Men at Work ... and Play

We live in a land known for its excesses of freedom, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to describe the look of the Southern California man. The way he dresses depends on what he does, where he lives and his self-perception. In the article below, we assess the impact of Casual Friday in the land of the laid-back. Elsewhere in this issue, Laker forward Rick Fox talks about style--and basketball. Plus, we share secrets of the watch- obsessed and offer up a few thoughts on accessories for guys.

The birth of Casual Friday seemed so innocent. The first signs of the trend appeared in the early ‘90s--decades after the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit had become, by popular agreement, a symbol of all that was rigid and wrong with American masculine aspiration.

The old economy of corporate America began to look longingly at entrepreneurial America and its minions, increasingly awash in what appeared to be money. They looked at their own boardrooms and gray-paneled fattening pens and gray-paneled workforce--which was being lured to the new economy not only by what appeared to be barrels of money, but also by an atmosphere (and dress code) reminiscent of a Montessori pre-primary class--and gradually began loosening their collars. Then, on Sept. 26, 1997, the New York Stock Exchange decreed a day of freedom--the first day in 205 years to have allowed informal dress on the trading floor--to be known henceforth as Casual Friday. From Wall Street to Wilshire Boulevard, the mandate was to dress down--for better or for worse.

But who knew that this fashion Zeitgeist would have so profound an effect on the American male? Talk to the movers and shakers in fashion retailing and the men who keep them in business, and you can come away with the impression that nothing--not the Women’s Movement, the Green Party, Iron John--has had as dramatic an impact on men as the seemingly innocuous words, Casual Friday. Consider, for instance, the tone of the recent pullback at Lehman Brothers. The New York-based financial powerhouse recently canceled its Casual Friday policy, citing the need for a return to tradition and stability in these uncertain times. In other words, in the face of a national crisis, a guy’s just gotta feel more comfortable, more sure of his place in the world, in a three-button wool number with French cuffs and some Allen Edwards lace-ups.

Perhaps clothes really do make the man.

So what are we to think of the Southern California man, denizen of a place reviled worldwide for its excesses of freedom? It depends on whom you ask. How we dress in the Southland, and the choices we make, have as much to do with our jobs as how we perceive ourselves, from our upbringing to our current milieu and class--in the Marxist sense of the word.

It also depends on what side of town you live on.

David Geffen and Steven Spielberg’s uniform of jeans, T-shirts and baseball caps may signal power in Hollywood on any day of the week--as in “I don’t have to dress up, I’m important no matter what I wear.” But in the rest of town, the Friday dress code is still up for grabs. Is it enough to merely signal you know what you’re doing rather than actually dress to impress? For 29-year-old Diallo Marvel, an art director at the advertising firm TBWA/Chiat /Day in Los Angeles, success is signaled subtly.

It’s a typical Friday in the office. Interrupted mid-meeting, Marvel is wearing a pair of vintage Pumas, Abercrombie & Fitch jeans, “baggy, but not bunchy at the bottom,” and a white T-shirt under a blue button-down. One attendee is shoeless.

“Creative people are not held to the same standard as corporate,” he explains. “Clients want creatives to use their brains. Clothes aren’t what they expect you to think about.”

Here, what plays on a Friday is no different from the rest of the workweek. But the dressed-down men at TBWA/Chiat/Day have learned a lesson women have known for years, one we’ll call the Lesson of the Birkin bag. Available (at times) at Hermes, the Birkin bag is a large, stitched-leather tote. It costs $5,000, when you can get one, since there’s an 18-month waiting list. It looks smashing with jeans and a T-shirt, telling the world on behalf of the carrier: “I may be wearing jeans, but mistake me for some middle-class Hausfrau at your peril.” The message is pure L.A.

And there you have it, gentlemen. Throw a Yamamoto shirt over those ratty jeans, or slap a Rolex on that wrist with your old Trojans T, or some Tod’s loafers under those sweatpants, and voila! You’ve sent a message no three-piece suit can deliver.

“A lot of creatives wear really nice shoes or a really nice shirt,” Marvel says. “They’ll wear one fashionable and high-end item that says, ‘I’m fashionable, but I’m not gonna scream it.’ ”

Just don’t try anything funny on Fridays at Washington Mutual in Los Angeles. At least not if you work in Peter Villegas’ office.

Villegas, 34, a vice president at Washington Mutual overseeing corporate affairs and government relations, characterizes himself as strictly “old school.” “I work with public officials, philanthropies, community organizations, and I’m a lobbyist,” explains Villegas, who favors suits from Hugo Boss, Joseph Abboud and Armani and Cole Haan shoes.

“I can’t afford to be too casual because I’m representing the company at a corporate level,” he says.

While other branches of his company observe Casual Fridays, Villegas himself resists. “In our office we have a lot of high-profile people coming in. We can’t afford to have clients come in looking at employees in jeans and flip-flops.”

Doug Ewert, executive vice president of merchandising and general merchandise manager for the Men’s Wearhouse, says his company--which has made a fortune selling $199 to $499 suits--has carved a lucrative niche servicing the guy who hasn’t yet mastered the art of corporate casual. And with more than 500 stores nationwide and reported sales of $1.27 billion last year, that’s a lot of guys.

But the chain is branching out. “We’re synonymous with suits” he explains. “Seven years ago, we didn’t really carry sportswear. We were testing it, but it’s since become a very important part of our market.” He describes the Men’s Wearhouse Casual Friday look as mixing elements from a tailored wardrobe with sportswear separates. “You might be wearing a suit, but you add a fine-gauge merino knit sweater or substitute a leather jacket.”

For the fashion uninitiated, “sportswear” is not to be confused with “athletic wear.” While the latter includes printed basketball jerseys and high-tech sneakers, “sportswear” is more akin to what you might see Kevin Costner wearing when he’s being interviewed on “Entertaiment Tonight” about his new movie. Sportswear consists of “select, key items that are really versatile and work well,” observes Ewert. Items such as silk and cotton mock turtlenecks woven with a fine-gauge fiber that are comfortable under a sport coat.

Esquire’s fashion/creative director Stefano Tonchi agrees with Ewert on the basic problem posed by Casual Friday. “People get very worried about what to wear, especially men who are so used to wearing a uniform,” Tonchi says. “To have to wake up and think about what to wear--do I have the right outfit?--it’s kind of destructive somehow,” he says. “Most people don’t want to confess their taste level.”

Which is why the Men’s Wearhouse and other stores have done such a booming business in sportswear by helping the average guy hide his taste, or improve it, depending on your interpretation.

Tonchi feels one of the reasons the whole Casual Friday phenomenon took off is because the suit has gotten a bad rap.

“It’s very rare that people give you an idea of how versatile a suit can be. You can wear them so many ways and break them up in so many ways. Casual Friday should have been a deconstruction of the suit. A lot of the newer suits are unlined, with soft shoulders. You can really express more through them.”

What it really comes down to, says Tonchi, is dressing appropriately for the job. Which means exactly what in Southern California?

For Jim McMahon, a recent Chicago transplant in product development at Blue Cross of California’s Large Group Division in Woodland Hills, his attire depends on his schedule. “We generally have a lot of flexibility here. I typically wear dress pants and a dress shirt. In the summer, I wear a short-sleeve shirt. Jeans are part of the dress code as long as they’re clean and neat. I don’t typically wear jeans to the office, especially if I have a presentation with a senior manager.”

McMahon, 38, buys most of his gear from Banana Republic because “it matches, it’s easy and I won’t be raising any eyebrows.”

What does he think of the news that some companies are pulling back from Casual Friday and returning to suits?

“I don’t think we’ll be going back,” he says. “So much of what we wear--regardless of the day of the week--and do here is driven by the climate, and our lifestyle is much more relaxed than in Chicago or Boston or Washington, and about the last thing I want to do in the Valley in August is wear a suit. The last time I wore a suit to Blue Cross when it was 108 degrees was when I was interviewing for the job.”

But 28-year-old Nate Collins, who works as a trader for Wedbush Morgan Securities in downtown L.A., still wears the uniform on most days: “Brooks Brothers, Donna Karan, Banana Republic, Men’s Wearhouse, something like that. We’re one of the few banks left in the financial community that uses formal attire for most days.”

Except on Fridays in the summer (cue Don Ho’s “Tiny Bubbles”), when Collins apparently finds himself in the throes of abject misery. At the offices of Wedbush Morgan, Aloha Friday is in full effect. Collins--who grew up in the artsy community of Woodstock, N.Y., and “rebelled” by attending the conservative College of William and Mary in Virginia--admits he’s a bit out of his element when it’s time to pass the poi.

“I’m bad at this. I’ve only been on the West Coast for two years and my Hawaiian shirts are heinous,” he confesses. Before arriving here, he worked in Jersey City for another financial firm where “they were very business attire.” One can almost hear him getting misty for the days of gray flannel.

However Paul Tsuchiya, chief operating officer of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, knows all about Aloha Fridays, having grown up in Honolulu.

“There’s probably somebody in that firm from Hawaii,” Tsuchiya laughs when informed that there is a finance firm in L.A. where Hawaiian shirts are de rigueur on summer Fridays. “In Hawaii there are different kinds of aloha shirts, reverse print ones you wear to work, casual, more formal ones you wear to weddings. Bankers and lawyers downtown used to wear aloha shirts only on Fridays, hence ‘Aloha Friday,’ but nowadays I think the only time you don’t wear an aloha shirt is when you’re going to court or meeting with a client . . . who will inevitably be in an aloha shirt.”

Tsuchiya subscribes to the same philosophy of business attire as McMahon. “If I’m having a meeting, a blazer and slacks. If not, jeans and a sweater.” But on Fridays, he confesses, he often wears an aloha shirt.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of having style,” he laughs. “When I don’t have a meeting, I do the assistant basketball coach look.” But when he does dress up, it’s black all the way.

“I’m in the entertainment industry,” he says. “It’s so black!”

He likes Hugo Boss, Armani and a tailor he used when he lived in Hong Kong. Before coming to the recording academy, he worked for IMG’s Digital Media Unit in San Francisco, so he knows well the ways of the New Economy (or is it now the Old New Economy?). “We were absolutely forbidden to wear suits and ties, only salespeople wore that,” he explains. But in L.A., there is nothing verboten on his list. “You have to remember, it’s the music industry. People wear some funky stuff.”

And, like the guys at TBWA/Chiat/Day, Tsuchiya knows the importance of the well-placed accessory. “I think of myself as fairly casual, but I bought a Tag Heuer watch when I was in Hong Kong. They’re totally watch-obsessed and car-obsessed. It’s so crowded, so things like watches and cars are important because they can’t have big, expensive houses. I succumbed to the watch culture.”

He is perhaps the closest to the stereotypical successful SoCal guy. Clothes are fun, clothes are comfortable, clothes are to get you through the day, be it a Tuesday night dinner with recording executives or a Friday afternoon staff meeting. The only time you need to dress up is when you have to impress an outsider.

No one knows that better than Jose Huizar. Huizar wears several hats, among them deputy city attorney for Los Angeles and trustee of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Born in Zacatecas, Mexico, Huizar came to L.A. with his parents at age 2. With an undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley, a master’s in public policy from Princeton and a law degree from UCLA, Huizar is used to finding himself in a variety of settings that require different approaches.

And he is well aware of how he would like to be perceived. “I used to work at a law firm,” he explains. “A lot of our clients were casually dressed on Fridays and it made it more comfortable for us to dress casually. If I had my way, I’d do away with ties altogether.” But that was before Huizar moved to the public sector.

“I don’t stand out, I’m a safe dresser,” he explains, confirming that he subscribes to the traditional wisdom that people want public officials to embody dependability. “I think of my role as an elected official, and the persona you want to give out is someone representing people. I can’t take fashion risks.”

So when it comes to suits, “I like to be on the conservative side: blue, black, dark tan, olive, two light suits--all are three-button.”

He allows himself a slacks-and- dress-shirt outfit on Fridays, a look he’s never formally made office policy. It’s an issue of mutual respect: “As a member of the school board, I always make it a point to wear a jacket and tie whenever I meet with a constituent or on any district business.” Weekends are work as well, but a different kind, says Huizar, who lives in Boyle Heights. “I hardly ever put on a suit. I want to be part of the people. I don’t want to look stuffy.”

And it’s important that he not look too slick, which is why he wears a basic Kenneth Cole watch with a black wristband. “I purposely got this after I left the law firm,” he explains. “I felt that working in the public sector, this was more comfortable.”

Sort of like trading in your Birkin for something from Kate Spade.

But at whatever level you choose to play out your wardrobe on Fridays, it’s nice to know that most of us have options. “The word from management here is that ‘we need to be professional, but we want you to be comfortable,’ ” McMahon says. “I like the fact that my company leaves my attire up to my own good judgment.”

For Villegas, suits do more than set a productive tone. “I like suits,” he says. “I’ve always loved watching Cary Grant and Clark Gable in the movies. I saw Magic Johnson and his personal style as a kid--and that got me into GQ magazine and into what I wear. And besides, there are not that many Latinos at the corporate level, and I like to put my best foot forward.”

Ultimately, we’re a community of chameleons, changing our clothes and our demeanor to suit the occasion. Right, left, in between, we’re infamous for being a place of noncomformity. Californians don’t even like to be called “Westerners.” We’re Californians, and that’s something entirely different. Perhaps the whole concept of Casual Friday is besides the point.