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posted by martyb on Friday May 26 2017, @02:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the optional-nerd-glasses dept.

Americans began the 20th century in bustles and bowler hats and ended it in velour sweatsuits and flannel shirts—the most radical shift in dress standards in human history. At the center of this sartorial revolution was business casual, a genre of dress that broke the last bastion of formality—office attire—to redefine the American wardrobe.

Born in Silicon Valley in the early 1980s, business casual consists of khaki pants, sensible shoes, and button-down collared shirts. By the time it was mainstream, in the 1990s, it flummoxed HR managers and employees alike. “Welcome to the confusing world of business casual,” declared a fashion writer for the Chicago Tribune in 1995. With time and some coaching, people caught on. Today, though, the term “business casual” is nearly obsolete for describing the clothing of a workforce that includes many who work from home in yoga pants, put on a clean T-shirt for a Skype meeting, and don’t always go into the office.

The life and impending death of business casual demonstrates broader shifts in American culture and business: Life is less formal; the concept of “going to the office” has fundamentally changed; American companies are now more results-oriented than process-oriented. The way this particular style of fashion originated and faded demonstrates that cultural change results from a tangle of seemingly disparate and ever-evolving sources: technology, consumerism, labor, geography, demographics. Better yet, cultural change can start almost anywhere and by almost anyone—scruffy computer programmers included.

The answer, apparently, is Nerds! NERDS!!


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Justin Case on Friday May 26 2017, @03:05PM (3 children)

    by Justin Case (4239) on Friday May 26 2017, @03:05PM (#515982) Journal

    companies are now more results-oriented than process-oriented

    And that's how it should be.

    My ability to find thousands of defects in my employer's web sites has no correlation with what type of material I use to cover my skin, protecting myself from the insanely over-cooled offices.

    Consider yourself damn lucky I wear anything at all.

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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @03:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @03:20PM (#515990)

    I used to work for a once mighty Californian company whose dress code was "You must wear clothes." Apparently some customers came in one day and were offended when they saw a bunch of engineers in the nude sitting in a hot tub in the office.

  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday May 27 2017, @12:19AM

    by kaszz (4211) on Saturday May 27 2017, @12:19AM (#516211) Journal

    There was one place were we had the saying. The longer the necktie, the less knowledge..

    It might be suspected that it's because people that spend attention to clothes will by necessity spend less on other (technical) things. And it's usually the managerial or sales type of mind that are into surface without substance.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:43AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:43AM (#516259)

    Is it just me? Long ago (before high school), I started to equate wearing a tie with putting a noose around my neck. Or in other words, getting myself all prepared to be hung, perhaps by an upperclass bully. Not a pleasant thought, and I've done my best to avoid ties since then (late 1960s).