Hong Kong Ham

For some reason I just embarked on a rant about dress in the workplace over at Peter Shankman’s blog. Shankman, a creative and energetic PR guru from New York who has my respect, argues that to be respected in business, you have to look the part — that is, you have to dress “appropriately”. I dedicated so much energy to questioning that reasoning that I thought I better post my argument here. 

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I’m a 25-year-old reporter who covers corporate — the marketing industry in Asia — and most of the time I dress casually. I’ve never felt compelled to wear a suit, and I’m sure my boss would prefer that I stop wearing polo shirts and jeans as my day-to-day office dress. If I’m going to a conference, I might stretch to a shirt, but I’ll still be wearing my scuffed brown Adidas sneakers.

My reluctance to dress formally comes not only out of discomfort — I feel buttoned down in a shirt, constricted by dress pants, and clunky in hard-soled shoes, all of which beget reduced productivity — but also out of disdain for out-of-date, culturally-imposed codes. Why should we wear suits? Or even shirts? The reasoning [Shankman outlines] doesn’t actually strike any logical points — the best [he offers] is a meaningless slogan [Dress Shabbily, they notice the dress. Dress impeccably, and they notice the woman. — Coco Chanel] and that it’s ‘inappropriate’ not to. Inappropriate by whose standards? What are the real reasons the doyens-of-dress demand we drape ourselves in such ways? To what degree does how one dresses indicate how well one works, thinks, or behaves?

Because certain cultural codes are so ingrained in our society as to be incontravenable — for instance, it’s generally frowned upon to roam the streets naked — it’s fair to expect a degree of tidiness and hygiene that shows respect for your peers. That’s why I’d seldom go to work without showering, or in my boxers alone (though I have frequently considered both). But it doesn’t follow that one has to dress formally merely to communicate with others.

Doesn’t it make more sense to dress appropriately for the climate? I live in Hong Kong. It’s summer and temperatures outside are 30-plus degrees Celsius, with more than 90 percent humidity. People still wear full suits and ties. It’s lunacy. I see high-powered executives walking to work sweating like apiarists. They work in offices so aggressively chilled by aircon that they have to wear their jackets inside. Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s air quality continues to deteriorate, contributing to thousands of respiratory-related deaths each year and helping to account for dangerous levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And for what? To comply with a subjectively-defined ‘appropriate’ dress sense?

What should trump any bodily adornments is the quality of someone’s ideas, insights, and ability to articulate those points. Too many showmen with flashy suits and million-dollar smiles ascend the corporate ladder because they can ‘play the game’, often regardless of their ability to actually do their jobs.

Okay, there’s something to be said for making it easy to get a platform for those ideas in the first place — by presenting a ‘nice’ veneer much as you would dress up a powerpoint presentation. But if someone judges me — and looks down on me — because I’m dressed casually, I don’t care. It’s my ideas and ability that should make the impression. If that person can’t see past the superficial coverings on my body to actually listen and consider what I have to say, then I look down at him, not matter how important society has deemed him to be. If he can’t put aside surfaces in favour of depths, then I wonder if he really has what it takes to be in his position in the first place.

(Note: Of course, there’s always the possibility that I’m not smart enough to get my points across. Also, while making this argument, I admit some hypocrisy — I do dress up for ‘important’ occasions. But I think it’s high time we questioned conventional wisdom on business dress-codes. A couple of notches on the aircon dial can make a significant difference to carbon emissions, and, I believe, comfortable dress can make a significant difference to productivity. Also, ascription of a gender in the above hypothetical example is arbitrary and for purposes of simplification. To paraphrase David Brent, women can be bad too. Oh, and I’m really not as worked up about this as I sound — but, come on, we can do better than succumb to the reasoning that “it’s just not appropriate”. Shit, I’ve spent so much time writing this that I’m gonna go post it on my blog.)