The Casual Conundrum

The good news is, it’s Friday.

The bad news is, it’s Friday. And you’re probably struggling with what to wear to work because it’s casual Friday.

Ever since this sartorial phenomenon hit a few years ago, workers from coast to coast have been in a wardrobe tizzy, wondering just what is suitable for this dress-down day.

Is this shirt OK without a tie? Will this skirt be all right without pantyhose? How about jeans? No one ever said not to wear jeans. And with a jacket they might not look so . . . denimish.

Meanwhile, companies are trying to deal with employees who take the “casual” part of casual dressing a little too literally. How many of us have witnessed a co-worker showing up in cutoff jeans, sandals and a rank T-shirt or a tube top and miniskirt?

And so it goes.

In many offices casual Friday has led to casual summers or casual styles year-round. It’s not difficult to understand the progression--once you tell people they can ditch their suits, don’t expect them to merrily put them back on.

Casual Fridays are an undeniable part of the 9-to-5 landscape. A survey done last year by Levi Strauss & Co. found that 87% of American workers can dress casually at least some of the time.

The trend has even seeped into some of the most staid law firms across the country, where pinstripes are being traded for polo shirts.

Ever since we rid ourselves of the suited, shoulder-padded ‘80s, Americans have become increasingly casual, everywhere from school to the boardroom. When it started to hit offices a few years ago, some pointed the finger at Silicon Valley’s fashion-challenged cyber nerds for propelling the trend, others at the growing population of telecommuters and home-based businesses. Some even claim Hollywood has been influential, with industry pros in tie-less shirts.

The huge gap created by this in-between niche has dramatically affected designers’ and retailers’ collections. Dressing down is chic. Cargo and drawstring pants have been marching down runways for a couple of seasons.

What, you think Dockers just happened? Even the venerable Brooks Brothers has succumbed. Khakis have become the new uniform of the American worker.

But thousands of men and women still dread Fridays simply because they don’t know how to dress down and still look professional. It used to be so easy--weekdays meant tailored clothes, weekends meant jeans and T-shirts.

Take Dolores Covarrubias for instance. This senior worker’s compensation representative for Southern California Edison most recently came from a company where long, flowery dresses and jeans were fine with management. Not so here.

“What are you supposed to wear for business casual?” she asks of the company’s dress code. “You don’t want to look like you’re going to a picnic, yet you want the comfort that those kinds of clothes afford you. Also, it seems to me that what’s acceptable and what I see a lot of women wearing is khakis with a colored shirt--just like the men do. If you’re trying to wear a skirt with no hose, what do you do?” (See accompanying story for how we handled her dilemma.)

Companies Don’t Give

a Sartorial Signal

Part of the confusion about how to dress can be chalked up to employers. From Fashion Police mail, we know that companies often have no dress code, an outdated dress code, a poorly written and executed dress code or just a verbal dress code, along the lines of, “Don’t wear that Duran Duran tank top again, OK, sport?” Creating even more confusion is the fact that what goes for a mail room clerk doesn’t go for a salesman or a senior manager, so creating a one-size-fits-all policy is often impossible.

But even with a detailed dress code there can still be problems interpreting it. If khakis are allowed, what kind of khakis? Pleated? Flat-front? Cuffed? Wrinkle-free? Capris? With spandex?

Retailers can also take their share of the blame, since not all educate their customers or offer help assembling wardrobes. They may sell a huge range of clothes suitable for casual Fridays, but which clothes are they? And how are they put together?

And while we’re at it, let’s all take some responsibility for our society’s casual downward spiral that has further blurred the lines between weekend wear, business attire and formal clothes.

If Southern California has garnered a reputation for being one of the most ultra-casual regions of the country, it’s earned. Some people, unfortunately, don’t seem to think twice about showing up in jeans, T-shirts and other inappropriate ensembles at nice restaurants, the theater and weddings.

Michael Alexin, vice president of design and product development for Eddie Bauer, would like to see corporations “do a better job” of explaining the rules to their employees. “A dress code,” he says, “doesn’t have to be extremely specific, but where are the boundaries? That would be helpful, especially for men, and when you think of the younger workers coming out of college, where all they wore were jeans.”

For the former suit-wearer, Alexin says, “Too much choice is confusing. It used to be that the only creativity they could show was in their tie. Now there’s a world of options out there. What I would counsel is to start gradually casualizing your wardrobe. Do a sport coat and a nice pair of fine gabardine khakis and a sportier tie. Then you can eventually drop the tie, do a nice sweater.”

The Redmond, Wash.-based Eddie Bauer trains its sales associates to help in matters such as casual Friday transitions. And that’s a good thing, since consumers may be stumped just trying to choose a pair of khakis from the list of soft-finished, finished, hard-crease and wrinkle-free. Its A/K/A Eddie Bauer line for men and women is part of what Alexin calls today’s “casual continuum,” which begins with weekend shorts and T-shirts, segues into shirts and blouses and khakis, then moves a little further into dressier clothes, some tailored but most not.

Casual Fridays have also had an impact on New York-based Liz Claiborne. The company’s various divisions of women’s clothes, including Lizwear (the most casual, lots of denim), Lizsport (nicer casual) and Collection (career), have gradually become even more informal. Denim is washed and rugged; career separates are softer, less tailored.

“The formula with our Collection line,” says Angela Ahrendts, vice president of merchandising, “was that you had to have a jacket in every base fabric. Now the twin sets have replaced the jackets in a lot of cases. Yes, there’s casual Friday, but the other four days of the week have become softer and less structured. You still need a jacket in certain marketplaces, but you can wear it with pants instead of a skirt, a T-shirt instead of a blouse.”

Ahrendts sees mainstream companies as the ones most struggling with casual Friday issues, compared to hipper, more creative corporations.

“You have the innovators, like the fashion and music industries, and you have the late adapters. I think that with financial institutions, what their employees wear hasn’t been their focus, whereas in Hollywood, it’s one of the most important things.”

Taking Casual Fashion

to the Corporate World

Realizing that men were having a tougher go at pulling together a casual wardrobe than women, Liz Claiborne last year took a truck, turned it into a traveling mini-store and sent it on the road, stopping at Wall Street and various corporations, educating men in the ways of casual Friday and offering them a convenient place to shop.

In addition, in-store sales associates are trained to help men and women with their wardrobes, and the company hosts group seminars on the subject as well.

Probably by the time everyone figures out casual Fridays and has a closet full of suitable clothes, the trends will change again, since such is the nature of fashion. And there’s a whole new generation of young men and women out there who might find it fun to dress to the nines.

But right now, says Ahrendts, “interest rates are low and people are spending money on things other than clothes. They can pick up a twin set or a T-shirt and not have to shell out money like they would for a jacket. Right now we’re seeing the casualization of the world. But we’re human, and we get bored. When the cycle changes again, we may not go back to pantyhose, but we might be wearing a long skirt without pantyhose. Everything evolves, and we want to look different.”

The pendulum hasn’t quite finished swinging this way. Eddie Bauer’s Alexin says when he used to travel years ago, “I had to take a lot of dressy clothes along. Now jeans are acceptable in a lot of restaurants. Watching people going to and from work there’s a noticeable difference. Maybe it’s gone too far in that respect. You can wear anything. You can wear your pajamas on the plane.”

What the future holds is all about the individual, says Tom Julian, a trend analyst with New York-based advertising agency Fallon McElligott. He believes that casual dressing’s next incarnation will incorporate handcrafted, one-of-a-kind pieces that are a step up from today’s look. “At the collections for spring 2000, I saw people reacting to pieces, saying ‘That is so special, that is totally me.’ If people are going to dress casually, they’re going to want the most luxurious things.”

Write to Fashion Police, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA. 90053, fax to (213) 237-4888 or send e-mail to socalliving@latimes.com.

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Shopping Guide * Grace Whitcomb: Clio rayon/acetate pantsuit (jacket, $54; pant, $40), Amanda Smith Petites cotton/rayon T-shirt ($22). Both from Robinson’s-May.

* Charlotte Jackson: Jones New York silk pants ($128), Jones & Co. silk blouse ($129). Both from Robinson’s-May.

* Dolores Covarrubias: Cotton/rayon twin set (cardigan, $68; short-sleeve shell, $42), acetate/polyester gabardine skirt ($58). All from A/K/A Eddie Bauer.

* Chuck Horton: Perry Ellis cotton/rayon polo shirt ($45), Russell Athletic cotton T-shirt ($15), Perry Ellis rayon/polyester trousers ($69). All from Robinson’s-May.

* Grant Thomas: Brandini rayon/polyester shirt ($43), Perry Ellis rayon/polyester trousers ($59). All from Robinson’s-May.

* Mike Lattimore: Claiborne silk shirt ($69.50), Perry Ellis polyester/rayon trousers ($78). All from Robinson’s-May.