Dress Ode

Given the state of remote work in this country, many ad agencies are looking for ways to keep their employees on top of things. Because they know that focus is lost after reading the slightest click-baity headline or eating a piece of juicy fruit - not the gum, the fruit. There’s no going back to real work once you’ve read a compelling listicle or bit into something without any resistance. So it won’t be easy getting them to see the light.

Look at any photograph from 100 years ago or more and what do you see? But before you do that, how about recognizing what you don’t see? You don’t see people wearing cut off jean shorts, ironic t-shirts or really t-shirts of any kind. Dressing casually simply wasn’t done. Even jailbirds dressed sharply in those days. People dressed up no matter where they were going - to the privy, to the gallows, to the churchyard. They wore suits, ties, vests, slacks, and hats. Everyone looked the same back then, but that was sort of the point. It kept things in order - those who dress alike, think alike. 

I like the idea of a strict dress code for working from home. Where I part company with companies is a matter of degree. I don’t think mandating a uniform is adequate to subdue a bubbling, boiling, exploding workforce. You need to do a bit more than ban paisley and polka dots if you want your people to fall in line. There are books you must read, foods you must eat, things you must say. And your pets must wear clothes, too. The brainless acceptance of universal animal nudity is one of the great issues of our time. And it’s high time we placed ponchos over Pomeranians, skirts onto squirrels and balaclavas on birds. Where’s that platform plank in the talking points of either political party? Give it time and it will be there. When the sight of another naked pigeon sends a sanitation worker to the ballot box casting a vote for himself instead of some DC technocrat. Every issue starts somewhere. 

A job can tell you what to wear without telling you why to wear it. It's how fashion trends can take hold through cold business intervention. What if mullets were forced on all employees over the age of 15? For one thing, the world would be a better place. You'd start to see your employees as more than people. I want to be told what to wear and what to think. But if you want the latter, you must embrace the former. That the little camera at the top of your laptop is a mirror, too.