.jpg?resize=720%2C405)
Having lived in Europe since the age of three, and returning to NZ in the late 80s, I didn’t particularly notice that the work attire was any different to anywhere else in the world, (I did notice, however, that everybody drove old cars, pre-imports). But as the years have rolled on, it has changed, not just here, but worldwide.
When I worked in fashion in London nobody, and I mean nobody, wore trainers to work; it would have been the epitome of bad taste, as trainers and ‘gym’ shoes were for sports. We all wore leather shoes; we attended functions and the arts, and shoes are one of the first things I still notice about people today.
It has become a lasting obsession for me as shoes (along with bags and watches) speak volumes about a person, without having to even engage with them (note: phones aren’t fashion items, they’re about practicality!).
In the early 90s Francis Hooper, my partner, began wearing trainers with suits. I’d never seen this before, and frankly I was appalled; it looked so wrong. I felt trainers were sloppy and cheap, not something you wore to work, much like jandals and Crocs.
Twenty years ago, the ‘sports’ brands started edging into the everyday market, not for sport, but for mainstream footwear and clothing.
They began to design for fashion and to use musicians and artists to design for their brands, tipping their toe in the water to see if it would work. They have never looked back.
You just have to look at most international black tie events – the Oscars, music awards and so on – and you’ll see artists in their Savile Row suits paired, more often than not, with ‘gym shoes’.
I recently bought myself a pair of ‘tennis shoes’ that I had to sell a kidney to acquire.
The suppleness of the leather, both inside and out, the colouring, the hand finishing. They were intrinsically impeccable. I had to actually stop myself to ask, ‘Where will I wear these?’. The answer was ‘Everywhere!’. I had succumbed!
Going back to the 60s in NZ, my mother and father both wore suits for work, with a hat, gloves and leather shoes. You couldn’t imagine them wearing Fred Perry tennis shoes with this attire, as they’d more than likely have been sent home from their jobs or carted off in a white coat.
Work attire has to be appropriate to the job you’re doing. If you’re face to face with the public every day, you have to dress accordingly. I wouldn’t expect an abattoir worker to wear a three-piece suit, just as a lawyer in overalls is never going to fly.
Now, as a fashion designer, I’m not dolled up like Lady Penelope every day; my days are spent designing and dressing others. I can be very casually dressed (never worn jeans, and never intend to), at work, often no makeup, but there’s still a certain code I go by. Hair is always clean, nails are either fully painted or not at all, chipped nails are not in my vocabulary, clothes are clean, and showering each morning and night is a given.
I would not feel good in myself, and would be setting a bad example to my staff, if these things weren’t done.
My head office team have much more leeway than retail staff, as they aren’t in the public eye. WORLD staff have to be impeccably groomed to a very high standard, that is part of our mantra, and I do not put up with sloppy. My customer wants to see staff in a high end, luxury store dressed accordingly; however, trainers are now acceptable.
Casual today can often be made from some of the world’s most expensive fabrics, including: vicuña, cashmere, Egyptian cotton, silk and linen. Casual doesn’t always come cheap.
Having said that, casual clothing and personal grooming have to go hand in hand, and that’s where people can let themselves down. With casual clothes it’s all down to how you wear them.
Dirty hair and clothes, scuffed shoes, dirty nails scream unkempt and sloppy, yet another person can wear the exact same thing, with clean hair and nails, polished shoes, pressed clothes, and it looks like they are not in the same outfit, such is presentation.
So it’s not about whether or not our work attire is too relaxed in NZ, but our attitude and our own pride in our appearance and self worth. What we do, what we wear, and how we choose to conduct ourselves… that is the test.
