Aug 20, 2025–Remember when casual Fridays became a thing? All of us who were relegated to office jobs looked forward to that one day each week when we could tear off the ties, put on our khakis, and lace up our tennis shoes.
But a funny thing happened on the way to J.C. Penney’s.
Once the camo got its nose in the tent, the next thing we knew was that every day became casual. Comfort trumped appearance. And we jumped on it.
Teachers lost the ties permanently. Bankers draped jackets over the backs of chairs. Tennies yielded to Crocs. The casual attire spilled out of the office into our everyday lives. Soon we were shopping in yoga pants and traveling in pajamas.
Thinking about this because a work colleague was telling about her wonderful day recently spent running errands. Not glamorous errands. We’re talking the grocery store, bank, and a fast-food restaurant.
What surprised her was the positive reaction she received everywhere she went. From men, women, friends, and complete strangers of all ages, one an elderly gent she ended up visiting with for 45 minutes in the grocery aisle.
What caused these positive interactions? Her outfit. She was dressed up. Not in a ball gown, but in a modest western-style black dress with bodice. Accented with a silver turquoise belt, and appropriate jewelry of necklace, earrings, bracelet and rings.
According to her, the conversations were friendly and random. One gentleman yelled across a parking lot how nice it was to see a woman in a dress. A fast-food employee “went nuts” over her jewelry and gave her an extra piece of chicken at the drive-thru.
“That is not normal,” she observed.
Both of us used to work in professional business settings, and we got to lamenting how something was lost when everyone went casual. As much work it was to tie a tie and shine your shoes, when you stepped out of the door you looked like a million bucks. Our parents’ generation was even more fastidious. Just look at old photos of the crowds at sporting events or strolling along city streets. Men were in white shirts and ties, ladies wore dresses and hats. Even the crowd at a hockey game could have sat down at a state dinner and looked right at home.
It is probably too late to go back to those days. It all fell apart when we began fearing conformity and started “finding ourselves” and “don’t make me wear the uniform, man.”
But maybe it’s time to consider taking some small steps back, this time while wearing shined shoes.
What if we started reversing the casual Friday trend by forming a Formal Friday? One day a week, let’s wear a clean white starched shirt, press those pants, polish those shoes, make sure your socks match, comb your hair, and pick out a tie that complements your face. If you are retired, put on a suit or a dress when you go to the store to buy your frozen dinner for one. You’ll feel better about yourself, you’ll look great, and you’ll surprise the heck out of everyone who is shopping in their baggy sweat pants.
This is not natural for me. I never embraced dressing up, going way back. I had a cousin who in the 1960s decided to wear dark pants, a white shirt, and a tie to school. Every day. In junior high. He didn’t care that the other students mocked him. In a few days, they just accepted it as a quirk. He went on to become a medical doctor, a pilot, and an officer who served in two branches of the military. I have to think, wearing a tie had something to do with it.
How you dress not only tells the world how to look at you. It tells the world how you look at yourself.
Maybe we all need to do a better job of that.