Writing on the Huffington Post, Friend of STA Brooke Moreland deftly breaks down the main types of holiday party outfits, what they say about you, and what others will think of you for wearing them. Here are a couple of highlights:
- The LBD: You think it’s timeless, everyone else thinks it’s safe and predictable. They’re also all wearing LBDs themselves.
- The Party Dress: You’re the life of the party. However, that means you also run a higher risk of barfing on someone or accidentally hitting on a coworker’s spouse.
- The Business Suit: You just came from the office, which means you’re a workaholic. Your boss thinks that is a good quality, but your coworkers probably think you’re lame.
- The Cute Holiday Sweater: Um, do I even need to mention this one? You may think “festive,” everyone else thinks “loser.” Save it for Grandma’s Christmas dinner.
- The Elegant Dress: Perhaps you’re overdressed, or perhaps you’re just so good-looking that everyone else is jealous of you. Sometimes, risks are worth taking.
You can view the whole post here.
The British Trade Union Conference has suggested that stiletto heels should be banned at workplaces in the United Kingdom. While I’m not more on Team Ballet Flat than Team Stiletto, I’m not usually interested in creating office dress codes. This one, though, is kind of interesting – the proposal isn’t about telling women how to dress and imposing gender norms on them, it’s about, oddly, making them comfortable.
From their proposal:
The motion, tabled by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, states: “Congress believes high heels may look glamorous on the Hollywood catwalks but are completely inappropriate for the day-today working environment.
“Feet bear the brunt of daily life, and for many workers prolonged standing, badly fitted footwear, and in particular high heels can be a hazard. Around two million days a year are lost through sickness as a result of lower limb disorders.
“Many employers in the retail sector force women workers to wear high heels as part of their dress code.
“More must be done to raise awareness of this problem so that women workers and their feet are protected.”
While I don’t think banning high heels outright is necessarily the way to go, I do like that they don’t put all the blame on women – I have several female friends who work in offices where high heels are mandatory, and this is a ridiculous, outdated idea put in place by male bosses who want women to conform to a certain visual standard. I think the Congress makes the excellent point that this silly request from some companies is actually really harmful to womens’ health in the meantime.
As I’ve said before, women have it way harder than men when it comes to appropriate office dressing, especially in the summer. In addition to figuring out hemline length and strap thickness, there’s one more element to summertime business casual: cleavage.
If you’re on the flatter side, like me, it’s a lot easier to get away with wearing lower cut tops at work, since it’s incredibly unlikely you’ll have anything to expose. But if you’ve been blessed with a fuller figure, you have to be extra careful about what you wear. It’s sad but true – even though you didn’t ask for your boobs or ask everyone to base their opinions of you on said boobs, they will. People will talk to your breasts instead of your face and, at work, when you’re doing everything you can to be taken seriously, a button coming loose at an inopportune moment could be the kiss of death. Depending what industry you’re in, cleavage can go either way – I’ve known women who work at restaurants and get better tips if they show more skin, as well as women in fashion who hide their breasts when the gamine look is back in style.
Based on my own entirely unscientific survey, cleavage was fine if you had a male boss and totally verboten if you had a female one. Do any of you have such stories to report about your own boobs or someone else’s in the office?
I feel like women have it much tougher when it comes to proper business attire. It’s pretty hard for men to go wrong with a suit (although my former boss and his “fun” ties with dumb prints on them sure did his hardest to disprove that statement), but women have to navigate everything from skirt length to heel height. If you’d asked me what I thought about wearing makeup at work, I would have guessed that women wearing obvious makeup at work was a faux pas, but a recent British study seems to prove me wrong:
64 per cent of directors said that women who wore make-up look more professional and 18 per cent of directors said that women who do not wear make-up “look like they can’t be bothered to make an effort.”
This Times of London article, which wants to present itself as helpful but is actually totally condescending, advises women on their makeup options. The author suggests going to a department store and getting a makeover from the consultants (and probably buying a lot of expensive products as well, right?), plucking eyebrows, using self-tanner and/or a bronzer, and even goes so far as to suggest that men should try sporting makeup as well.
Maybe some people think wearing makeup is the answer. I think “stop judging people by their looks as long as they’re presentable and dressed professionally” is a more efficient plan, but perhaps I’m in the minority on that one. After all – I work from home. It’s a miracle when I put on clothes instead of pajamas.
What about you? Do you feel pressure to wear makeup or to put on a certain kind of makeup for work?
When it’s cold, it’s easy to look more formal at work. You’re already all covered up and wearing thick, non-transparent fabrics. But with summer coming (or if you live in someplace other than the Northeast, summer might be there already), you start trying to walk that line between cute summer attire and proper work dress. You can always throw a cardigan over your sundress or stick flip-flops in your bag while you sport loafers at the office, but … what about shorts? One article examines the trend-that’s-now-too-longstanding-to-be-a-trend:
In May 2006, when shorts first started making their way into city offices in the US, The New York Times’ Ruth la Ferla put it down to an easing of workplace dress standards.
“Dress codes these days are as elastic as a bungee cord, expanding to accommodate all manner of once unthinkable workplace infractions,” she wrote. “This year that increasingly flexible standard has stretched to encompass shorts, of all things.”
La Ferla too had waved them off as a passing “infraction”. A faux pas. One that we’d all laugh about later. She too was wrong.
As for your office, my general attitude about dress codes is “wait and see.” If someone higher up than you can get away with wearing shorts, then you’re good to go. Otherwise, you can try wearing a pair but keep a pair of pants in your bag just in case the office manager gives you a dirty look and you feel like you might be veering too far on the side of informal. Just, whatever you do, don’t wear a skort. No one can pull that off.
From an MTV press release about one of their new fall shows, The Stylist:
This new reality series follows a diverse group of struggling junior assistants as they toil for three glamorous, highly successful celebrity stylists. The series follows the young junior assistants on the job – music videos, movie premieres, photo shoots – and in their personal lives as they find romance, plot against each other, and try to make it big in a cut-throat industry. At the end of each season, one junior assistant will be signed to a stylist contract with the Margaret Maldonado agency. The Stylist turns the reality competition format upside-down, with no staged challenges or eliminations. The jobs are real, the stakes are real and for these young people, the prospect of success or failure is very real. Organic performance evaluations will always allow the viewer a sense of who’s ahead and who’s in trouble. And because the junior assistants are always faced with the knowledge that only one of them will get signed, they are always looking into the faces of their competition.
A couple of things.
1. What the fuck is an organic performance evaluation? Is it made of soy? Does it require compost?
2. The show is produced by Bunim-Murray, the people responsible for The Real World and – even better – The Real World/Road Rules Challenge. Will Coral be on this show to make fun of the assistants? Because I would watch that.
3. Why did they choose this title? Are they aware of the existence of Stylista?
4. “Cutthroat” is one word, no dashes.
For all the crazy drug runs and diva behavior, there are lots of perks that come with being a celebrity assistant – VIP access to clubs and bars, free travel, proximity to famous people, and then some. However, Kate Moss’ assistant Fifi [side note: what happened to Sophie?] has just scored her boss’ pricey designer hand-me-downs. Fifi was photographed wearing a dress that her boss had been pictured wearing not long before. Luckily, Fifi looked great in it, and, honestly, who wouldn’t want to raid Kate Moss’ wardrobe? I bet she’s one of those people who wears something once and then tosses it – wouldn’t you like to be the one who catches it?
In amusing news, this article says that Kate met Fifi in an elevator at London’s Sanderson Hotel. I have got to start spending more time in random hotel elevators.
Have you ever thought “man, I wish I didn’t have a day job so that I could get that crazy neck tattoo/chin piercing/mohawk I always wanted?” Well, once you get laid off, the roadblock suddenly disappears. Matthew Saccoman, 31, works as a schoolteacher and sports a healthy-looking beard. He organizes the annual New York City Beard and Mustache Championship, which this year featured a new category: “recession beard.” The winner of that category was Nate Stahura of Rochester, who spent five months growing his beard after he was laid off from his job in banking.
Sadly, the only category open to women is one where you make your own beard out of any products or fabrics you want. It’s fun and crafty, but not quite the same. Maybe I should organize my own Yoga Pants Championship.
A lot of celebrity personal assistants I meet tell me that they’re only doing the job to earn enough money that they can then go live their dream (buying a beach house, helping orphans, traveling the world in a kayak, whatever), only to never end up doing it. Elana Weber, however, is a notable exception to this troubling rule. Weber spent several years working as the personal assistant to composer Danny Elfman, who is best known for composing music for tons of films and TV shows, including the theme for The Simpsons (and for being related to crazy-ass Jenna Elfman). Now, Weber owns and operates a green furniture store in Pennsylvania. The shop, Material Witness, “is dedicated to organic, safe and sustainable design.” Plus, she makes these things called EcoSmart Fires which sound awesome – “These little units can heat up to 400 square feet and come in a multitude of shapes and sizes. Since they are ventless, they can be placed in a fireplace without a working flue or just about anywhere.” They’re crazy expensive, but I really want one. Hey, Elana, want to help out another ex-assistant?
Crocs are one of the scourges of humanity. They come in bright colors that look good on no one, are made of this weird hard plastic that is actually bad for your feet (despite their claims that Crocs are ’so comfortable’) and bad for the environment, and they are responsible for half of the abomination that is The Crugg. Now, the newly introduced hole-free Crocs At Work line is designed with the ‘medical professional’ in mind. “Available in black, navy and pearl, Crocs Specialist’ introduces fun and style into the workplace, is certified by US Ergonomics, is odor and bacteria resistant and can be easily cleaned with soap and water,” says a press release.
Look, fine, maybe nurses like Crocs because they do well on a hospital floor or something. Mario Batali thinks they’re great for chefs, although I suspect his endorsement of Crocs as kitchen footwear is a cover for his absolute lack of style.
Would you be able to get away with Crocs as acceptable footwear in your office? If so, where do you work, and do you have photographic evidence?
