Work Appropriate For Who?

The other day I was looking through my twitter feed and I noticed a tweet that said something along the lines of “fashion bloggers work outfits are never actually appropriate for work.” As a fashion blogger I immediately got defensive and wanted to defend fashion bloggers. However, not wanting to jump to conclusions, I routed the comment back to a post where a fellow blogger mentioned that she had a hard time styling outfits for her day job based on what she had seen on other style bloggers. This caused me to stop and realize that I agreed completely and that my original frustration with the statement wasn’t that it was directed at fashion bloggers, but that I didn’t realize that the reader had meant “work appropriate for ME.”

Work appropriate is something that’s incredibly hard to define. When I was in business school we had a business communications class that also covered appropriate business wear. For the men, it was pretty easy, suits, dress pants, button up, polos, and khakis were all used to show work attire ranging from casual to business formal. However, one thing that was instantly made clear to me was that for women, there weren’t clearly defined guidelines of what does and doesn’t work seamlessly from one office to the next. We may think that there are, but it can change when a woman moves titles, divisions, or companies.

Don’t believe me? Well here are the “dress codes” from four internships I held during my undergraduate and graduate careers:

Small nonprofit theater: Casual. I wore jeans.

Large nonprofit arts organization: Business casual, with a slight emphasis on casual. I generally wore a nice skirt (not pencil, mind you), top, and cardigan. That being said, the one time I wore nice black dress pants, heels, and a button up top, my colleagues complimented me, but you could tell they were wondering why I was so dressed up.

Large clothing company headquarters (casual clothing): Their dress code was “if you could buy it in their stores, you can wear it to work.” Everyone wore jeans and you could tell that someone was visiting from another company if they were wearing a suit.

Large Nonprofit/Government Museum: Business. This was the first organization where I actually had a strict dress code lined out for me before I started. I generally wore a pencil skirt/pants, a sleeveless top (it was summer in DC), and a cardigan (or blazer if I had an event). However, even there, I saw every employee make slight modifications for themselves based on what they were doing in the office that day.

So what have I found to be the best way to figure out how to dress for a job? For me personally, when I’m starting out a job, I generally try to dress up a little more. For me, this means I’m going along the lines of what I mentioned for the museum job above and a pair of low heels. I then pick someone in the office who I look up to (both professionally and style wise) and pay attention to what they wear to the office and try to emulate in my style. This method has worked incredibly well for me in each position I’ve taken. I’ve been able to embrace my personal style, but not step outside of what is appropriate for my office.

This was a rather long introduction to a new series I’m hosting on this blog, “Work Appropriate For Who?” Each week I hope to feature different bloggers who will talk about what’s appropriate for their office settings and how they have crafted their professional style. By doing this, I hope that readers can not only see how dress codes vary from different offices, but they can learn how to fit their style to their office’s dress code.

Since I’m one for trying to practice what I preach, I’ll kick off the series tomorrow with a peek into what I wear to work on a daily basis. I hope you enjoy it and please feel free to leave any comments or feedback you have on this post and throughout the series!