Working Fashion
August 6th 2009 07:18
I went to a media launch for a charity event yesterday and there were a few interesting outfits on display. The one that intrigued me the most turned out to belong to a TV producer. She was wearing a jaunty beret and a fur coat while the kids running around were dressed as Santas. I couldn’t decide who seemed more out of place. But her crazy ensemble made me ponder the notion of to what extent your occupation dictates your outfits. I know that a lot of people’s place of residence is affected significantly by where they work, so could the same be true of fashion?
In scouting around the city for evidence of my thoughts, I had to acknowledge that of course there are those occupations where what you wear every day is 100% determined by your job. Nurses, bank tellers and airline stewards for example. But when a uniform isn’t part of the equation, I wonder how many people’s jobs you could successfully guess based on what they’re wearing. There are a lot of stereotypes associated with occupations, and if they’re anything to go by, you’d be able to determine someone’s trade fairly easily I’d say. Or maybe people who have a certainly type of style are a certain type of personality and so are attracted to certain roles.
Regardless of which influences which, I do think that to a certain extent, what you do for a living has a fairly significant impact on how you dress. As I have discussed before, I have watched a colleague of mine dress increasingly like me as she spends more time in the world of PR. I also know from having worked in the arts that people employed in that industry do tend to have a certain look about them. And as much as I am about to perpetuate a stereotype by saying this, I honestly believe you can spot an arts worker by their ensemble and they tend to be part of that homogenous individuals group I blogged about not that long ago. Sadly I have to say that much of the arts crowd’s ensembles are identifiable due to their mismatchy-ness, crazy tights, bad (always flat) shoes and silly hats. In aid of possibly offending more people, I’ll also go out on a limb here and say that the majority of people who work in advertising agencies are either incredibly well dressed, or incredibly weirdly dressed, and people in IT seem to have nothing in their closets other than ill-fitting jeans and shapeless t-shirts.
I could be wrong, but to me it seems that what you do for a living has a pretty significant impact on what you choose to put on every day. I like to think the opening scenes of The Devil Wears Prada backs me up on this one too.
In scouting around the city for evidence of my thoughts, I had to acknowledge that of course there are those occupations where what you wear every day is 100% determined by your job. Nurses, bank tellers and airline stewards for example. But when a uniform isn’t part of the equation, I wonder how many people’s jobs you could successfully guess based on what they’re wearing. There are a lot of stereotypes associated with occupations, and if they’re anything to go by, you’d be able to determine someone’s trade fairly easily I’d say. Or maybe people who have a certainly type of style are a certain type of personality and so are attracted to certain roles.
Regardless of which influences which, I do think that to a certain extent, what you do for a living has a fairly significant impact on how you dress. As I have discussed before, I have watched a colleague of mine dress increasingly like me as she spends more time in the world of PR. I also know from having worked in the arts that people employed in that industry do tend to have a certain look about them. And as much as I am about to perpetuate a stereotype by saying this, I honestly believe you can spot an arts worker by their ensemble and they tend to be part of that homogenous individuals group I blogged about not that long ago. Sadly I have to say that much of the arts crowd’s ensembles are identifiable due to their mismatchy-ness, crazy tights, bad (always flat) shoes and silly hats. In aid of possibly offending more people, I’ll also go out on a limb here and say that the majority of people who work in advertising agencies are either incredibly well dressed, or incredibly weirdly dressed, and people in IT seem to have nothing in their closets other than ill-fitting jeans and shapeless t-shirts.
I could be wrong, but to me it seems that what you do for a living has a pretty significant impact on what you choose to put on every day. I like to think the opening scenes of The Devil Wears Prada backs me up on this one too.
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