Office Attire
Your guide to dressing well (affordably) to, from, and at the office.
A few days back I received a DM from a fellow named Archer Crane, a young guy staring down the barrel at the world of business casual office attire. He’s wondering, as many are, where and how to dress for the professional world. As my good friend Elliot so eloquently put in his video below, the 21st century office is plagued with synthetic golf polos, stretch athleisure pants, and the ever-repulsive dress sneaker. In this article I hope to outline some concrete strategies for building an office appropriate wardrobe that’ll be comfortable and presentable inside and outside of the cubicle.
I’ll start by outlining some basic “blocks” you can work within that’s appropriate for most offices. We’ll look at a few different ways to style a workplace outfit before going into what pieces you’re going to want to accumulate. In this section I’ll highlight some staple items you might want to focus on acquiring, and key strategies for finding these pieces 2nd hand (key words, notable brands etc). It’ll be covering the following categories:
footwear
bottoms/trousers
shirting
knitwear
tailoring/outerwear
If you’re looking for a little primer, I do recommend you check out my online 2nd hand shopping guide if you’re a bit new to the practice.
Office Outfit Inspiration
Below are some inspiration images I tossed together, loosely categorized by what’s going on up top. The formula itself is pretty simple:
bottoms: a straight fit chino or trouser, and if the office allows, a darker wash jean
tops: a knit sweater, knit/pique polo, or button-up shirt
outerwear: a blazer
footwear: leather/canvas sneakers, dressier boots, leather lace-ups/loafers
Within the limited confines of menswear deemed acceptable by contemporary office culture, you can get pretty creative with texture, pattern, material, tucks, and light accessorizing. Now let’s get into some examples.
Here are some cool examples of less-typical shirting choices that can add a bit more flare and intrigue into your looks. On the left we’ve got a more utilitarian twill shirt with button-pockets that’s elevated by the skinny dress belt and pleated trousers paired with it. In the middle, a point-collar pearl snap fap pocket shirt that, again, gets take up a notch by the addition of a tie. Lastly, a denim shirt might not be the best option for an office unless it’s fully jazzed up with a well tailored suit.
Building off of tailoring there’s a few different directions you could go in with this set of images. Across the board, but especially in the top three images, we see great examples of combining rougher textures like denim, duck cloth, and corduroy with dressier fabrics like poplin, and worsted wool - not to mention the various pattern combinations at play. The bottom four images are examples of knit and pique polos paired with tailoring. Polos, particularly pique polos, often get a bad rap, but I think there’s plenty of ways to style them in a chic and comfortable fashion.
Especially for the upcoming months, the knit sweater button-up combo is ubiquitous for a reason. Offering comfort, warmth, clean layering, and the option to pop a layer off, it’s fully functional and nearly formal. Again, the aim of these inspiration images is to broaden your horizons when it comes to styling this traditional block. Top left Alain Delon’s chunky shaker stitch v-neck, or the big fisherman (bottom middle) is something you wouldn’t typically expect compared to the more typical styling in the two images on the right (another great way to style this block, especially with those big double pleated chinos). Finally I love the big-collar-over-the-blazer look from Jack Nicholson, and the deep-v-neck tie pairing from Husbands Paris in our top middle space.
Lastly, here are the rest of the inspiration images I found while researching this piece. Bit of a smorgasbord, but I think there’s some good stuff in here. Love the simple shirt and tie look from Richard Gere up top, take note of the tight knot and generous fit on the shirt and pants. If we were all Miles Davis then we could all pull off that ascot, I can’t but I’m sure a few of you could. Two simple long-sleeve polos, one thin and tucked, the other thick and untucked, both work. Finally I love the addition of a glowing, cream shetland sweater, whether on-body or slung over the shoulder.
Colour
Finally I want to talk about colour. There’s a lot of strange, confusing, and not very compelling colour choices that men get faced when shopping. If you’re looking to build a cross-compatible, highly flexible wardrobe for the office, I recommend sticking to neutrals, earth tones, black, white, blues and a few easy pastels like butter yellow, maaaaybe a lilac purple. Build the foundation on easy-to-pair colours and focus on adding interest with pattern and texture instead. It’s easiest to introduce colour with choice accessories - green lenses in your sunglasses, a red scarf, a purple tie etc. Don't let me stop you from experimenting, this is just the easiest and most effective way to kick-off a stylish office wardrobe.
What + Wear to Buy
Now I’m going to break down how to find the perfect items for your office wardrobe. We’ll begin bottom-up with footwear, then move onto pants, shirting, knitwear, tailoring, and finally accessories.
Footwear
Styles:
Obviously this all comes. down to personal preference but here are a few styles of shoes I find pair particularly well with the outfits we’re aiming to build.
Sneakers: for sneakers I say keep it simple with a low-top leather or canvas shoe, ideally in a neutral/dark colour.
Loafers: penny loafers are an obvious choice but you can always slim things. down with a Belgian, or add some spice with a set of tassels, or a horsebit.
Boat shoes: I love the look of an all leather or dark suede boat shoe, I think they wear a lot dressier than people expect and make for a great bit of elegant summer footwear.
Lace-ups: there’s a ton of very directions you can take lace-ups, from a lugged out brogue, to a classic 4-eye derby, to a moo-toe Paraboot. Don’t be afraid to mess around a bit.
Boots: a sleeker dress boot makes for a great choice of office footwear, particularly in fall and winter. Personally I like a slimmer almond toe Chelsea/side-zip boot with a generous heel.
You can also find more in-depth intel in my three footwear guides listed below:
Keywords:
made in _______ (primarily Italy, England, USA) - country of origin isn’t always a guarantee of quality, but some parts of the world have a long history of crafting footwear and therefore output a higher number of quality pairs of shoes.
Goodyear Welted - a style of construction that allows the sole to be replaced by a cobbler, often a sign of good craftsmanship.
Bench Made - a term often indicating smaller batch, largely hand-made footwear.
Shell Cordovan - one of the highest quality, most desirable leathers used in formal footwear, Horween is another good term.
Brands:
Alden
J.M. Weston
Solovair
Gucci
Prada
Church’s
Todd’s
RM Williams (dress boots)
John Lobb
Crockett & Jones
Carmina
Tricker’s
Paraboot
G.H. Bass
Loake
Ferragamo
Allen Edmonds
Bally
Belgians