Struggling with style

SUMMER’S ARRIVAL in the northern hemisphere brings with it a dilemma that plagues every office worker. What does a casual dress code mean in practice? The happy medium between looking like Kim Kardashian or Hagrid the giant is hard to pin down.

Goldman Sachs has just implemented a “flexible dress code” although the executive memo noted gnomically that “casual dress is not appropriate every day”. Besuited corporate clients might not take kindly to investment-banking advice offered by someone wearing a tank top and ripped jeans.

It makes sense that banking would be one of the last bastions to fall to the advance of casual workwear. You want the people who look after your money to appear sober and respectable. For similar reasons, bank headquarters have deliberately been built in a grandiose style to emphasise the institution’s financial solidity and historical roots. Depositors might hesitate about handing over their savings to people working under a railway arch.

For men, the move to casual dress seems entirely positive. Few people will mourn the demise of the tie, a functionally useless garment that constricted male necks for a century. The tie’s origins date back to the 17th century, when mercenaries hired by Louis XIII of France wore a form of cravat. The modern version of the tie emerged in the 1920s and...