Casual Post-Fandemic Trends are shaking business fashion

Social media manager Rebecca Henninger says she prefers to wear a “work dress” – even if she is still working from home.

“I always wear shoes in my office. I just feel more professional and engaged when I’m dressed for the day, ”said Henninger, who is also a career coach.” It helps you not only be a little more productive but also separate work. “

Millions of remote and part-time hybrid workers in the home, part-time home, had to navigate the fashion challenges after Kovid. Maybe writing e -mail on your PJ is okay, but what if you have an appointment or job interview at Zoom?

Casual vibe that is caught during the pandemic, when many people had to work from home remotely, has also dragged into the office. A 2023 Gallup survey revealed that 41% of Americans said they wore random business clothing and 31% wore clothes on the streets. Only 3% of respondents said they were wearing professional business clothing such as a lawsuit and tie.

This trend began even before the pandemic. Google searchs for terms such as “random business dresses” and “casual work dresses” have grown gradually over the past decade, though they received a nose during Covid-19 closures in the spring and early 2020 .

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Large and small companies, including Amazon and JP Morgan, are in different stages of returning to the office, with mixed success.

This has forced many workers to consider how they dress when they appear in public, whether five days a week or a few hours a day for part of the week.

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And the conferences of Zoom and Microsoft teams and slow conversations still reign over the world of white collar.

The change has created some rocky terrain for fashion retailers that are usually sold to official and business dresses for office workers. And it has left workers with white collar to ask if they need white collar.

“People are working less from home and from the office less,” said Neil Saunders, a retail analyst at the Globaldata research and analytics firm. “There has also been a general vasim about what people wear, which has made the dress for more acceptable work.”

Chains that offer business clothing, such as Nordstrom and Express, as well as the Banana Republic, with its “smart smart style”, have all suffered from shifting to more casual clothing, starting even before Covid, and Pandemia made only worse.

The most formal office dress has “fought in a market that is more casual,” Saunders said.

Adapted brands presented for bankruptcy in 2020 during the pandemic; Companye the parent company of the Chains Chains Wearhouse for men and Jos. A. Bank.

“They have appeared as smaller entities with a change in ownership,” Saunders said.

To remove the office of the office, the Banana Republic, owned by GAP, entered the furniture and home decor market in 2023, only to go out just a year later.

Although Nordstrom defeated her Wall Street expectations for the third quarter of last year, the chain only raised his sale forecast in 2024 in November, Reuters reported.

Some optimism for office fashion

But during the holiday season, spending increased mostly for clothing, shoes and jewelry, according to the latest data from Visa and MasterCard.

Costs for clothing and accessories increased 5% in 2024, 2.4% in 2023, Visa reported. Meanwhile, Mastercard data showed that clothing sales increased 3.6% – 6.7% for online clothing sales – while jewelry sales increased 4%.

Other brands have been optimistic. GAP – parent company for Old Navy, Banana Republika, Athleta and its brand of names – raised sales and targets for the company last November after seeing a “strong start” in the holiday shopping season.

During the holiday season, buyers spent $ 45.6 billion in clothing – with 9.9% from last year – according to data from Adobe Analytics.

A home dress code?

So do you have to make more space in your closet by throwing ties and shirts with down buttons? Not so fast.

Dress for magnification meetings “talks about who you are. Your brand brand,” Henninger said.

Other factors also make a difference, such as blurring your background or using a theme background in magnification meetings, she said. Maybe even investing in a ring light, which costs as little as $ 21 in Amazon.

During interior meetings on the Zoom or Microsoft teams, a worker can wear a “beautiful sweater or shirt with down buttons”, limiting costume jackets to client meetings, said Colleen Georges, a career coach at Piscataway, New Jersey.

A company dress code is “about your brand, your presentation to the outside world, to your customers, your customers,” said Julie Schweber, an adviser to the Human Resources Management Society. “This can help set a professional level tone with employees.”

Professional services-think that lawyers and accountants-will have a much more official dress code, and this can also be expected at the events of public enterprises, said Michele Siekerka, president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.

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