Appearance/Clothing

This past week I decided to watch what everyone in our department wore to work. One day I wore a green sweater that was somewhat provocative. The neckline had a plunge and a collar that looked like a choker. The next day I wore a pink sweater and it had tie-up, similar to shoestrings.  Both days I wore jeans and black shoes. My hair was not put together the first day and the second day my hair was pulled back into a pony tail.  I received more compliments on the provocative sweater with frumpy hair then I did wearing the pink sweater. 

Colors were vibrant on some days and other days it seemed like the whole department got the memo on what color to wear. What I have noticed some of us dress casual and others dress business casual. We all dress businesslike when we put on workshops or go to conferences. What this tells me is that we are comfortable at how we dress in the workplace. However, our dress does not say that we are not competent at what we do.  In our office everyone has a job to do and we do it quite well. 

Business dress                                               Casual dress

After reading the article I found that the codes of yesterday are still around today on campus in different departments, especially in corporate America.

Reference

Kaiser, S. B., (2008).  Women’s Appearance and Clothing within Organizations. In L.K. Guerrero & M. L. Hecht (Eds.), The Nonverbal Communication Reader, (pp. 74-81). Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc.