Dressing Down.

What kind of image do you project through your dressing?

Although there has been a relaxing of the dress code in the business community in the past few years, appropriate business attire and personal image is still important. Your image of how you look, carry yourself, and dress speaks volumes about your mood, energy level, and attitude. People will judge your capability based on their impression of your general outlook including cleanliness, style, and the appropriateness of your attire.

Nowadays, it is rare to find a company that hasn’t implemented business-casual as the dress code on Fridays. And as such, this has made dressing for work much simpler than ever before. Research shows that generally, women spend less time getting dressed for work when the dress code is casual or business casual, while men, on the contrary, spend more time figuring out what to wear.

It is important to remember that a business-casual dress code doesn’t mean no dress code. There are still rules and guidelines to follow, depending on your location, industry, and individual company. What’s worse is that these rules aren’t always explicitly stated, so you may have to do a little detective work to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

The decline in semi-formal, professional dress has, unfortunately, led to informality in behavior and attitude as well. The best advice however, is to dress for work each day as if you were being interviewed, because in reality this is the fact Clients, coworkers, and higher-ups will be observing and making judgments and decisions based on your appearance on a daily basis. Knowing your audience and the workplace environment is an important component of dressing for success in today’s relaxed world.

Ask yourself these three questions every time, as you get dressed: Does this clothing fit me properly, is it too tight, too loose, or too short?