Behind the Ironic Column

I realized recently that I miss getting dressed.  Not that I’m a nudist or a naturist — I’ve had my foray down that path and decided it wasn’t for me.  But that’s another whole story.  What I’m thinking about now is the putting on office clothes and going out to work kind of getting dressed.  I know that’s kind of weird for Portland where dress is mostly extremely casual — especially if you work in IT where you can often wear jeans and t-shirts with no repercussions.  But I spent a large chunk of time in Washington, D.C., where going to work in jeans wouldn’t have been accepted. 

Most of my work now is virtual — and, until I get a webcam, that means I can wear anything I want.  The flip side of that is that no one cares. So, I could dress up but I don’t need to in order to work. I do know some people who work from home offices who dress more formally, because they say it helps put them in a work frame of mind, but I don’t need to do that.  I do draw the line at working in pajamas as some of my compatriots do — that would be distracting to me. 

So I definitely have daytime work clothes, but they’re not like “going out and working with other people” clothes.  I was searching through my closets for something last week and looked at all the things I no longer wear.  According to all the free advice handed out by organizers, if you haven’t worn something in six months you should get rid of it.  I tend to think that’s a ridiculous standard.  Some of these things I haven’t worn since the last time I had a meeting in a warm climate — but that doesn’t mean I may not have one next month.  Certainly I don’t wear them every day, but that’ s no excuse to eliminate them.  Anyway, I found myself thinking wistfully of the summer office clothes I used to wear. Except for the part about wearing heels, I enjoyed those summers.  It was hot and sticky in D.C., much more so than anything we imagine in Portland, but we coped with it.  And most of the office buildings were kept cold enough that I could wear my linen blazers inside.  D.C. was always a pretty conservative town as far as fashion went, so we did all those things like wear the floppy silk bow ties.  They were fun in their way — I still have a couple of my favorite ones somewhere, although I did let the rest of them go several years ago. 

On the plus side, it’s a lot cheaper to wear jeans and turtlenecks, or shorts and t-shirts.  I have enough of both to last easily for 10 years and never spend another nickel on wardrobe.  But they’re not that much fun. 

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