The long, hot summer can drive men to strange places. The stifling weather tests our collective powers of reason, like air-conditioners taxing the power grid. The latest idea, which would mortify Oscar Wilde, George Plimpton or your grandfather, is for men to wear shorts into the office. Yes, dress codes are frowned upon by the casual generations, but do you really want to see your boss’s knees?
Summer in the city is intense. You wake on a Monday morning and stare at a diabolical heat index that’s just going to get worse. You may be consumed by feelings of professional insubordination when your presence is required in the office, especially if your boss is calling in from her country house. An email you sent to a European colleague bounces back to say he’s on vacation for another four weeks.
Your suit looks singularly uninviting. Maybe you gave up the suit years ago, but even your drab “business casual” options feel oppressive. Instead of a grinding commute, you want freedom, air circulation and thermal relief. You want, in other words, to wear shorts to the office.
Of course you do. Shorts are leisure, shorts are release, shorts are pleasure. Shorts are not on deadline, making stock trades or writing quarterly reports.
But the man who wears shorts to the office is telling everybody that he wants to be somewhere else. The fact that he really does want to be somewhere else does not excuse this. I know this is a time of perspired need, but please reconsider.
You know who wears shorts to work? World Cup referees. Their job is very different from yours. They sprint alongside elite athletes only to have their faulty decisions overruled by video officials comfortably sitting, fully be-trousered, in a climate-controlled studio. You know who doesn’t wear shorts to work? Anybody in a position of authority. That’s why a mafia don supposedly called James Gandolfini and complimented his acting in “The Sopranos” but offered one bit of advice: Dons don’t wear shorts. Salute!
Now, for those restive souls not involved in racketeering — meek meeting attendees, Slack posters, anybody gazing at Excel — please keep your legs covered with trousers, chinos, khakis, slacks, call them what you like. But a man in shorts does not run a meeting, file a motion or inspire confidence. Shorts belong on those policemen in Bermuda or camp counselors in a Wes Anderson film.
Did Don Draper, exemplar of midcentury Midtown chic, wear shorts to the office? Of course not. Did Gordon Gekko, corporate raider and breakfast abstainer, wear shorts to meetings with companies he was about to liquidate? No, he slicked his hair back, snapped his suspenders into position and feasted on insider information. What about a kinder office denizen, Jack Lemmon in “The Apartment”? Brooks Brothers-style suit, shirt and tie and a smile for Shirley MacLaine.
The office has changed since then. You don’t drink whiskey at Sterling Cooper, you hydrate from your Yeti as if you’re training for a marathon. You don’t have lunch at 21, you order a salad on an app. Yes, it’s all more casual now. We’re on Zoom. We work remotely. When I show up they should be happy with whatever I’m wearing. Well, part of office life is coming to terms with a certain amount of conformity, as unhappy as that sounds. No, it’s not fair, but you already knew that.
Is this a superficial, old way of thinking? You think that clothes are simple self-expression and this is all arbitrary? Then ask yourself if you’d hire a lawyer who wears spandex shorts in the courtroom. An accountant or agent who showed up to a meeting looking as if he stepped straight from a pool cabana? Clothing still has the power to convey expertise and to reassure. That’s why pilots wear uniforms. And you’d be turning right around on the jet bridge if you looked into the cockpit and spotted madras, bare legs and flip-flops.
But wait, you say, these are nice shorts, of tobacco linen made by a company that shot its lookbook on Ischia. Well, that’s great, save them for when you’re wearing espadrilles, nursing a Negroni and having lunch at three in the afternoon far from the imperatives of capitalist enterprise. But today we’re in the city, getting work done and possibly loathing our life. At least we’re wearing trousers.
This issue has crossed into Japan, land of salarymen and corporate conformity, where the “Cool Biz” initiative aims to casualize the office and save money on air-conditioning. Men are now allowed to show the knee. As expected, this has not gone smoothly. The Japanese news media describes women being overcome with a feeling of “sune-hara” — or “leg hair harassment” — at the sight of their male co-workers’ verdant limbs.
What we wear can diminish our standing, which is why it’s embarrassing when older men who should know better try to dress like teenage boys. It doesn’t make them look younger — it makes them look desperate. If you’re Picasso knocking off masterpieces in the South of France getting ready for your retrospective, then by all means, wear shorts. You can even lose the shirt, like old Pablo, as it’s part of your unflinching art. But think again if you have a pitch meeting.
You may point to a Silicon Valley man-child who proudly wears a T-shirt and ill-fitting jeans and uses a Ping-Pong table as a desk. These anti-clothes work for him. Why can’t they work for me, you ask? Well, if you run a company and are known by one name then you can wear shorts to your office. But remember, when these kings of the algorithm have to testify before Congress, they still show up and deny wrongdoing wearing a coat and tie.
Yes, clothes still matter. That’s an old-fashioned bargain, but then again, so are trousers.
