What Do I Wear?

I was sitting in a hybrid meeting the other week on the office side, and noticed something interesting. Everyone who was in the office was dressed business casual, with buttons, zippers, and belts included. However, everyone on the screen was in T-shirts, and I can only assume, pajama bottoms or some sort of soft, elasticized versions of pants. The juxtaposition was not only hilarious, but a reminder of how the pandemic (sorry to bring it up again) has changed so much about the way we work, and put the value of comfort on display.

As we head back into the office, the idea of work wear has changed. People’s pajama-adjacent quarantine wardrobes have taken over, and it’s become difficult to go back to belts and structured clothing. When we take away the idea of work wear, and the inevitability of seeing and interacting with coworkers, people choose comfort. But now that life is slowly getting back to “normal”, office employees are taking that comfort back to the office, albeit a more tailored version.

Ministry of Supply, a brand that specializes in comfortable business wear, recently sent thousands of suddenly outdated items back to the factory for a post-pandemic makeover. Slimming down pant legs, so they look good with sneakers, and hemming dress shirts to make them more flattering untucked. Perhaps we are in a different era now. One that has hurried the loosening of corporate dress codes, initially led by Silicon Valley. Pre-pandemic, startups and their leaders ditched suit-and-ties for Hanes T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers. This accelerated movement comes with people pushing for flexibility in more aspects of the office than just work wear. As they shift out of working from home, gender norms, pay inequality, and remote work are topics that come to mind, that are all, along with office wear, tied together by the need for offices to adapt to changing times.

This new mindset will undoubtedly influence not only what we choose to wear every time we go to the office, but also how retailers and brands approach workwear. Lisa Sun, CEO of clothing label Gravitas, says that versatility is the future of workwear. Having had to pivot her brand in the midst of the pandemic, she created a velvet top and bottom set that sold out very quickly, because it gave women the option of comfort, while looking put together for their Zoom calls. StitchFix, a personal styling service, is categorizing the new workwear as "business comfort." As brands change their products to be slightly stretchier, there is excitement for newness and dressing up again while maintaining comfortability.

Personally, as an avid proponent of sweaters and elasticized waistbands, this is the best thing that could have happened to workwear. Unquestionably there will be pushback around this new loosened standard, with people asserting their style in the tailored looks of the before times. At the end of the day, if you’re feeling uncertain about what to choose from your closet on an office day, choose what you feel best in. If that means physical comfort in the form of soft jersey knits, then you have more options than ever before. But if you spent this past year dreaming about the day you get to dress to the nines again, do that too! Clothing is a personal choice, and the rules have changed. This allows for more freedom of expression, and that’s always a good thing for me and my collection of sweatshirts.