Walking into a bar is exactly what I did last Thursday evening. Earlier that day, I had flown into Kansas City, MO, where I was scheduled to conduct three presentations. Upon arriving, I immediately headed to my law firm client and worked with their on-site expert to ensure the technology worked perfectly. Afterward, I checked-in at my hotel, visited the hotel gym, and then headed out in search of a genuine Kansas City strip steak.

 

I found the perfect carnivore’s meal at a local chophouse. Because I, a single woman who usually scans newspapers while I dine, hate to take up an entire dining room table, I grabbed a seat in the restaurant’s bar. Doing so allowed me to observe the other clientele, who appeared to be mostly business people arriving for after-work drinks. Every gentleman was dressed in a suit and every lady was dressed in conservative business attire that screamed, “I am a successful professional.”

 

Truth be told, it was a nice change of pace. I’ve become inured to seeing serious professionals dress in what only a few years ago would have been considered extremely casual dress. Jeans, which were once utterly forbidden in most workplaces, have become commonplace. I fear we’re seeing the beginning of the proverbial slippery slope. Once jeans are viewed as acceptable, will employees soon feel free to wear torn and ratty dungarees into the office? Could the shorts worn to wash the car next show up at a boardroom meeting?

 

I write with absolute certainty that what style guru Tim Gunn calls the “slobification of America” risks making further in-roads into the workplace. Early this morning, I inhaled breakfast in a hotel dining room. I saw not one but two women enter the dining room wearing slippers—not sexy, little kitten slippers but the fat, plushy kind that one once saw only in a teen-age girl’s bedroom. I couldn’t help but wonder how soon it will be before we see adults padding around an office in a pair of footed jammies because they’re comfy.

 

I’m smart enough to know that “clothes don’t make the man.” There are plenty of great dressers who are rotten people. Think Bernie Madoff. But gosh I miss those days when people thought of others and dressed to please and impress them instead of focusing solely on their own comfort.

 

If you're about to start work as an intern, summer associate or new hire, consider dressing to impress.