Dress-down Fridays – good idea or putting a dent in professionalism?

Have you experienced wash day at school? If you are not familiar with that, it’s a certain day where students are free to wear any casual outfits. At school, I think non-uniform or Jeans for Genes Day was something most students anticipate with both enthusiasm and apprehension. 

On one hand, it sounded fantastic: a break from those itchy, ill-fitting and awfully colored uniforms we stoically endured every other day of the year. For some, though, it meant a night spent fretting about what we could wear that would earn us that all-important seal of approval from our judgmental teenage peers. What do you think of wash day?

For working men and women, dressing up for work is relatively easy when the somewhat-boring office attire is required but what if the company has implemented dress-down Fridays? Sure, there’s not quite the same pressure to conform to the very latest fashion trends, but it still generates its own particular minefield of office etiquette. More problematically, though, do workplace dress-down Fridays encourage an unprofessional approach that can be harmful to business?

Some would argue that with a casual outfit comes a casual attitude; employees lose a certain sense of responsibility when they aren’t fully dressed for the occasion. These people would claim that the clothes we put on in the morning define the way we’ll behave throughout the day – so for us to best represent ourselves to clients and colleagues, we should look our most presentable. 

With more and more people working in office-based professions now, though, is it still so necessary to maintain such a rigid understanding of what sort of clothing is suitable for the workplace? Does consistently overdressing for work devalue smart formal wear on those occasions when we really need to go out of our way to impress?

In many sectors, most especially the tech and media industries, it would seem that wearing more casual outfits can encourage just as productive a workplace as more formal attire. It’s often believed that slightly less conservative dress can allow for a little more workplace creativity, as employees feel more relaxed and free to express themselves and their ideas.

In weather like we’ve had last summer, wearing temperature-appropriate clothing is particularly crucial to keeping energy levels up and motivation running high. 

Many workplaces are now trying to establish something of a happy medium that allows employees a little more choice in their clothing, but still maintains a sense of formality. I’ve actually worked in a company that allows us to dress casual on Fridays and the we are all free to wear stylish day dresses like those at isme.com and men can opt for chinos and open-collared shirts on normal days.

So, where does this leave dress-down Fridays? As those lines between smart, casual, and smart-casual become increasingly unclear, perhaps even the concept itself is becoming a little outdated.