It was called many things among the trendsetters of the California tech set — Jeans Day, Dress Down Day, Free Dress Day, and, most evocatively, Grub Day. The name that stuck: Casual Friday.
And we’re still stuck with it, though it is no longer just a Friday phenomenon.
The trend was spotted over 30 years ago by writer Mary Gottschalk, who chatted with some of the culprits. One of the earliest adopters was marketing man Donovan Neale-May. He launched his eponymous firm in 1987 and from the get-go went for a Friday dress code that was decidedly informal. “It’s definitely a morale-builder,” he told the reporter, arguing the practice broke down hierarchies. “It has an equalizing effect.”
But perhaps the first was lawyer Bud Coddington, who was well ahead of the curve with a come-as-you-are policy as early as the late ’70s. He had “felt guilty” about showing up to work, as he sometimes did, in tennis clothes and thought it was only right to give the staff the same freedom. Not that it was anything goes. As of 1989, the crew at Coddington, Hicks, & Danforth were allowed to wear what they wanted to, but only on Fridays in the summer. Just about everyone would wear jeans and enjoy an afternoon ice cream break.
Bud Coddington may no longer be with us, but the firm he founded persists. Take a look at its website, particularly the page with photos of the firm’s attorneys. The men are all in suit and tie; the women all in jackets. (None of them are eating ice cream.) It’s delightful to see that well after most of the Western world has adopted Casual Everyday, a company that pioneered Casual Friday still feels obliged to present itself as buttoned-down.
The last couple of years, of course, it hasn’t mattered. In the age of COVID, no one went in. And so, the question of how to dress at the office was, as the lawyers like to say, moot. For a little while, it looked like that would never change. The new workforce appeared to have the upper hand, and that meant the office was nothing more than a place with a foosball table and cold-brew coffee on tap.
But the world in which no one had to go to work proved to be short-lived, technology notwithstanding. Even tech titans, who could have been expected to champion the tech-dependent world of working wherever, realized people are more productive when they are in an office.
The problem is that no one wants to go into the office on Fridays. Citing data from Kastle Systems, the Washington Post reports that less than a third of those with office jobs actually show up on Fridays. The paper quoted a Wharton professor: “Even before the pandemic, people thought of Friday as a kind of blowoff day.”
According to the Post, hipster corporations are split on whether to woo workers with Friday taco trucks or just go all Gallic and switch to a three-day week.
I’ve got a different idea. If dressing down led the way to thinking that Fridays were optional, maybe dressing up will remind the modern office worker that Fridays aren’t an adjunct to the weekend. Let’s call it Formal Fridays.
The Post chirps that employers are luring their workers with “costume contests.” Excellent idea. Yes, by all means, do. But make the costume in question a gray flannel suit. The prize goes to the man with the most correct four-in-hand-knotted tie, or to the woman with the scarf most elegantly tied to the handle of her purse.
Yes, let’s have lots of prizes on Formal Fridays. The prerequisite for winning is twofold: 1) Dress like an adult; 2) show up for work. How hard can it be?
Eric Felten is the James Beard Award-winning author of How’s Your Drink?
