Office dress code: Have we gone too casual, or are the days of formal workwear over? | Talking Honey

Thongs and office are two words that don’t typically exist in the same sentence. 

Where thongs are often associated with the beach, the office has long been a place with an entirely different, and much more formal, dress code.

If someone is to bring up office wear, images of everything from dress shirts and blazers to pantsuits and kitten heels likely conjure up like a mental Pinterest board.

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It’s no different to doctors wearing scrubs or students wearing uniforms to school.

But in recent years with more and more Gen Z people entering the corporate workforce, the lines between business and casual have begun to blur.

Watch the video above

Gone seem to be the days when you had a separate wardrobe for work and off-duty. 

Blazers have become an everyday accessory for brunch with the girls in what is becoming its own “business casual” style.

Meanwhile, jeans and sandals have snuck their way into the office.

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But at what point does casual dressing go too far for the office environment?

Well, the Talking Honey panel has weighed in on the dress code debate.

The panel was comprised of Shelly Horton, Nine radio presenter Deborah Knight, Nine Entertainment Editor Richard Wilkins, and tennis commentator and author Jelena Dokic.

The general consensus (sorry casual dress lovers) is thongs are best left at the beach.

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In fact, it’s an immediate thumbs down from Nine radio presenter Deborah Knight.

But according to the panel, the answer is a bit more nuanced for other casual clothing items like shorts and singlets that have historically been street style staples. 

In Wilkins’ opinion, “It depends where you are, what the climate is” for shorts.

One thing Knight loves is that the rule book has been thrown out the window. 

“There’s no rules anymore and it’s practicalities taken into account as well as you’ve got to factor in where you are in the setting,” Knight says. 

One shoe that has slowly become become accepted in the corporate world is sneakers.

While styles like the Adidas Sambas and Hokas currently all the rage in business casual fashion, Dokic finds there’s a perk to wearing heels.

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“I think it makes you feel a bit better, you maybe walk a little bit taller as well,” she says.

“But again it depends,” she adds, noting her own experience of having to be on her feet for hours doing commentating work.

The panel then steered the conversation to going barefoot in the office, which stirred up some very different and strong opinions. 

Take a look at what they had to say in the video above. 

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