Actually, the Office Dress Code Is Alive and Well

maybe in a different form. This is game plan. Welcome to game Plan. I'm Rebecca Greenfield, a reporter at Bloomberg, where I cover the workplace, and I am Sam Grosbart. I am a writer at Bloomberg Business Week magazine. This week we're talking about the office dress code, what you wear to work. There was an article that came out in The New York Times earlier this year that declared the end of the office code and said that everything is confusing and up for grabs. Now, can I make

a snap judgment on that horse hockey? That's a weird phrase. The point the article is making is it's looking around offices and saying, you know, maybe fifteen years ago, business casual rained, and people were wearing khakis and buttondowns, and women had to wear more formal clothing. And now you look around offices and even here at Bloomberg, and there's a huge variety of what people wear. Some people are in jeans and a blouse, some people do dress up.

Some people, like the developers at certain offices, where really really casual jeans and T shirts and tiva's and socks. And part of that has to do with what those people do for a living. Obviously, if you sit at your desk all day, never really interact with a client a customer, your job is entirely internal. Take those developers you were just mentioning, well, then it really doesn't altogether matter what you wear as long as you get your tasks done, you get done on time, you get them

done effectively. But if you're in a sales position, something that happens in this building, or you are a lawyer and you're going to court, or you have clients, or you have accounts that you're visiting, then your personal appearance is probably a little bit more important. You're representing your firm, you're representing yourself. It's another tool you have to well what all business people are trying to do. Get money

from something, convince people you're worth paying for. So I read a story last year about an accounting firm, Crow Horror Wath that updated their address code policy. So accounting is a pretty old school, i'd say industry where they do have more formal address codes because it's in client services, and they updated it with something that's called address for your Day policy. So it's like, if you are seeing someone that day, you need to dress in a way

that reflects that client and what they would want. But sometimes in accounting you are sitting in front of an Excel spreadsheet, I presume, and so you could dress more casual. They stilled rules you couldn't wear leggings to the office or sneakers, but it was under any circumstance. Yeah. Right. It was a huge deal for that industry, But also is reflective a little bit of this. It's still not a dress code. It's more up to you. It's about what your work is. You have to figure out what

to do well. And that also seems to correspond to some common sense. Again, if you're going to visit a client, you're not going to wear your stained Philadelphia eagle sweatshirt. But if you are coming to the office and you know that you're basically going to be in there all day and you're gonna be sitting in front of your computer, yes, perhaps a polo shirt and a pair of jeans is more than adequate for you to complete your job. And I think employees really like that because I don't know.

As an employee, I like being treated as someone who can make good decisions on my own where yes, but but but you know, employers don't always feel that way. There are accounting firms that one accounting firm I believe has business formal Well, you know, I will say this much. There is something very easy about a strong dress code. In some respects. It's the fuzzy ones that leave people guessing.

And maybe there's more room for error because the parameters haven't really been defined and so you don't know and then you come in and realize, oh God, I went too far, or I'm out of sync with the rest of the room, or what have you. That sort of illusion of liberty can also breed a certain degree of anxiety. Yeah, And I think that's one thing that the article does get right. That New York Times article and to speak to that anxiety, I want to bring up a friend

of mine. She's in her late twenties and just started on the tenure professor track at a university, and she's been thinking a lot about her dress code because again, that's not an institution that has a formal dress code obviously, and then she had just been a grad student. Then you know, grad students where pajamas, and she loves huge clubs, and she's been thinking a lot about how she wants to signal that she's not a guy student and she

is a professor, so she's dressing up more. That makes sense. So there's no office dress code, but she's still dressing formally, right, She's using her clothing to help her achieve something. And that's what I think hasn't changed with this article doesn't quite get at, which is like, yes, there's no specific, codified uniform, but people are putting on uniforms, maybe now more than ever, to signal who they are, what they do, and what their clothing says about them. And that's what

our guests are going to talk about today. Today we have a little bit of a different format. We talked to three different people who work in three different industries about how they use their clothing to signal who they are at work. Our first guest is Carrie Goldberg. She is a lawyer here in New York who often operates in the shlubby confines of the New York State Supreme Court. I was drawn to Carry because I read about her in the New Yorker. They had a great profile of

her work. She defends revenge porn victims. But they had this paragraph in there that talked about how her industry tends to be schlumpy. But she stood out because of the way she dressed, and she would wear five inch heels and mini dresses and trench coats, and as we learned, we talked to her a lot of leather, and I thought that that was really striking details. So that's why we have around today. How would you describe your work look? I would describe my work look as sort of Axl

Rose meets Olivia Pope meets manic pixie dream girl. Maybe like glam goth lawyer geek. Okay, I'm getting that's a very clear picture. I think if you obviously you can't see Carry right now, but now you have a very strong idea what would be a typical outfit that would live up to that description. I always like to have leather, so there's always leather coat or leather leggings. I like long nails, sharp eyelashes, stiletto heels, like like a lot of stabbing things in my look. How long have you

been practicing law? I've been a lawyer since two thousand seven, so nine years. Have you always dressed this way? Yeah? So my first job was as a housing court attorney representing low income tenants that were being evicted. And there was this really glamorous landlord tenant attorney named Carmen. Who I mean it was. It was just this really schlubby environment housing court is, and but Carmen was this like blonde bombshell that would wear Chanel and really stood out.

And I was like, oh, everyone who knew who Carmen was? And I was like, oh, maybe I could be like the you know, low income tenant attorney version of Carmen. I didn't like totally emulate Carmen or anything like that, but I just I kind of made my own version of that. And it helps you know, if you're a new attorney or new at anything, it helps to have a look just to make yourself like kind of memorable beyond being memorable? Is there a reason why you addressed

this way for the type of alaw you practice. I represent victims of online harassment, sexual sult so always my clients are people who are under attack, So there is sort of an armor to the clothes I wear. I feel more protected and protective if I'm in something something like leather or something something sharp, like sharp heels or something that that it could become an attack weapon, which I've never had to use in a court environment, but that was pre existing before I. Before I started my

law of practice, I dressed like this already. How do you think the judges perceive you and what you wear? Do you think about that? I should think about that. I don't really care that much. If I ever thought that how I looked was going to have a negative impact on my client, I would absolutely scale it back. And I'm not showing up to court and lingerie and and Stiletto's. I'm I'm in business attire. It's just got a bit of an edge. And what about your clients?

How do you think your clients perceived the way you look? I think they like to feel that they're being protected by somebody that has a vision and has preferences and opinions, and that can really be conveyed very easily through clothing and how somebody looks. And if if somebody looks put together and like they're making deliberate decisions just in something as basic as you know what shirt and choose and watch their wearing, then there's an assumption that that translates

to other strategic decisions as well. Kry, I want to ask you a question as if I were a recent law school grad about to embark on a legal career and I come to you as sort of a mentor and ask you how should I dress for my profession? Do you have an overall philosophy of how your clothing works within your profession. I think the most important thing

is to dress for confidence and not for comfort. People often like conflate confidence with comfort, and I just don't think you need to feel comfortable too in what you're wearing. You know you're not going to be wearing your eyes atoners, slippers and fleece long John's to court. You know you're not going to feel confident that you have to like feel like you look good. Well, it's like a power Suit R version of the power Suit basically yeah, and

like it's super or a costume. I definitely feel like when I'm in core or when I need to be particularly on, I'm putting a costume on, and it's like it's getting me into the mindset that I need to be on. Carry is clearly a firm believer in the work uniform or like costume. I think she. I mean, as she sort of described in the interview, you know, she uses artifice and she uses sort of the weaponry of clothing to put forth a particular image about herself,

even at the expense. I thought quite interestingly of comfort, right, And it's clearly working for her because she wins and has become very high profile. But it's also something she chooses. And for our next guest, we talked to somebody who doesn't quite get to choose what she wears to work. Shantiana Bowers is currently a salesperson at the Stephen Allen Boutique in Tribeca here in New York, and before that she worked at Madewell. To places that have very specific

ideas of how you should dress. How would you describe your work look? Okay, so I have to be a bit cool. Basically, my coworkers and I we all kind of had an unspoken understanding about which one of us hid twitch points um my current stories, Steven Allen. They do a lot of basics that are slightly elevated, so

we all have to find our own angle. For me, I'm a little bit quirky but still quite tailored, so a lot of button downs under sweaters with like a pleated slack or something, but really funny looking socks and like low Oxfords. You said that you kind of negotiate this with your colleagues, so other people take on different approaches,

different sort of interpretations. Yes, we're all basically whatever store that we worked that version of ourselves, So Ed Madewell, I was still like kind of relaxed, cool girl Brooklyn, but I'm also like an actual New Yorker, So it would be like Timbaland's but not really because we can't actually wear Timbalands there. But yeah, so, can you tell us about some of the rules that these retail stores have made well wear their rules that you have to

abide by. Oh, totally, but it's mostly dress the look. You don't actually have to buy it. For a lot of the retail stores, so they encourage us to buy it with different sentives to get different things. They have contests to keep up moral and things like that. But what you really have to do is look at the collection, look at what you have. Make it work so you can sell this product to customers instead of them coming in and being like, hey, you look really cool, but

you obviously don't shop here. We heard a rumor, I don't know if this is true. Somebody on our show said that people at Madewell have to wear a certain amount of layers. Yes, really, what so what is that role? So the layering rule works if you don't have a collar, you need to have a jacket. But it's not nearly as strict as j Cruise. I'm gonna just put that out there. Yeah, Ja Cruise is like and blazer and Scott and like it's and top hat and please, you

are the most tailored man in the world. If you're working at is there a big difference between the clothes you wear to work and the clothes you wear when you're not at work? Um, when I worked at made well no, now, yes, okay, how would you describe the difference. I have to be a lot more tailored now than

I had to before. I could still be relaxed, but it's a lot more pants instead of jeans or a fancier sweater than I would normally wear made well, a little less all around casual, a little bit more elevated casual, like a nice a shoe. It's interesting to hear you talk about how they want you to have pick your

personal style but then also conformed to the storre. So I liked when you were talking about, Yeah, like normally, like your Brooklyn so you would wear Timberlands, but like, you can't wear Temberlands it made well, So you have to conform to that. So how do you, I guess, how do you negotiate that? Really? You wait and see

what they're going to collaborate the next you. For me, I couldn't wear Timblance, but there was a point in time when we started selling Doc Martin's, so I got to figure out at my docks and I was super excited. Does the way you dress for a particular retailer attract a particular kind of customer among your colleagues? Is it sort of known or if not expressed, that it's understood, Oh, you're dressing for these kinds of people who come in and somebody else was dressing for a different kind of

customer who's coming in. We all try our best to work with a variety of customers, but I tend to get more men and usually guys who are lawyers who need something that they can wear in the office and also still express their style. So I'm a person who sells a lot of overcoats in like fun but still muted colors. Like, why do you think that? What about your person? I saw a lot of overcoats and fun muted colors totally. Why do you what about your personal

style do you think attracts that? Um? I really like wearing slightly men's wear inspired things, and I think that makes guys very comfortable when it comes to dealing with me. Some of the other female associates can sometimes seem a little bit more, you know, curly, and they have a little bit more confidence. Is like, Oh, this girl, I

can ask her about a perislas. It's so interesting that these retailers have very specific rules, but they still want their employees to look like they're interpreting them in their own individual way, but still in this very specific confine.

There's also I think a practical issue here, which is that the retailers are not prepared financially to outfit all of their salespeople with all of the clothing that they need, so instead of taking on that cost, they have this sort of fuzzier you should dress like you work here, but you don't have to use everything we have here because we're not going to give it to you. But if you want to buy, some kind of goes back and forth. But I think you know, interestingly, sometimes it's

fun to work within those limits. Yeah, a lot of creative people in general. I used to interview creative people in a former job. They love talking about how limits boundaries what makes you creative? Up happens when the power and potential of every employee and leader in your workforce is released and corn Fairy can get you there by aligning your people to your strategy, attracting, developing, engaging, and

rewarding them to reach new heights. With corn Ferry, you get a partner who truly understands people, leadership, and the new landscape of work. A partner who knows how to take your business up. Learn more at corn Ferry dot com. Slash up. When it comes to sort of the world of creative people and the kinds of clothing that they wear. Kim Hashtriter has been observing them for decades. She is

the co founder of Paper magazine. She's famous in her own right for wearing a uniform every single day, variations on a theme that she came up with probably about years ago, And we got to talk to her about her own style and the style that she's been observing here in New York and around the world for quite some time. How would you describe your work style your work word from my work wardrobe. I can't even describe

my work what I do. So it's like hard to describe my work style because my work and my life are one thing. So there's no difference in my work style and my lifestyle, which is not true for a lot of people, right they have one uniform for work and then they have a different uniform. And I've always been in love with uniforms. So I created a uniform for myself twenty years ago and I've worn the same thing every day. Yes, it's based on kind of a mouse suit, which is my favorite uniform ever. And um,

I love uniforms generally. I love army uniforms. I love peak coats. I love because their design is based on function. It's not really decorative to decorative. Really, I don't love decorative stuff, although I accessorized. It's sometimes fun to throw in some like pizzas in a decoration sense, or to make the uniform unique to you. So I can't say I hate all decorative things. But also I have a

very big personality and um, even paper. When we designed paper, I wanted it to look generic because what we wrote about was really wild and outrageous. And I thought that if you had a wild and outrageous design and you had wild and outrageous content, it would be like two much wouldn't be the right yan yang balance. But if you present it in a simple classical way, very wild material, it's much more more people can read it and understand it.

Like the original paper was designed very simply in black and white, generic classically. So I've always been a kind of I love a yen nin yang and I love um. I think when you have outrageous ideas, it's good to like package things simply so that you can get your ideas across. So I mean, I know it's like abstract what I'm saying, but it kind of filters into also what I wear. So that's when I just decided one day, okay, I went to my friend who used to make suits

for Steven Sprouse, the designer, and he Steven Sprouse. I always loved what he did because his clothes were actually very classic and plain, but that he did them in like day glow and wild fabrications. So I love that kind of um simplicity, but using fabric to kind of

like make it more interesting. So I went to his Taylor, who I was a friend, and I brought my favorite jacket in the world was what was this maud style jacket that Isaac Mizrahi had designed and I had it and it had huge flowers all over, but I loved the shape. And I brought my favorite skirt, which was the O g Alma motor skirt, and I had my friend make patterns of it and together it was kind of like my version of a mouse suit. That's what

I always said. And I had n't first make it in the indigo color of mouse suits because just to see if it worked and it had actually wearing it today, this is a version that Levi's, the company, actually made me one where I sent them the pattern and they made me one of Levi's because I thought that would be cool to have a Levi's version. So when I realized I loved it and it was really simple and it was just a skirt and this jacket, I decided to make it like thirty of them, and I made

them for daytime. I made them for evening, but they were all exactly the same, and they all were simply like if you I mean Levi's did it with a snap, so it's a little different, but it has a simple kind of mouth collar and it's boxing and it has two pockets. And um I made linen for summer and all different colors and yes in indigo and in black, but also in hot pink and turquoise, and then I

made for winter. I at it in like a beautiful I just would get really good fabric and make them, and then for dressy I'd make them in taffoda, so i'd have a black tie version. But twenty three years or so, I've been wearing the same thing. Do you ever get bored? Never know? We hear a lot about uniforms now in the tech world. People just not wanting to think about what they wear. The Steve Jobs uniform,

that's definitely a different twist than what you have. They do it so they don't have to think about fashion. Steve Jobs did wear uniform. Didn't you wear levis in a turtleneck? I mean that's what he's And if you look a lot of there's a lot of people that wear uniforms, but visual people. Sometimes I'm very visual, and as a visual artist, I think Steve Jobs was a bit very visual person. I think it's more if you're

a visual person that has good taste. I think that if you're not, it doesn't work as well because then you just look like a mess. Probably. Um, So I'm wondering, as somebody who's in the art and fashion world, what do you think that having a uniform has done for you professionally? If anything, it just makes it not about like what I'm wearing, you know, So I don't really

need to be a peacock. That's not what I do, and so I'm more interested in Um, I'm an explorer and I'm a m discoverer and it's not about me. So what I do is not about me. So even though I wear a uniform, I do and I say I don't want it all to be about me. I make it about me. I wear red glasses, I wear like you know, I always accessorize with my personality. I

do insert my personality into my uniform definitely. But it seems like if you are in what is a visual profession, then you may yourself not you may dress very plainly. In contrast, if what you do is not considered a very artistic visual profession, maybe like a like an attorney then, or you're a banker, then you want to address and you have to do a lot more yes, because your

work is not visual. Whoever you are, whether you're in a visual or creative or not creative, you have to feel really good in what you're wearing so that you're not thinking about it. If you're working person, you shouldn't be thinking about how you look when you're working, you know, you just shouldn't. So you need to feel good about it.

And that's why whatever your issues are, like your self image issues, just that's why I found the jacket that I adored the most, and I wore it so much I had holes in it, so I had my tailor make a pattern out of it. I found the skirt that I loved, so, you know, I found my favorite things and I put them together and I made my own uniform and it was like, so it's like very comforting, and I don't know, it's just natural. It feels natural to wear that. So Kim said a lot of great stuff.

And one thing that's it out to me was when she said that it's important to be comfortable. It's interesting to hear that from a fashion person, first of all, and then it was in stark contrast to what Carrie told us, in which case being comfortable has nothing to do with it. It's about what you project and the strength and the defense of it all. Yeah, And for her, I think comfort was forgetting that your clothing says something. Right. It was like, if you're comfortable, you're not using your

clothing as a weapon exactly. And that seems like the lesson here from all these three people. They have very different ways that they use their clothing at work, in different philosophies or how they dress, but they all do dress very intentionally and use it in ways to benefit

their job. Yeah. I mean in a Shantiana's case, it actually has an effect on her commission on exactly how much money she's probably going to make in a given day or a given week, which is something I think that women are more acutely aware of when it comes

to what they wear at work. Surely. I mean, historically, women are sort of on the outside of the power structure in many industries, many companies, And so for me, as a guy, well, I suppose I wouldn't have to think about it all that much because I'm already benefiting from the patriarchy. Yes, I love when we get that word in here. But even if you think about women wearing power suits or pant suits, oh yes, like a certain a certain former presidential candidate, it's a way to signal, oh,

take me as seriously as a man. I will dress like a man, and then you will take me seriously. Yes, exactly. And that happened a great deal, particularly in the right, when women were entering these professions for the first time. And now we're seeing women try to signal power in different in other ways, not by emulating necessarily masculinity, but perhaps accentuating femininity or other aspects of their person. One example of this that I can think about is Megan Kelly,

the Fox News host. I remember it was a big deal when she cut her hair, because all the Fox News hosts have long, wavy mermaid and she cut her hair to be the short, slipped back kind of more powerful seeming, right, but then also a little bit more androgynous, And how are we going to know if she's a lady if she doesn't have that long lady hair exactly. So it's definitely a power move. And the fact that of course we even know about this, or that we're

even talking about this as opposed to Anderson Cooper's latest haircut. Right, Nobody ever describes what men are wearing in the opening paragraph of a story about them pretty much never maybe Johnny Depp, he gets one. Yeah, so yeah, this is something that women have to deal with more than men. But it's really great and refreshing to see three women using that to their benefit. Exactly. They've taken the time to kind of consider it and they're putting it into action.

But I do think that that lesson can apply to people of all genders, being conscious of what you wear and knowing that it is something you can use to get what you want. That's right. I will speak for myself. I am silently judging everyone, men and women, both so you may as well know that, and you should dress at least to impress Sam anything else. Yeah, No, I mean I think that's pretty much a good rule all around. I think this will be a good time for us

to transition to hap big takes, happy fake takes. So Sam, let's start with you. What is your not quite fully formed thought about work or maybe not work this week? This is semi work related. I want to talk for a minute about our phones and the etiquette of using them when in the presence of other people, particularly at things like say, lunches. I have found it be quite liberating for myself and my guest to, perhaps an hour into the occasion, suggest that we take a moment to

both check our phones. That way, we're relieving ourselves of the anxiety that there's an email or a text or something that's waiting for us and is going unanswered. And then when if presuming everything is fine and well taken care of, we can continue on with our time together knowing that you know, we've checked in and everything's okay. And I just think it's perfectly okay. If, in fact, I would say it's helpful to periodically say, hey, let's just check our phones for a second. Yes, I am

really into this. We did it kind of informally the other day an a meeting. That's right. That's right. Yeah, And I don't think you can do it too much. I would say that the most frequent thing you could do maybe is once every forty five minutes. Yeah, and it's it's just better than people kind of side eyeing their phones the entire time you're hanging out. That's right. That could be interpreted as rudeness, because perhaps it is, But this way you say so stressful for you personally

to be the one doing that, right for all of us. Yeah, we it's two thousand, almost seventeen. We have phones, We communicate all the time, acknowledge it, take a moment to check it and then move on. Love it. Awesome. I'm gonna pull a Sam Growbart and this week do a recommendation for my half big take. I've been listening to a lot of fellow podcasts, and I think right now in my podcast moment, I'm looking for something that's a little bit not about the news I mean, and also

not too dense. I need something a little bit lighter. So I've been listening to this podcast who Weekly w h O w h O Weekly and it's about B list, delist, C list celebrities and what do they tell you about? And they talk about there's this whole industry of entertainment reporting and entertainment watching about these like unimportant side characters, and so they just kind of talk about their lives and who they are, and they have terminology like who'se

versus them? So them are famous people like Robin Wright would be of them, and who would be I don't even know, just someone you've never heard of. And they're just really funny. It's good. You know, this might be useful to me because I will confess something. I sometimes see the covers of in a supermarket let's say People magazine, US Weekly, in Touch, and you're like, I don't is that any of the people on them anymore? Yeah, it's

probably because they're Who's. They're all who's exactly. They're all like reality show like third level exactly. Those are all who's. So I could listen to this podcast and this but actually catch up and it's just entertaining. They're funny. It's Bobby Finger and Lindsay Webber, who are two writers on the internet. And I really enjoy it. That sounds right up. Yeah, thanks all right, and that is half big takes, half baked takes. Thanks for listening to game Plan this week.

You can find me on Twitter at rs Greenfield and I am at Sam Grobart. If you like this show, please head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts to rate and subscribe and review. We love to hear from you. Game Plan is produced by Liz Smith and Magnus Hendrickson. The Head of Bloomberg Podcasts is Alec McCabe. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week. By get the most from your people and send your business soaring with corn Ferry. From executive search to talent strategy,

leadership development, rewards and succession planning. Corn Ferry knows up is more than a direction, it's your future. Learn more at corn ferry dot com. Slash up Hi I'm hi, Hi, Hi Hi there, Hi, I'm do we say hi Hi