Abstract:
Getting dressed for work used to be pretty simple for administrative professionals
and other office workers. Men used to wear a suit and a tie, and women would
dress in a tailored dress or a skirt suit. In earlier days there was no variation in
fashion styles. But in the present, people are dressing down for office in
comfortable clothing instead of dressing up too formally. Business formal attire is
the most flattering clothing known for both men and women. But recently,
business casual attire and casual attire is becoming more popular among the
workforce. The newer generation has brought a much more different outlook on
work attire. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether work place
attires are becoming more casual, do employees prefer casual Fridays, do work
places have a business formal dress code, do employees prefer business formal
attire for work and what types of attire do employees prefer the most. This
investigative study is based on quantitative and qualitative research. The study is
confined to questionnaires which covered more than 100 employees in the fashion
industry in Sri Lanka. Secondary data were collected from books, articles, websites
and visual data such as pictures and photographs. The research found that
business casual attire is the most popular attire among employees, most of the
employees liked the idea of “casual Fridays”, and currently most organizations do
not have formal dress attire.
