Now that most of the world has adjusted to a hybrid work schedule, with more people working outside of a typical office than ever before, there seems to be a romanticism about what once was. Suddenly, office wear, business casual, and formal accessories are… desirable? Naturally, people aren’t really wearing them to the office either.
This past fashion month, from Saint Laurent to Kallmeyer to Calvin Klein to Sergio Hudson to Hermès to Ferrari to Co—the list goes on and on and on—models wore blazers and button-downs. They wore ties and loafers. They carried top-handle bags with a sense of urgency, as if stomping down Wall Street themselves. There wasn’t anything experimental or subversive about it. It just felt like designers were pulling inspiration for a changing work ecosystem, where dressing for the office is becoming somewhat a thing of the past. And even though offices are by no means obsolete, and the hybrid schedule for most is no longer quite as flex, it just doesn’t feel like it used to. And likely never will.
(Image credit: Launchmetrics)
(Image credit: Launchmetrics)
Having been removed from dressing for the office as we once knew it, we can look at it now with a different perspective. It no longer feels like something you have to wear, and so it quickly becomes something you actually want to wear.
(Image credit: Launchmetrics)
(Image credit: Launchmetrics)
It’s fun to wear a shirt with a built-in tie or carry around a top-handle bag with nothing important in it when there isn’t the pressure of fitting into some mold or wondering if you’re breaking some kind of spoken or unspoken dress code. Dressing for the faux office of everyday life is just way more fun, and something we’re guaranteed to see so much more of in 2025.