An article surprisingly aimed at men!
I’m actually embarrassed typing the title; it’s my wife’s preserve to ask her friends “what are you wearing?” I will just pitch up in the designated appropriate attire (whatever that is), I will take literally seconds to pick shirt/jacket/jeans and I confess as I get older, how comfortable it is has more of an influence than how it looks.
But social events aside–what about business or network meetings, what IS the appropriate dress code?
5 years ago, I knew exactly where I stood. I wore a suit and tie, I’d worn a suit and tie for the last 20 years, I sold computer systems to businesses, you were expected to dress like a bank manager or accountant in fact IBM almost had a uniform, blue suit, white shirt, shade of blue tie (they weren’t called the big blue for nothing) it was appropriate, it was expected and get this, it worked!
People weren’t about to spend their hard earned cash on technology that they probably didn’t understand on some bloke that pitched up in his jeans and boots. The reason for this is simple, people judge other people on the following criteria IN THIS ORDER!
1. How you look
2. How you sound
3. What you say
Note that it’s only the last point that relates to whether you said anything sensible, the point above it really describes how much conviction and belief you had when you said it and the most important point has nothing to do with what you said and was all about how you look!
History affords a is a glorious example, President John F. Kennedy, famously declared by the Berlin Wall Ich bin ein Berliner famously declaring his support for all Berlin citizens and their fight for freedom. However, the literal translation refers to a local favorite snack and means “I am a Jelly filled doughnut!” – The point being it wasn’t exactly what he said but the way he said it that counted for so much!
So to the question of appropriate attire, well, for many years appropriate business attire was undoubtedly suit or jacket and tie, we knew where we stood. Unless you were a tradesman, artist or pop star you’d just had to learn how to tie a Windsor knot or something similar! Then came old Dickie Branson with his woolly jumpers, I think at this point most of us turned a blind eye. We recognised that old Dickie was a bit of an eccentric, quite brilliant in his own way but we weren’t going to follow his example and get granny reaching for the knitting needles. After all the bloke was living on a canal boat, he was bound to do his own thing.
I blame Stelios. When an airline chief executive turns up without tie you’ve got to take notice. Okay he was always new wave, new business model, new airline obviously! But he was a serious entrepreneur pitching up in a suit but no tie, for me it moved the goalposts.
I moved into no tie mode for the next 5 years, the trouble is so did everybody else and now jacket/jeans and no tie mode is almost as much of a uniform as IBM’s was back in the day.
The upshot is I’ve suddenly disappeared, people don’t know whether I’m trustworthy, new wave, new kid on the block, old kid on the block or I’ve just forgotten my tie!
I’m still trying to get people to invest in my IT services, the problem is they don’t know whether I’m part of a global enterprise with servers on every continent or I’m just a bloke, with an iPhone who works from his back bedroom! I need to wear something that says, we are a professional business, established, reliable and modern but not too flash!
So, I’m afraid it’s back to the suit and tie (or should I be brave and combine that with my trainers?)
