Post-COVID office casual can be confusing. For business wear retailers, it has been rocky

Social media manager Rebecca Henninger says she prefers to wear a kind of “work outfit” — even if she is still working from home.

“I always put on shoes in my office. I just feel more professional and engaged when I’m dressed for the day,” said Henninger, who is also a career coach. “It does help you kind of not only be a little bit more productive, but also separate work from life.”

Millions of remote and hybrid workers — part-time in the office, part-time at home — have had to navigate the post-COVID fashion challenges. Maybe writing emails in your PJs is okay, but what if you have a meeting or job interview on Zoom?

The casual vibe that caught on during the pandemic, when many people had to work remotely from home, has also crept into the office. A 2023 Gallup poll found that 41% of Americans said they wore business casual attire and 31% wore street clothes. Just 3% of respondents said they wore professional business attire such as a suit and tie.

That trend started even before the pandemic. Google searches for such terms as “business casual outfits” and “casual work outfits” have gradually increased over the past decade, though they took a nosedive during the COVID-19 shutdowns in the spring and early summer of 2020.

Companies big and small, including Amazon and JP Morgan, are at various stages of return-to-office, with mixed success.

That has forced many workers to consider how they dress when they show up in public, whether it’s five days a week or a few hours a day for part of the week.

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And Zoom and Microsoft Teams conferences and Slack chats still reign over the white-collar world.

The shift has created some rocky terrain for fashion retailers that typically sold formal and business wear to office workers. And it has left white-collar workers questioning whether they need the white collar anymore.

“People are working from home more and from the office less,” said Neil Saunders, a retail analyst at the research and analytics firm GlobalData. “There has also been a general casualization in terms of what people wear, which has made dressing down for work more acceptable.”

Chains that offer business wear, such as Nordstrom and Express, as well as Banana Republic, with its office-appropriate “smart casual style,” have all suffered from the shift to more casual attire, starting even before COVID, and the pandemic only made it worse.

More formal office wear has "struggled in a market that is more casual," Saunders said.

Tailored Brands filed for bankruptcy in 2020 during the pandemic; it's the parent company of the suit chains Men's Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank.

"They have emerged as smaller entities with a change in ownership," Saunders said.

To pivot away from office fashion, Banana Republic, owned by Gap, entered the furniture and home decor market in 2023, only to exit just a year later.

Even though Nordstrom beat its Wall Street expectations for the third quarter last year, the chain only slightly raised its 2024 sales forecast in November, Reuters reported.

Some optimism for office fashion

But during the holiday season, spending grew the most for clothing, footwear and jewelry, according to recent data from Visa and Mastercard.

Spending on clothing and accessories grew 5% in 2024, versus 2.4% in 2023, Visa reported. Meanwhile, Mastercard data showed that apparel sales grew 3.6% — 6.7% for online apparel sales — while jewelry sales grew 4%.

Other brands have been cautiously optimistic. Gap — the parent company for Old Navy, Banana Republic, Athleta and its namesake brand — raised guidance and sales targets for the company last November after seeing a “strong start” to the holiday shopping season.

During the holiday season, shoppers spent $45.6 billion on apparel — up 9.9% from the previous year — according to data from Adobe Analytics.

A dress code at home?

So should you make more room in your closet by ditching the ties and button-down shirts? Not so fast.

Dressing up even for Zoom meetings “speaks to who you are. It’s your brand,” Henninger said.

Other factors also make a difference, such as blurring your background or using a themed background on Zoom meetings, she said. Maybe even invest in a ring light, which costs as little as $21 on Amazon.

During internal meetings on Zoom or Microsoft Teams, a worker might wear a “nice sweater or button-down shirt,” limiting suit jackets to meetings with clients, said Colleen Georges, a career coach in Piscataway, New Jersey.

A company dress code is “about your brand, your presentation to the outside world, to your clients, your customers,” said Julie Schweber, an adviser with the Society of Human Resource Management. “It can help set a professional level tone with employees.”

Professional services — think lawyers and accountants — are going to have a much more formal dress code, and that might also be expected at public-facing company events, said Michele Siekerka, president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.

“Financial services, bank branches, [you’re] not necessarily seeing people wearing ties … but business casual,” she said.

Daniel Munoz covers business, consumer affairs, labor and the economy for NorthJersey.com and The Record. 

Email: munozd@northjersey.com; Twitter:@danielmunoz100 and Facebook

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Post-pandemic casual trends are shaking up business fashion