395,247

Rating: 4.8298826 out of 5

Keywords: Cheddar, explainer, cheddar explains, business suit, suit, casual wear, business casual, suit and tie, casual friday, workplace, fashion, style, office, business attire, history, Hawaiian shirt, why do we wear ties

Id: Oj3c77Rq3vM

Length: 7min 0sec (420 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 12 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/born_and_raised]

This is a bad thumbnail to use. Michael Scott wears a suit everyday.

[u/Blog_Pope]

They lost me in the end. Zuckerburg?

The Dot Com boom in the late 90’s basically sealed it; you couldn’t hire technical talent and enforce a strict dress code, people would turn down more money to be freer in their dress. Business writers wrote about how loose dress codes drove creativity in solving problems; suddenly wearing a suit meant you were old guard and old economy.

[u/Leftieswillrule]

I don’t wear a suit every day but if I’m meeting a client I do. We still very much expect to see a suit on the east coast. Tech culture hasn’t taken hold here yet

[u/OrdinaryMagicMan]

Like everything it’s dependent on the situation. I was a consultant for years in Washington DC. Always wore a suit when meeting with a client, otherwise it was a very loose interpretation of business casual.

When I transitioned to working as a Fed about a decade ago my first position was with the EPA. VERY laid back organization. If you were not a supervisor, men in my office could wear khakis or nice jeans with polos or buttons up shirts. However, my current position is in a Federal law enforcement agency. Suits are EVERYWHERE and there are little exceptions, minus technical or IT positions. It really depends on the organization’s specific culture.

[u/fat_bretz]

Wearing an ugly, poor fitting suit doesn’t make you any more of a professional than wearing tailor fit denim.

[u/puffie300]

I'm a software developer in the Midwest. If I come in with khakis and a button up, people make comments about me interviewing somewhere else.

[u/SixPackAndNothinToDo]

It wouldn't be MFA without the weekly "Are suits going away?" post.

[u/piney]

It makes sense that the trend would have started in a warm location in the US. I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t also a connection between the decline of the business suit and the rise of other factors, such as central heating and indoor plumbing. A three-piece wool suit with a shirt and tie and a hat for wearing outdoors was probably welcome in an era where heat came from fireplaces or radiators only. Additionally, before we had easy access to indoor plumbing and hot water, well into the 20th Century, people used to bathe less frequently and wore fewer clothes more often. You might only have one business suit and you’d wear it every day. You might have three suits. But you’d have to be quite wealthy or established to have a variety of suits to wear to work without repeating. Today, standards have changed such that people are expected to not project body odor (or perfume and cologne) and are socially expected to show a wider diversity of clothing. The business world tends to be conservative to project stability and success, but I bet by the 50s and 60s people were all too happy to let the suit go when bosses said it was OK.

[u/CrudelyAnimated]

This depends entirely on whether you deal with people on behalf of the business. If you present the image of a business doing well, behaving maturely, and rolling in money, then you dress up. If you work behind the scenes, your job may involve putting your sleeves into machinery or being at your most relaxed behind closed doors for creative purposes. Clothes are commodities now. There is just less and less reason every year for me to ever wear a suit to work for arbitrary reasons.