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Ever had the urge to indulge your inner Anna Wintour and act as the fashion police? Reader M has a question along these lines…
Can we do a story on the extent to which permanent hires (i.e. me) can give unsolicited fashion advice to interns? I have worked in private practice for a number of years and am now at a government agency. Many of our female interns are taking the casual dress code here to the next level – “jeans Friday” does not mean your favorite yard work jeans, a sleeveless plaid tank, and Old Navy flipflops (I’m wearing dark wash trouser jeans, a Calvin Klein polo with bloused sleeves, and Cole Haan suede/patent skimmers). Many of our interns, let’s face it, would rather be in private practice but are spending their summer with us due to the economy. It’s more painful because the male interns are appropriately dressed (although I know it’s easier to pick out golf attire than a female jeans Friday outfit). Can I / should I say anything in the way of career advice?
How do you tell someone their outfit isn’t working — or worse, that their entire style needs to be rethought? It’s a difficult question — and i think we’ve all been on both sides of the issue. This blog partly grew from my frustration over this — both a) realizing belatedly that I’d been wearing completely inappropriate things, and b) not feeling able to say anything when I saw other women making fashion gaffes and wearing the “are you kidding me?” kind of outfits I saw at various points in my career. With summer, the flood of interns from colleges, law schools, and grad schools makes the problem only more magnified. When should you tell someone that their outfit is totally inappropriate?
In this blog’s early days we tried to run a poll on it, and of the whopping 35 people who voted (hey, we were barely a month old!), 51% said they would only tell her if you were good friends, 37% said you’d tell her if it was something she wouldn’t realize, and 3% said you’d tell her only if she’d embarrass the company.
What are your thoughts on what to do when someone’s dressing totally inappropriately for the office, either in the moment or on a systematic basis? (And, for the sake of a focused discussion, let’s set aside those times when it’s something the person didn’t realize, perhaps, until too late — a shirt that gapes open, a skirt that needs a slip, an unfortunate skirt-tucked-into-underpants moment — because there, we think, a piece of friendly advice or two (double-sided tape! you can borrow the slip I keep in my office! psst, your skirt is tucked into your underpants!) is always going to be welcome. )
ken o
Business casual was invented by men who did not want to wear ties, wool trousers and heavy leather lace-ups. It was not invented to let individual fashion tastes run free. So wear clothes that are comfortable for a long day in an air-conditioned office, but otherwise close to business wear.
Kimberly
I would love to be told, but just as a note many interns who are college students do not have corporate wear. So while I understand the frustration its not always possible to find Cole Haan a 19 can afford. Also their parents may not be able to help in such a way too. So yes only if you know the person should I feel you say something because you may not know the interns background. I say this as a current intern
Cary
Do not share your opinion unless she is your best friend
A new employee wanted to sue because we suggested a more conservative touch will be better to advance her career. We tried to do it politely but when she could not performed the job she decided she could use this comment against us. Well, good thing we document non-performers and after reviewing her results she quit on her own.
Kat
There is an intern at my firm who has hooker-hair. She has naturally curly hair, which she tries to straighten, but it doesn’t really work. The result is a head of hair which looks like it’s been teased out. It doesn’t really help that it’s really long, and not tied back, and that she wears heavy eye make-up to boot.
Should I say something? Or let it go? She’s not here much longer and she won’t be coming back. On the other hand…she may not get a job at another firm looking like that, and I’d like to help her if I can.
Melanie
3L law student here. I think the answer, from the intern side, is a solid “it depends.” If you think it’s the kind of faux pas that could materially impact whether the intern gets an offer, then definitely YES.
If you decide to go for it, know that she’ll probably feel a lot better if you (1) mention that you did the same thing or something analogous and wish someone had told you and/or (2) throw in some kind of compliment or positive feedback (e.g., “You’re just doing really great work here, and I wouldn’t want anyone to overlook that because they [are distracted by/got the wrong first impression from] your [cleavage/short skirts/casual clothes etc.]”).
For common/widespread issues such as the overly casual Fridays, I think the ideal approach would be to send an e-mail to all the female interns (or those you’re in contact with) or all the interns (if that’s a lot easier) suggesting guidelines for jeans Friday (or the standard dress code) and perhaps directly addressing the issue. Obviously this doesn’t work if only one person is messing up since everyone will know it’s addressed at that one person, but otherwise the mass email accomplishes your goal of informing these girls of their no-nos without making anyone feel singled out (and also saves you the time of speaking to individual interns).
Even better would be to preempt the most common gaffes by sending a group email at the beginning of the summer, before any fashion faux pas occur. I think everyone feels like they’re flying blind for the first week in a new office anyway and would greatly appreciate the insight. Maybe even just tell them about Corporette.com or send them all links to the most relevant and helpful posts (e.g., Dressing Professionally for Summer, What Not to Wear to the Office, What Not to Wear as an Intern or Summer Associate).