The impression of work wear attire in the apparel industry

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.