4.01 · Dressing for Work: Does It Still Matter?

Dressing for Work: Does It Still Matter?
From hard hats to hoodies: what people wear at work today, and why.

On Monday morning, three young professionals in Querétaro get dressed for work. Sofía, a civil engineer, puts on safety boots, a hard hat and a bright vest before walking onto a building site. Iván, an intern at an architecture studio, chooses a collared shirt, chinos and clean sneakers. Mariana, who designs characters at an animation studio, pulls on a hoodie and puts on headphones. Three workplaces, three dress codes. Does what we wear to work still matter?

Office rules have relaxed a lot. Casual Friday began in Hawaii in the 1960s, when clothing makers encouraged office workers to wear aloha shirts once a week instead of wearing suits. In 2005, the Japanese government asked office workers to dress down in summer, with no jacket or tie, so that air conditioners could be set to 28 °C to save energy. Today, the suit and tie have gone out of fashion in many offices, and business casual or smart casual is the norm.

On a building site or a production floor, however, clothes aren’t about style. They’re about safety. A hard hat protects your head, and a high-visibility vest reflects light, so drivers can see you. In Mexico, a national standard requires employers to provide the protective equipment each job needs. In a nanotechnology cleanroom, it works the other way around: full suits, gloves and hoods protect the samples from tiny particles of skin and hair. Nobody wears a cleanroom suit to make a statement.

In other places, the rules are unwritten. Look at the meeting area of a car-seat plant. Rodrigo, a mechanical and automotive engineer, still has his safety glasses on his head after checking a part on the line. Fernanda, an automation engineer, spent the morning programming the automated cutting table, so she’s in a hoodie. Paola, who studied smart industrial technologies, has a blazer on: she’s showing machine data to a client after lunch. Each outfit says something about that person’s day.

Clothes may even change the way we think. In a 2012 study in the United States, students put on the same white coat. Those who were told it was a doctor’s coat found more differences between pairs of pictures than those who were told it was a painter’s coat. Later studies haven’t always found the same effect, so it’s still an open question. Even so, many people say dressing up for a big day helps them feel ready.

So does it still matter? Yes, but not in the old way. Safety comes first, and that rule never changes. Respect comes next: if you aren’t sure, it’s better to dress up a little than to dress down too much. After that, comfort and personality count too, and nobody needs to worry about keeping up with every trend. The best outfit for work is the one you choose on purpose, for the job you’re doing that day.