WORKPLACE WEAR Left, Thomas McEntee in a shorts suit by Obedient Sons. Center, Kwesi Blair in his summer uniform. Right, Alejandro Rhett, an associate merchant at J. Crew.
FIRST came Casual Fridays, that dread episode in the history of fashion, with their invitation for men to trade in suits for Dockers and to swap a proper shirt and tie for an open neck and a daring flash of masculine décolletage.
Then the bare ankle migrated from country-club Saturdays to meeting-room Mondays and suddenly men, whether shod in wingtips or loafers, were widely seen without socks. Now it appears that, after some stops and starts in recent seasons, the men of the white collar work force are marching into the office in shorts.
It was no more than a moment ago, in the sartorial long view, that a guy who came to work wearing short pants would have been shown the door — or anyway, given the address for human resources at U.P.S. All that appears to be changing.
Consider that an advertising agency in Salt Lake City this summer introduced a no-long-trousers policy. Consider the octogenarian New York lawyer who ditched his seersucker suit for jaunty camouflage shorts on the job. Consider the pack of stylish young men on the streets of Manhattan who find it not only sensible, in thermometer terms, to beat the heat by wearing shorts but also, in style terms, cool.
“We try to have a little bit of fun around here on a regular basis,” said Dave Newbold, the president of Richter7, the Salt Lake City ad agency in question, whose clients include Medtronic and the Chamber of Commerce of Park City, Utah, where wearing long pants outside of ski season is practically a violation of the law.
When the hockey star Sean Avery took an internship at Vogue earlier this summer, the work uniform that the fashion-besotted left wing chose included a shorts suit that showcased his athletic calves.
“Why go to work and be hot?” he asked last week, adding that there was no compelling business reason to look modest and dull on the job. “You can look good and not have that boring-type look,” said Mr. Avery, who signed with the Dallas Stars this summer after several seasons with the Rangers. “Why are women allowed to do it and not men?”...
************************thought provoking article...sounds like an issue i need to take to Personnel...
1 comment:
Please do. I've been thinking a lot about Bermuda shorts.
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