Dressing Down - Not Down and Out
By Rick Segel

Wait just a minute! Before you buy everything that the press is saying about dressing down, the real news is that the whole world is not going to the slobs. I realize that since the IBM announcement on revised dress codes, everyone thinks that jeans, tee shirts, and plaid shirts are the new norm for business attire. That may be so, but who said that we are all turning into slobs? (Other than Newsweek Magazine, that is.)

Let's not confuse casual with unkept or looking like a slob. I have seen plenty of men and women in traditional business suits who look like slobs. Men with shirt collars that don't button, combined with a tie that was in fashion in the early 60's, hanging down to the middle of the fly of their pants. Or women in suits that are so tight that the wrinkles on the skirt look like a topographical map of the Rocky Mountains. Casual should not be the equivalent to messy!

After buying woman's apparel for the last 23 years, I have seen fashion trends come and go. As much as we might not want to admit it, we are all slaves to fashion--even if it is counter fashion. We all tend to wear the uniform of the times. Casual is the fashion style of the day. Will it change? YES. It always does. Even the hippies of the 60's conformed in their uniform of bell bottoms, tie dyed shirts, and flowers in their hair.

There will still be plenty of benefits to dressing fashionably, even if the style is casual. We are still subconsciously judged by how and what we wear. As any retailer will tell you, the magic words a customer always says before buying is "That's different". People get tired of the same old thing, and that's when casual will be out and something else will be "in". Will this be the time that we all dress like slobs? I don't think so!