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Dressing down for the New Economy
BUSINESS success no longer means being the top corporate man who wears a power suit in his high-rise office, with a secretary attending to him and a chauffeur to dive him to power lunches.
Indeed, “more and more established businessmen are marveling at the whiz kids working 15 to 18 hour days out of garage, and we all admire the guy who pulls off a spectacular venture before he is 30”, says Christina Ong, managing consultant of imageWORKS, an image consulting firm that promises to equip executives with the “polish that builds profits”.
Yes, the rise of the New Economy, with dotcom startups at its epicenter, has turned conventional business practices – and attitudes – on their head. While business models have changed, so have wardrobes. In other words, business people want to dress more like the whiz kids. Maybe not all the way, but just enough to look “cool” rather than “stuffy”.
In multinationals and professional firms, the tailored suits and crisp shirts that spelt “ business formal” have been tossed out, in favour of more relaxed but still smart attire, all of which goes under the catch – all term, “business casual”.
In the US, the move to go casual gained momentum about three years ago, in Silicon Valley, Says Ms Ong: “When the IT whiz kids started becoming successful, a whole support industry blossomed around them like law firms, venture capitalists, bankers and other professional services. When these people met the casually – dressed entrepreneurs, they stuck out like sore thumbs.”
Soon, a “business casual” dress code spread throughout major cities in the US and last year, even normally conservative New York financial institutions like Morgan Stanley DW. PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young stopped insisting on traditional business attire every day of the week.
In Singapore, accounting firm Arthur Andersen Singapore, best known for its immaculately, if conservatively dressed executives, recently declared Fridays to be business casual days in line with the business casual mode adopted by its worldwide offices. Arthur Andersen’s management explained the move thus: “We’re seeing a trend to less formal dress in the business community in many parts of the world and it appears to be here to stay. A business casual dress code is reflective of the New Economy business environment.”
And even law firms are walking the path of polo-shirts and chinos. From mid-February this year, lawyers at Rajah & Tann, Singapore’s second largest law firm with 120 lawyers, went smart casual on Fridays. Two weeks ago, Colin Ng and Partners, who traditionally observed “casual Wednesdays” replaced that single casual day with casual Mondays and Fridays.
Rajah & Tann’s executive director, Benjamin Ang, explains that “dress down Friday”, was managing partner, V K Rajah’s idea. “Times are changing, the business environment is changing. We felt our clients would be more receptive and it’s more than good for our people. We would not have tried this five years ago the business community here might not have been ready.”
And as for Colin Ng of Colin Ng & Partners, he’s been waiting his whole career for a relaxed dress code at work. Says the founder of this regional, full service law firm who only wears a tie when he absolutely has to: “It costs us nothing and if it makes people happy, why not? And really, the more comfortable out lawyer are, the more productive they become.”
Also there’s the question of keeping up with the times. Says Mr Ng: “We have an office in the Science Park that caters to the startups and tech companies there. Now, people in Science Park don’t dress like people in Shenton Way, so it makes sense for our lawyers to dress like their clients.”
At Colin Ng & Partners, it goes without saying that proper dress codes have to be observed when lawyer go to court or when they meet clients for the very first time. But Mr Ng has stopped short of prescribing what items of clothing are strictly prohibited on the firm’s dress-down days, saying in his e-mail to staff that “good taste, and common sense” should prevail.
Even then, surely, the decision to pick a relaxed, smart but not stiff ensemble out of your wardrobe at 7 am on a Monday is more fraught with anxiety than sticking to a tie, white shirt and if necessary, a suit, boring as that may be?
Certainly, says Ms Ong, who will launch a course for companies on “Business Casual Made Easy” in June. The crux of Ms Ong’s message is: “First things first. Business casual means business first and casual second.”
Ms Ong explains the contradiction inherent in the very term “business casual”.
Traditional vs casual
“Business casual is really a merger of two types of attire: traditional business wear which stands for professionalism and credibility and casual wear which allow for comfort and creativity. It’s very vague where traditional business wear ends and business casual begins, and where that ends and casual becomes inappropriate.”
What Ms Ong is definite about is the fact that “business casual is not an excuse to be sloppy”. Sadly, on dress-down Fridays, when Ms Ong has “people-watched” the office crowd in the financial district, there have been sloppy examples aplenty. Says Ms Ong: “While men generally interpreted ‘business casual’ to mean wearing open-necked shirts, women were the ones who tended to commit a dress code faux pas.
“There were women who wore T-shirts and loose pants, like what people might wear to the market on Sunday, while there were those who bared their midriffs or who teetered around on gigantic platforms.”
Not that Ms Ong blames the executives concerned. “What companies and their employees don’t always realize is that going ‘business casual’ often means making an investment in a whole new wardrobe. Not everyone has that mid-range wardrobe that is more relaxed than formal business attire but smarter than what you might lounge around in on Sunday.”
Specific guidelines on what can and cannot be worn in the office on dress-down days would also help, says Ms Ong. “Employers try to be gracious and allow common sense to prevail but common sense isn’t so common in such a new and little known area.”
As far as guidelines on business casual goes, both Arthur Andersen and Rajah & Tann have stipulates what is deemed inappropriate and this list includes shorts, sandals, collarless T-shirts and sandals. Also prohibited even on Fridays is what Rajah & Tann’s executive director Mr Ang describes as “anything that is sleeveless and revealing”.
Without giving too much away, the hallmarks of business casual, Ms Ong says, like any other style of dressing are “fit, grooming and quality” combined with a wardrobe which for man might include staples like a blazer, shirts in pastel colour or fine to medium stripes and ties with paisley or geometric patterns.
And if you think that sounds like a substantial investment in a new wardrobe, it is. The only exception to Ms Ong’s “proceed with caution” stance on business casual are the dotcom companies. Says Ms Ong: “If I was a venture capitalist or banker trying to decide if I was going to invest $1 million in a startup, I certainly wouldn’t expect to see people in suits working in a dotcom company.”
If Ms Ong visited the offices of soon-to-be-listed WizOffice.com, she would be lucky to see a few ironed shirts says Corinne Tan, the company’s public relations consultant. At this particular startup an “anything goes” dress code is taken literally. On any given day, Ms Tan says, the worst dressed person in the office could be wearing “bermuda shorts and 10-year-old T-shirt”. And the best dressed person? Probably a collared shirt-the collar being a nod to formality-and unironed pants, says Ms Tan.
Race against time
Raphael Tham, WizOffice.com’s chief executive officer, offers a penetrating insight into the racing-against-time culture of a startup: “We’re not trying to dress like the guys in Silicon Valley. The real reason for startups dressing down is simply because we have no time to iron our clothes. And why don’t we have time to iron our clothes? Some of us don’t even go home.”
Working with companies as goal-oriented as WizOffice.com is liberating for Ms Tan, now the co-founder of Impressions PR, which typically for a New Economy business service firm, operates from home. What Ms Tan wears to meet clients these days, is itself a breath of fresh air, when compared with what she used to wear in the corporate career she has left behind.
“I used to wear clothes fit for the boardroom, even power suits. But these days, I wear anything I’m comfortable in. My dotcom clients, in particular, feel more at home with me if I turn up in jeans and trainers. I still wear a jacket from time to time but only when I need to attend formal meetings.”
Explaining what she sees as a paradigm change in the business world, Ms Tan continues: “In the past, people placed a lot of emphasis on proper business attire, and how much power that suit could wield. The New Economy focuses on an individual’s performance, it is concerned with what one can offer, instead of what one wears.”
Ms Tan’s thoughts echo those of lawyer Colin Ng: “Clients expect lawyers to be properly attired upon first meeting to give them due respect, we are happy to do that. But beyond that once they get to know you and your work, substance matters more than form.”
But will today’s rule breakers be tomorrow’s rule breakers? When Raphael Tham and friends at WizOffice.com list on the Singapore Exchange as planned later this month, and discover their true net worth, won’t the temptation to rush out and buy an Armani suit be simply overpowering?
Far from it, says Mr Tham: “What we will probably do is to go home and sleep for a week and then go back to the office in jeans and a T-shirt.”
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