Goldman Sachs, Patagonia, and the Mysteries of “Business Casual”

A corporate logo on the breast of his synthetic-wool fleece vest suggested that he worked for the limited-liability company developing One Vanderbilt Place, a super-tall skyscraper going up on East Forty-second Street, where it will tower over the row of Madison Avenue men’s stores that are the enduring old corridor of establishment style. Later that month, the top three guys on the management committee of the Goldman Sachs Group devoted their absurdly valuable time to approving a five-sentence e-mail with the subject line “Firmwide Dress Code”; the message alluded to “the changing nature of workplaces generally in favor of a more casual environment” and urged employees to “dress in a manner that is consistent with your clients’ expectations.” The shop had just ordered a new print run of “Rebel Without a Suit: The Not-So-Casual Road to Casual Friday,” a brief history of the business-casual tradition, by Richard Press and Joseph Cosgriff.

Source: www.newyorker.com