Blue Toe Nail Polish?

I want to add to Jiabei's post about the New York Times article on courtroom attire. Both this article and a story that a friend of Jiabei's and mine told me recently have gotten me thinking about the importance of workplace dress codes (both official and unofficial) and how far we, as employees, should push the boundaries of these codes. Must we stay safely within the guidelines or can we wear things that might be just over the line or surely right up against it?

This friend of ours when she was a summer associate at a business casual law firm painted her toes with blue polish and wore open-toed shoes to work. A female partner pulled her aside and told her that her toe nail color was unprofessional and that she should remove the polish. This friend then asked her associate mentor for advice on whether she should do as the partner said. The associate said that, especially in this economy, the friend should remove the polish to ensure she received an offer at the end of the summer. My friend did as she was told by the partner and the associate, but the experience influenced her decision not to accept her offer at that firm.

Was my friend right to wear blue toe nail polish and open-toed shoes to work? The judges mentioned in the New York Times article probably wouldn't think so. But my friend didn't think she was doing anything wrong. She wasn't trying to test the system. She is just a colorful person and painted her toe nails to express her personal style. But is my friend's intent to express herself even relevant to whether she did the right thing wearing blue polish to work? Maybe part of going to work each day is leaving our "selves" at home. Maybe employers are entitled to have "self"-less employees, and dress codes are a way to ensure that the workplace is a "self"-less place.

Assuming work is a "self"-less place, are employers right to make us check our "selves" at the door? This is a loaded question that often comes up in sociological studies of the workplace (for e.g. it comes up in scholarship on sexism and gender differences at work). Putting aside the larger philosophical and moral issues this question evokes, I think that employers are sometimes right to enforce dress codes at the expense of self-expression. An employer is justified in enforcing a dress code against an employee if that employee's attire interferes with the goals of the employer. For example, my friend's employer would be justified in making her take off her blue toe nail polish if her nail color made her a less effective courtroom advocate or dealmaker, if it offended clients or business contacts, or if it interfered with any other employee's ability to do his/her work.

But maybe this is too simple. I am already doubting my formula. Even if my friend's toe nail polish didn't interfere with her, or any other employee's, ability to do their jobs is she really justified in flouting the dress code (which lets assume prohibits colored toe nail polish)? The recent law student in me thinks "Oh no! Beware of the slippery slope!" What if my friend's cavalier toe nail painting encouraged other employees to violate the dress code? Eventually, inevitably, some employee would go too far and that employee's personal style choice would interfere with the employer's goal. So maybe it's better to nip the problem in the butt before it escalates, unfortunate as that would be for my friend.

So I guess I haven't decided whether I think an employer is only justified in enforcing a dress code at the point that an employee's attire interferes with the goals of the employer or whether the employer should also have discretion to enforce against minor deviations from the letter of the law of the dress code. Luckily, while this question is intellectually interesting and important to address in the long-term, it is not one that we need to know the answer to in order to know what to wear to work each day. My answer to the question of what you should wear to work each day is to dress conservatively. You should play it safe with your employer's dress code to ensure that you find yourself far from the black-and-white area in which your boss is clearly justified in telling you to change because your attire is causing an interference.

This is not to say that you can't have fun with your workplace attire. I would just be selective in how you choose to add flair to your work uniform. Identify the elements of your employer's dress code that leave room for originality and stand out through those elements -- Colorful pumps or handbags? A scarf? A patterned blouse? A long necklace? One of the goals of this blog is to help you find ways to flex your personal style even within the confines of a business formal office. If you would like advice on how to use a particular accessory or item of clothing to incorporate some flair into your look, please let us know in the comments. We would love to help!

Courtroom Clothing

Sarah's boyfriend shared a very interesting article with me this afternoon. It seems that the age old debate about whether conservative dress codes for women are sexist has hit the judges of the 7th Circuit.

What do you think? Should women be forced to cover up so that men don't feel uncomfortable? I personally think that dressing appropriately for work doesn't mean you need to stifle your personality (in fact, that's one of the main reasons for this blog), but come on, feminism is no excuse for showing cleavage or too much thigh in the courtroom. Women dressed inappropriately make me feel uncomfortable so why shouldn't they make a man feel uncomfortable as well? But perhaps I'm wrong, I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions on this issue.

Copyright for fashion?

Representative Delahunt from Massachusetts recently reintroduced the Design Piracy Prohibition Act before the new Congress (a Senate bill will follow shortly). The Act would give copyright-lite protection for fashion designs for the first time in the United States (a similar type of protection has been effective in the European Union since 2002). What is copyright-lite? It's not a legal term. It's my attempt at describing the less-than-full set of rights that fashion designers would receive under the Act relative to book authors, music composers, and screen writers (to name a few traditionally protected groups). Instead of the usual copyright term of life of the author + 70 years, the Act would only protect designs for a term of 3 years. Additionally, instead of the traditional "substantially similar" test for copyright infringement, the Act would make it harder to prove infringement in the fashion design context -- a plaintiff would have to show that the allegedly infringing design is "closely and substantially similar in overall visual appearance to a protected design" and that this similarity doesn't "merely reflect a trend."

Is this Act a good thing? Scholars have written about the consequences the Act would have for intellectual property law and for the economics of fashion. But what about for us --would this Act, if it became law, be a good thing for us? Would it lead to there being "better" -- i.e. more "original "** -- fashion at cheaper price points? If Forever 21 could no longer rely on the designs running down the runway at the Prada and Dior shows to be templates for the clothing it puts out season-after-season, might Forever 21 re-work its business model and hire a set of in-house designers to create “original” designs for the company? Surely, this would cost Forever 21 more money. Would we be willing to pay a premium for “original” clothing? The fact that stores like Forever 21 do so well suggests that many of us do not have a problem wearing "copies" of high fashion designs and would probably not put a very high premium on originality. On the other hand, H & M and Zara, which strive to add originality to their designs and which do not engage in the identical copying that Forever 21 does, also have booming businesses.

Whether we'd be willing to pay a premium for original clothing comes down to two things: (1) Do we like original clothing better or do we like looking like the people that wear high fashion and like each other (because Forever 21 et al. mass-produce these copies, many of us are bound to be wearing the same copied design, while Prada et al. recognize that exclusivity is part of the what makes their clothes valuable and so make many fewer of each design)? And (2) Do we feel that we have a moral obligation to wear clothing that is not an exact knockoff of a fashion designer's hard work? The second question is more personal, and each of us may feel differently about it -- for some this may be akin to stealing, while others might consider fashion designs to belong to all of us as part of the public domain.

An answer to the first question, I think, is more capable of generalization. Most women get a sinking feeling when they see another woman at a party or at work wearing the same outfit that they are wearing. For most women, then, some degree of originality is important. But most women also like to go out each season and buy a few on-trend ensembles. To be on-trend, by definition, these women have to wear things that look similar to what other women are wearing. So this seems to be a question of degree. Most of us want to look somewhat original and somewhat similar. In the comments, I would love to hear how "original" you like your clothing to be and how important looking "original" is to you. Does it matter how "original" each individual piece of clothing is or do you feel sufficiently original combining knockoff pieces with other pieces and accessories to create your own unique ensemble?

** I put "original" in quotes because truly original (as we usually think of the word) is hard to come by in fashion -- pretty much everything that can be done has been done. Instead, what's original is the unique combination and arrangement of already-done elements (e.g. florals, ribbons, fringe, etc.).