‘Dressy casual’ trend brings office cover-up

After fielding a barrage of calls from regional managers this summer, Steve Keyes, human-resources officer at Nationwide Mutual Insurance, faced a quandary: what to do about exposed midriffs in the office.

Employees of the Columbus, Ohio, insurer were increasingly showing up for work in low-cut tank tops, flip-flops and blouses with spaghetti straps. Managers worried that this attire was creating an unprofessional work environment. So last month, Nationwide rewrote its dress code, banning its 35,000 employees from wearing midriff-baring tops, T-shirts and flip-flops.

This summer’s hottest fashions are taking casual to a new extreme — and the result has been culture clash in many offices around the country. Though runway fashions are returning to a more prim look, mainstream retailers have been looking to capitalize on the success of high-end jeans by pushing other “dressy casual” styles. This has office workers showing up in knee-length city shorts, micro-miniskirts and a flood of new flip-flops. The new looks are happening just as many companies are returning to more formal attire after a decade of letting workers leave their suits at home.

Lazard Asset Management has had enough. On July 20, employees received an e-mail with the subject line “Business Dress Policy.” “We have generally allowed business casual attire during the hot summer months but, as a reminder, all employees are expected to maintain a professional, business-like appearance.” It cited examples of “inappropriate casual dress” including “Spandex-type materials,” sun dresses, halter tops, miniskirts, “casual sandals,” flip-flops and hiking boots.

It’s the same story at the U.S. Commerce Department, which earlier this summer sent out a dress-code reminder to its human-resources employees, warning against flip-flops, sweatshirts and jeans. In Chicago, real-estate developer Fifield Cos. says it’s creating a new employee handbook this summer after a staffer wore a midriff-baring ensemble to a sales event.

The latest styles pose a particular challenge for employers because they aren’t unequivocally casual. Indeed, many of the most popular styles in the past several years are built around juxtaposing formal pieces with inexpensive, laid-back elements.

Human-resources officers are cracking down with stern and almost humorously specific lists of dos and don’ts that essentially turn them into fashion consultants. At Merlot Marketing in Sacramento, Calif., chief executive Debi Hammond found the question of city shorts came up so often she had to address it at a meeting. “People kept asking the office manager whether they could wear them,” Hammond said of the dressy, knee-length shorts that are one of this summer’s biggest fashion trends. The answer: yes, but only with closed-toe pumps and a dressy work shirt.

Harrison & Shriftman, a public-relations and event-planning company with offices in New York, Miami and Los Angeles, says it hasn’t resorted to a formal dress code but gives some specific examples as guidance shortly after the new crop of summer interns arrived. For instance, short shorts are OK, but not when paired with a midriff-exposing or low cut shirt. Flip-flops, though allowed, should be “not your standard plastic,” says principal Elizabeth Harrison.

At the Dubuque, Iowa, office of Prudential Retirement, employees used to spend hours debating whether capri pants — which the dress policy permitted only on Fridays — were actually the same thing as “cropped pants,” which the policy allowed on any day.

“People would get in tiffs about whether they were capris or cropped pants,” says Judy Lai, a financial analyst who worked in the Dubuque office. “Part of me kept thinking, ‘We’re going through a lot of stuff at work right now — I can’t believe we’re wasting time on this kind of thing!”’ The capri faction won: This summer, the office finally ruled that the pants could be worn any day of the week.

Emprise Bank in Wichita, Kan., which allows business-casual attire during the summer, says it was getting so many questions about what was acceptable earlier in the year that it sent out a 20-page PowerPoint presentation to its 450 employees just before Memorial Day clarifying its guidelines. In one slide titled “How to Wear Crops at Emprise,” a photograph of a woman wearing cropped pants and a blazer is captioned “Like this,” while another shot showing the pants paired with an unbuttoned blouse says “Not like this.” The company nixes untucked shirts and flip-flops for men, for example, while reminding them to “Be sure to use a belt when loops are available!” For women, open-toed shoes are OK but only if they’re worn with pantyhose.

The clampdown isn’t just a traditional battle against sloppiness or slacker employees who simply don’t have the motivation to dress for success. Some of the looks that are causing friction right now are considered quite stylish. Those untucked shirts and rubber sandals, rather than indicating laziness, represent a studied casual look that many wearers go to lengths to achieve.

Annette Matlosz, a 25-year-old sales account executive for NationalCard Processing Systems in Rochelle Park, N.J., says she regularly wore city shorts, sleeveless blouses and skirts that fall above the knee this summer, despite her company’s dress code, which encourages suits and jackets.

“To me, looking super cute is really important. It builds up my self-confidence and helps me have a better day,” says Matlosz, who wore a lacy, see-through camisole blouse over an opaque tank top recently, when temperatures hit 99 degrees.

Matlosz says her goal is not to look like her parents: “I just remember when my father went to work, he would wear the exact same suit, the exact same tie every single day.”