Business Casual

My least favorite of them all is business casual, although I do have a somewhat fundamentalist view of this attire. After all, it is called BUSINESS casual, and therefore is unmistakably business dress. To put it in a nutshell: you should still look professional in business attire and be ready for business – and this will limit your options. But people recently started to take the business out of business casual (we’ll try not to point fingers at California), so today’s standards are sub-par, and that is a very diplomatic way to say it. In the 2011 movie “Crazy, Stupid, Love”, Ryan Gosling’s character Jacob Palmer felicitously remarked that New Balance sneaker are only excusable if you are the billionaire owner of Apple computer – the same is definitely true for an attire that is anything but well thought-through and put together. You owe that to yourself and certainly to the people around you!

First of all, business casual includes a jacket or a blazer, preferably dark colored and accessorized in the right manner (pocket square). Then, of course, anything but slacks, chinos, or dress pants should stay in the closet, unless you are on the Bermudas: there, it is actually (NO kidding!) absolutely fine to wear Bermuda shorts and high socks. But honestly: chances are that you are NOT on the Bermudas. So let’s forget that…

Besides your choice of pants, you do have a second option to differentiate your dress from official business attire: the shirt. While for business attire, only a few shirt options are truly viable, business casual leaves more room for your imagination. While it’s a no-go to wear button-down collared shirts with ties (only provincial insurance brokers and car salespeople do that and they should not get away with it!), those more sporty shirts are perfectly fine with business casual. You can even open that one (not two…) additional button if you feel like it. So, that gives you a lot more options…

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