The demise of casual?
Reports of the decline of casual dressing
continue to bubble up in the media. Recent articles in USA
Today and the Detroit News proclaimed that the suit and tie are
back, replacing golf shirts and blue jeans in the pantheon of
workplace attire.
According to USA Today, dress pants and
dress shirts, jackets, suits and ties have made a comeback in
“America’s board rooms and bar rooms.”
Faced with a lackluster job market,
employees are taking “dress for success” to heart,
favoring more tailored dressy attire with classic styles. Some
companies are reversing the casual dress codes that grew in
popularity in the 1990s.
Retailers are enjoying the trend, the
newspaper reported, because it is beefing up men’s
apparel sales at stores ranging from the high-end of Neiman
Marcus to discounters like Target. Men who had opted for more
casual styles now are digging through their closets looking for
the old suits and finding them either out of date or not
fitting as well as they did a few years ago.
Sales of men’s tailored clothing
surged 19 percent from January to June of this year.
Men’s Wearhouse Inc., the largest
publicly-traded U.S. specialty men’s retailer, saw its
April 2004 sales jump 13 percent, to $123.4 million compared
with a year ago. The Houston-based chain cited the rebound in
sales of business attire as part of its increased profits.
Other retailers have picked up on the
trend. Gap Inc., the largest U.S. clothing retailer, and Hong
Kong-based Tommy Hilfiger Corp. are expanding and updating
men’s suits and career wear. Even discounter Wal-Mart
Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, is including
suits in its clothing line.
Part of the shift from casual to dressy
also may be due to a societal change. Ellen Tolley, a
spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation in Washington,
DC, told the Detroit News that “We don’t see a lot
of grunge on TV anymore. We see actors dressed up. It’s
cool to look dressed up compared to a few years ago when it was
cool to have holes in your jeans.”
Then there is the backlash over
“Casual Fridays” that had become too casual.
Ed Nakfoor, a retail analyst in Michigan,
told the News that he is glad to see he demise of corporate
casual.
“In theory it was a good idea, but I
think the workers of America were given so much rope they hung
themselves,” said Nakfoor, referring to the faded
T-shirts, dirty gym shoes, low-cut tops, stretch pants and
faded jeans spotted at some workplaces.
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