"Dressing down a culture"

[KiltFitz]

It is an inescapable fact of life that an individual will be judged by the way that he/she appears to the rest of society, irrespective of how good/intelligent/worthwhile that person may be. The young person dressed outlandishly with a mohican hairstyle, sporting tattoos and numerous piercings may have the best qualifications in the world and the most pleasant personality imaginable but will fail to get through the front door of 99% of employers just precisely because of appearance.
Dressing "properly" needn't involve a 3-piece suit, shirt and tie with well-polished shoes but a close approximation is likely to improve the individual's life chances considerably.

Fair enough, it's possible to be completely inappropriately dressed for an occasion. I hardly think someone wearing jeans and a t-shirt with an offensive slogan would be entertained at interview for a Doctor's practice or the police.

But that's an extreme. Having moved from an office environment in full time work to studying at university, what I have observed from my lecturers, some of whom are very senior in their field, that there is little or no link between standards of dress and percieved competency. Regardless of how students initially judge or perceive a lecturer when they walk into a room, we are usually in no doubt as to their ability about 20 seconds after they begin speaking.

If your job is to visually represent a company then it must be important, but lots of people never see customers face to face yet the interview panel still think it's important whether they polished their shoes or wore a matching tie.

[dutchy kilted]

I few years ago my wife and I were sitting in a cafe in France. I couple next to leaned over and said her husband and her were trying to guess our nationality. She said when you came in we thought German or maybe swiss, then we heard you speaking English, but not the "King's" English, probably not British, maybe Canadian. When we told them we were American, she said we never guessed that, you are far too well dressed to be Americans.

Also a few years ago, my wife and went into a restaurant in Montreal, Quebec, and were quite surprised to be greeted in English, rather than French. I asked the host why he had greeted us so and he seemed surprised we had American accents.
He said he greeted us in English because he though we were English by our dress. (My wife was wearing a skirt, I was wearing khakis with walking shoes. No cowboy boots, large belt buckles, or baseball caps.)
I considered this a wonderful compliment.

[Nathan]

I few years ago my wife and I were sitting in a cafe in France. I couple next to leaned over and said her husband and her were trying to guess our nationality. She said when you came in we thought German or maybe swiss, then we heard you speaking English, but not the "King's" English, probably not British, maybe Canadian. When we told them we were American, she said we never guessed that, you are far too well dressed to be Americans.

Also a few years ago, my wife and went into a restaurant in Montreal, Quebec, and were quite surprised to be greeted in English, rather than French. I asked the host why he had greeted us so and he seemed surprised we had American accents.
He said he greeted us in English because he though we were English by our dress. (My wife was wearing a skirt, I was wearing khakis with walking shoes. No cowboy boots, large belt buckles, or baseball caps.)
I considered this a wonderful compliment.

Montrealers are quite adept at this. I used to perform there about once a month and there is certainly a different fashion sense between the Anglophones, Francophones and the various Allophones.

For example, loose khakis aren't as popular for Francophone men but closely tailored European fitted clothing of interesting fabrics are quite popular. The ladies don't seem dressed if they don't have a nice long scarf. Heavy for winter and sheer for summer. The choices of jewellery are also different.

In general, I think the French Montrealers tend to pay more attention to their attire.

It's harder to tell among the working class who may be seen during business hours in a t-shirt (often with a sports team or band insignia), worn jeans and baseball cap regardless of language.

Still, the kilt goes over quite well in Montreal among Anglos, Francos, and Allophones alike.

[Father Bill]

No matter how our cultures change, the question remains whether you wish to take the chance of someone taking an incorrect negative impression of you. Some of those who dress down have the job, have job security, and don't want anything.

Those who are familiar with either the movie or the TV series M*A*S*H will perhaps remember that Hawkeye and Pierce could do whatever they wanted because the army couldn't actually punish them much. What they wanted most was to be thrown out so they could go home and resume their private practices, neither of which would be likely barred to them if the army tossed them. To refer to another pop allusion, this one in music, "Me and Bobbie McGee" you may remember the lyrics "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

If on the other hand, you DO have something left to lose, use your best judgement. Case in point: rightly or wrongly, when I was bucking for a promotion or an appointment in my careers, I had a moustache... but no beard. I didn't need anyone to incorrectly judge me negatively. That person may not have even known why s/he did so. Might just not subconsciously like whiskers. It's subliminal self advertising.

[NorseCelt]

Those who are familiar with either the movie or the TV series M*A*S*H will perhaps remember that Hawkeye and Pierce could do whatever they wanted because the army couldn't actually punish them much. What they wanted most was to be thrown out so they could go home and resume their private practices, neither of which would be likely barred to them if the army tossed them. To refer to another pop allusion, this one in music, "Me and Bobbie McGee" you may remember the lyrics "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

Sorry if I'm just being a little bit OCD, but Hawkeye and Pierce are the same character. Benjamin Franklin Pierce's father nicknamed him Hawkeye.
His original room mate was Trapper John McIntyre and the replacement was B.J. Hunnicutt.
Sorry again.

[Father Bill]

Sorry if I'm just being a little bit OCD, but Hawkeye and Pierce are the same character. Benjamin Franklin Pierce's father nicknamed him Hawkeye.
His original room mate was Trapper John McIntyre and the replacement was B.J. Hunnicutt.
Sorry again.

No need to apologize; you're right! My head was elsewhere. The point I was making however, remains. Thanks for bumping me back on track.

[andycwb]

Those who are familiar with either the movie or the TV series M*A*S*H will perhaps remember that Hawkeye and Pierce could do whatever they wanted because the army couldn't actually punish them much.

I presume you meant Hawkeye and Trapper or BJ. One could argue they proved that if you're good enough at your job, you can get away with turning up at work in your bathrobe!

Over a decade ago, I had a long running disagreement with a manager about dress at work - I generally wore 'tidy' jeans and a collared shirt, and she felt it was inappropriate for me as a manager to be dressed so casually. I maintained that as long as she expected me to be moving computers around and crawling under people's desks with the rest of the team, I wasn't going to ruin expensive clothes. After she left, and my job changed, I did wear smarter clothes to work, to deliberately make the impression that I was no longer the guy who would crawl under your desk to fix your computer!

Now that I work in the finance industry and rarely have to move actual hardware, I tend to be smarter, and pretty much middle of the road for the dress code. I fought the fashion to wear suits without a tie that seems to be increasingly common for a year or two, thinking that if it was smart enough for a suit, it was smart enough for a tie. I do flip back and forth on that depending on the occasion, but am tending to wear the suit without the tie more often. In fact, I'm generally smarter than my boss but not as smart as his (ex-military) boss. But that's how I feel comfortable, both physically in terms of what I'm wearing and socially within the people I work with.

But people do, with the best will in the world, judge by first impressions. Unfortunately, those first impressions are right often enought that they are hard to ignore. Especially when it's someone with a baseball cap on back to front, or their jeans around their knees. I'm going to have you pegged as an idiot before any conversation starts, and I've not been proven wrong yet -- read 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell if you want to understand more about first impressions and why they work. Similarly in a social situation I will generally avoid anyone wearing anything overtly religious, because I know I'm going to have a very different viewpoint from them and will find it difficult to find common ground beyond the weather.

I'm not entirely sure I have a point here, but I'm comparing this thread with my recent post about which shoes to wear. Most of the time my clothing is chosen for it's functional value ("if I'm not shivering, sweating, or exposing myself, it'll do"). But it's nice to make the effort for an occasion - be it a black tie dinner, a family wedding, or just a meal with friends. But I think the fact that it's done for an occasion, rather than every day, makes more of those occasions, and there's no downside to the fact that dress is far more casual than it used to be.