How The Pandemic Has Changed The Typical Office Attire?

With nowhere to go and no one to impress with their current work-from-home setup, people are beginning to forget how their office dress code works. 

Did we really have to wear such uncomfortable clothing before? How was it possible for us to wear tight-fitting dress pants to work for years? 

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Now that people can stay in their pajamas or a sweater and jeans while they're technically meeting with clients via skype or zoom, there's a lot of anticipation about how the office wardrobe will change after the pandemic.

The Zoom Shirt

You do know what a Zoom shirt or blazer is, right? Basically, it is that shirt or blazer you have hanging at the back of your office chair at home. You put it on for every Zoom meeting while wearing your ratty old pajamas. Since no one can see the bottom part of your body, why bother to dress up at all, right? A survey, in fact, found out that only 10% of people working from home are still wearing office clothes in the morning and changing to more comfortable wear at night.

The Zoom shirt, of course, allows you to present yourself to your clients and colleagues professionally. Dressing in that manner will, at least, help you feel more polished and professional. People who do this are actually more productive than those who stay in their home clothes all-day-long. But during these Zoom meetings, employees don't have to be in full office attire. The research showed that the Zoom shirt is successful enough at pushing workers to become more productive.

The Key Difference

The stark difference between pre-pandemic office clothes and the kind of work-from-home outfit you see today is the degree of comfort level. At home, you don't need to be in stilettos or formal black shoes. You can be in your slippers, and your Zoom colleagues won't know any better. The comfort level of not having to wear formal office clothes is astonishing. No one will want to go back to donning a pair of trousers to go to work ever again. Right?

There has been a lot of development in the retail industry for decades. One of these developments is the production of comfort shoes for women. No longer should women subject their feet to stilettos that cause so much pain they could no longer walk by the end of the day. Shoe manufacturers were able to come up with a solution to that.

It's not just in women's fashion that retail technology played a role. Men have access to anti-wrinkling and sweat-proof undershirts. Breathable formal shirts allow them to wear comfortable clothes despite looking dapper and stylish. Comfort and fashion didn't always go together, but technology made them work.

The Post-pandemic Office Wardrobe

There will be a lot of changes in the office wardrobe post-pandemic. Chances are that employees will be more relaxed about these dress code restrictions. In fact, the pandemic will even open up their eyes to the importance of making sure the workers feel comfortable. They will be more understanding of the fact that allowing workers to wear comfortable clothing is the best way to treat them.

Employees are not going to go back to wearing the traditional office wardrobe. There is no way that they will want to be in a suit when they go back to work. But there's also no way they will be in sweatpants when they go to a meeting. Instead, they will begin mixing these two elements-professional and comfort-together.

For the most part, that means relying on comfortable textiles, styles, and silhouettes. There will be some elements of the house clothes-sweatpants, ratty old shirts, and fluffy slippers-but not to the extent that the employees will look unprofessional. But because they have been cooped up in their homes for so long, the workers will also want to reinvent their styles. The post-pandemic world, after all, is a new life so society is bound to see some new office looks based on what they deem comfortable and stylish.

The traditional office wardrobe will see so many changes in the coming years. Not only are employees more careful and more aware of their mental well-being right now, but they are also more adamant about their rights. After a year of being cooped up, they surely cannot wait to wear their favorite office shirt but not before some rules are renegotiated such as the wearing of comfortable shoes instead of dressy ones. 

It has been a year of chaos, but that does not mean people will want to go back to how things were before. If anything, they want the good changes to stay and stick around.

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