Can you work in pants? If your office attire is the laid-back, current kind, the quick answer is likely well. If you can use a T- clothing rather than a shirt, or a dress without tights, if jackets are recommended, next well, you can wear shorts to operate.
But that doesn’t answer the question. Get me, for example. The Guardian practices are essentially dress-code-free. Nothing can stop me from wearing pants to operate. But am I? Do I? That’s a total different topic.
And more of us are asking about it. There are good economic and environmental factors to have a wardrobe of functional pieces that you multitasking, and the weather is blurring the lines between clothes for the summertime months at home and holiday pieces. On the high street, I’m hearing that the dresses that can be dressed up for a wedding or down for a holiday dinner, for example, are the ones that will sell best this summer. So why should shorts be prohibited just because you are on duty?
However, dressing well for work is more important than following a dress code, just as there is more to being good at your job than not breaking your job description. Being good at your job – or at anything, actually – is about standards, as much as it is about skills. One of the reasons why wearing shorts in the office seems challenging is, in my opinion. We associate shorts with activities for which we deliberately dress down, perhaps because whatever you wear will get grubby or sweaty – sport, walking, gardening, lolling about on the grass.
Look, I’m not saying shorts are slobby, I’m just saying that “polished” is not the first adjective that springs to mind when you think of them. And then there’s the age issue. At work you need to be a grownup. That’s what you want in your colleagues, right? You want them to be grownups. And we associate shorts with childhood, which makes them feel like a weird way to caption yourself.
In other words, if you wear shorts to work, you need to think it through. Let’s face it, when you walk through that door, your shorts will be the first thing people will notice. But it’s worth doing, because if you walk in and your boss or co- worker immediately thinks, “I wasn’t sure if shorts would work in the office but now I realise they can”, that is not just a win, but a win- win.
If you state clearly that you are choosing to work, rather than that you accidentally forgot to set your alarm, it works in your favor. A never-changing work wardrobe can make you look a little sleepy, which is n’t a good office vibe. So you look ready to face anything if you arrive in shorts looking sharp, which we have determined is not simple to do.
There are two formulas to making shorts look professional. You can wear smart, custom-fitting shorts as you would a pair of tailored pants. I would recommend a crisp shirt, a belt, loafers and socks. Keep everything in neutral colors so you don’t look like you are about to crew a boat, and don’t team shorts with a polo shirt, which might be preppy overload. No jacket, either. You might think adding a blazer will make you look more sophisticated, but it will actually make you look like a toddler pageboy.
As seen in this example, it would be better to pair shorts with a blazer. Floaty shorts seem like a more daring option, but I’d say they are the more advantageous choice. If you know what I mean, they blend in with the summer-dress landscape rather than yell at me to be shorts. Add a blazer and you have a smart summer outfit that is SFW and wearable for weekend lunch. To answer the question: yes, you can wear shorts to work. Don’t, however, let your artistic standards prevent you.