Rude? Or Just Clueless? Or Something Else?

So a while back (I'm not telling you how long, but I did finally resurrect it from my inbox, so if you're still waiting for me to post something you sent me, take heart) ... where was I? Oh, yes. A while back, Dress A Day reader Carrie sent me this story. It seems she had bought an inexpensive wrap dress that was featured in a "work wardrobe" story in Glamour mag -- nothing fancy, just a $20 wrap dress from Wal-Mart. Carrie was a bit nervous about it (it being $20, and from Wal-Mart) but she tried it on and it was pretty good quality and (being a wrap dress) really flattering. And it was black with a subtle purple dotted swirl pattern, which she liked. So she bought it.

She was about two weeks into a new job (thus the acquiring a work wardrobe part) and had to go to a training session at a customer site. Great time to pack a wrap dress, right? It doesn't take up much space in a suitcase or wrinkle. (Carrie is in clinical sales; she was traveling to a hospital to represent her company and train a few people in the lab on how to use a piece of diagnostic equipment. Having worked in the field for a few years, she figured that it would be business casual, meaning no jeans, but no suits, either.)

Carrie thought (and I agree) that the dress was simple enough and could pass for business casual or slightly nicer. She wore it with pumps and hose and small silver hoop earrings. Unexceptionable, right? But her two coworkers told her that she was overdressed and would intimidate the customer! In a $20 Wal-Mart dress!

Carrie responded only by praising the comfort and convenience of the dress, and tried to let it go ... only to have dinner weeks later with two colleagues who ended up mentioning that they had heard about it!

I think that her co-workers (or cow-orkers, in this case) were way out of line. First of all, it's a hospital, full of doctors ... doctors are not going to be intimidated by a simple wrap dress. Then, of course, it's always rude to comment on peoples' clothing, unless you are complimenting them (or telling them a slip is showing, etc.). It's doubly rude to say something deflating if the person has no chance to go and change.

(To make the story complete we have to give you Carrie's description of her critics. "The 'business specialist' [basically a technical sales person] wore navy dress 'slacks', a hawaiian button-down shirt, and an ill-fitting khaki blazer. The other co-worker, the woman doing the training [Carrie was observing her to learn the training] wore khaki dress pants and a coral sweater twinset with a ring of smallish faux crystals along the neckline.)"

I can't imagine that "intimidating the customer" was really the issue ... I'm sure it was something else. Hazing of the new girl? An international conspiracy of pants manufacturers to bulldoze dress-wearers into pants-wearing compliance? What do y'all think?

(The dress above isn't the one Carrie bought, but a similar one from Wal-Mart.)

Comments

[Hannah]

Yes, must have been something personal. A wrap dress like that is not overdressed (or under) but somewhere in the middle. How silly (and hurtful) people can be.

[Jesse]

You know, it's funny -- my boss is weirdly obsessed with my clothes. She's always saying how well-dressed and fancy I am, and I'm convinced it's just because I wear skirts and dresses most of the time. I don't actually think my skirt and sweater is so much "dressier" than my coworkers' pants and sweaters or whatever, but somehow having my legs exposed makes it a whole nother thing. I say whatever -- I'm not going through the hassle of tracking down pants that fit. Skirts and dresses are so much easier!

[mickey]

Sounds like intimidation but not of the customer---the pants-wearers couldn't hack the simple perfection of the dress. Shame.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like junior high antics to me. It's a great dress--I'd even brave the dreaded Wal-Mart if they carried it in my size. Carrie, you'll get your laugh (secretly, I'm sure) when you're promoted ahead of them. Laura Anderson

[enc]

Simple jealousy was at the back of all that!

[Theresa]

Ridiculous! and I agree with all the other commentors. One of my co-workers and I, nearly always wear dresses (including wrap dresses) and have been told to be "careful what we wear" when certain high ranking military and civilian come to our office. (We're not talking short and plunging necklines here either.) I wore a black and white houndstooth wrap dress and one older coworker looked at me and said "whatever." People are also overly concerned with my high heel pumps (2-3 in). "Don't my feet hurt?" No, I'm quite comfortable thank you. (I don't do loafers). So to Carrie, I quess fashionably dressed women are intimidating to the fashion challenged.

[twollin]

Yep, I go along with the opinion about "dress and skirt wearing" vs. "pant wearing". What those women were afraid of was that she, the observer, was going to look higher up on the food chain than they did because she wore what they perceived as a higher level of dress. Reading the description of what they wore, shame on them for wearing poorly made clothing of any type. A nice dress of any type will trump garbage-y "business casual", so it always behooves (if that is the correct spelling) women who wear business casual to buy quality outfits. Personally, I hate business casual and I especially hate the use of "golf shirts" as part of that uniform (I've had to wear it numerous times for trade shows) - unless they are getting women's sizes (which they usually do not since they get the best pricing on one style rather than mixing styles), the shirts generally fit badly on women of any size. OK, that's my rant for the day.

[layzbugs]

I have a Walmart wrap dress. I've worn it with peep toe pumps and a lace camisole to a very swanky Manhattan restaurant. I've worn it with flats to a PTA meeting.It certainly doesn't sound as though Carrie was overdressed. Bottom line: if she was comfortable and felt good she did fine.

[Cassie]

She was not genuinely overdressed, but a skirt of any type makes most people Dressed Up. Again with the me not wearing dresses or skirts though I love them-- it calls attention to me. They were out of line to comment, but I can understand how a dress, no matter what the style or price, trumps their own outfits.

[Anonymous]

I've had similar experiences. I think it's partly that wrap dresses have that plunging neckline (speaking of which, how do people avoid showing too much cleavage in wrap dresses at work? It's driving me nuts.) Even when the neckline is perfectly discreet, wrap dresses, because of the wrap and the shape of the neckline, feel a little sexier than other dresses. Which is not to say that the dress was inappropriate--it sounds like the outfit was entirely appropriate! But that could be part of what's going on.

[Anonymous]

I work as a paralegal, in a business casual office, and I wear a suit. I have also received comments, but I think it is mostly motivated by people who don't want to dress in a more professional manner. From the sound of this story, it is a similar situation for Carrie. She did not look *intimidating* she looked professional.Amy

[kim p.]

The comment seems like a variation on "don't work so hard, you'll make the rest of us look bad." I'm not sure I'd want to be working with those folks!

[sara jane]

anonymous, our own dear Erin showed us how to be more discreet in a Duro - wear a cami or tank underneath. A pop of color and a bit of coverage. Should work smashingly on a wrap dress, too.

[Marie-Christine]

Overdressed is relative. In this case, if she was wearing something totally out of whack with what the coworkers were wearing, she was wrong. It's just never OK for a trainee to look like she's trying to outshine the boss, sorry girls, this is a basic rule of work. Now I agree that it'd have been better to give her guidelines before she packed than complain after the fact, when she couldn't change anything. But no matter how expensive the dress, if it's perceived as too much, it's got to be reserved for barbecues at home or whatever. It took a long while for women to get it generally accepted that wearing pants is professional, now dresses are regarded as mostly frivolous fluff, and you've got to work with the times.. Don't think you'll look professional if everyone is busy wondering how come your wrap dress is staying shut, let's not even mention what they're thinking when it's not.

[kharma]

I have to agree with what many others have said - whenever I wear dresses to work I am told I look fancy (albeit in a nice way, not a demeaning way). Come to think of it, I've never seen anyone else in my office (I work in a design firm) wear a dress to work. I can't understand why as a dress is the fastest, easiest, most brainless way to look really great when you're exhausted in the morning.I regularly wear wrap dresses to work, and have never had any issues. Not to mention that wearing dresses works in your favor - I've had clients remember me and ask for me by my style of dress, not to mention my hair - but that is another story. It's really not terrible to stick out as such, but unfortunately in this day and age of ill-fitting trousers and business casual you just need a little bit of a backbone for it.

[La BellaDonna]

No. No. No. What she wore was exactly correct. What the others wore would have been perceived, in any firm in which I've worked, as "file clerk." I totally disagree with the "wearing pants is professional" and "it's never right to outshine the boss." She wasn't WITH "the boss," she was with co-workers. Who dressed badly. Pants can be professional, on some occasions, and, of course, the correct type of pants - if you can find ones that fit, and good luck with that. No. This was a case where the new girl really DID look like a professional, and her co-workers were afraid of looking bad - which they did, not because of Carrie, but because they looked bad. However, they were able to tell themselves that they looked OK, because they looked equally bad. Now, the interesting thing is that Carrie is in clinical sales; sales reps are a group that John Molloy covers in his Dress for Success for Women books. Carrie absolutely was dressed right. The other two - did I mention "file clerk"* ? They're afraid she'll outshine, and, worse, outsell them. There's no way that Carrie is going to "intimidate the customers;" the doctors are going to see her appearance, and see her on the same level as a peer. They aren't going to see her co-workers that way.I would caution Carrie to watch her back at this particular organization, however. I'd suggest she needs to smile and keep her back to the wall at all times. It sounds gossipy, clique-ridden, and petty in a nasty way. Carrie said she had two other colleagues mention that they'd heard about the dress; did they actually say what exactly they had heard? I wonder how Carrie is doing at that job now; I wish her luck there, she'll need it. *This is not a slam at file clerks; good ones are a godsend to the companies they work for. However, they aren't required or expected to dress the same way as the "professionals" in the office.

[Moonwishes]

What is this world coming to when a woman is told she is over-dressed by wearing a dress to work! If there was a dress code for the job it should have been communicated to her at the beginning and by her boss or Human Resources, not some bratty people who suddenly realized that they looked like slobs compared to her! I am soooo glad I no longer have to dance to office politics! I have seen several articles stating that this is the year of the dress! Go for it.

[Kristen]

I can see where you are coming from marie-christine but the fact is women got pants to be acceptable by NOT working with the times. In this day and age, it looks less and less likely that I will EVER be "working with the times." It is not wrong to fight for a higher standard of dress, even if it's not popular. Way to go Carrie!

[dawn]

Her co-workers are threatened by her. Period.BTW, I just got home from Walmart. That is a nice dress.

[jessie]

I'm chiming in to say that whenever I wear a skirt or dress to work, everyone freaks out about how dressed up and fancy I am. It has gotten to the point where I rarely wear anything but pants just to avoid talking about my clothing all day. I love skirts and dresses but don't feel like I can get away with them all that often. I work in a library, where you would think it wouldn't be a big deal.

[Jen P]

I think part of the problem may be that if Carrie is new and the other people have seniority on her, her dressing in what are perceived to be 'better' clothes does have a bit of hierarchy problem. Sales is so much about appearance. If they're supposed to be a team, they want to equalize the team. Now, in an effort to create harmony, she may want to modify her style of dressing. This doesn't mean she has to join the slacks-wearing-masses. One of the problems with dresses versus skirts-and-sweaters is that it is very visually different than a shirt and pants because you are wearing the same color and pattern across one's entire body. So doing something like adding a sweater to a dress can soften the look. Of course, I'm a skirts-and-sweater woman, myself. And I've gotten snotty comments at work (mostly 'don't you own ANY pants' nonsense) and I charge them with finding pants that fit decently. That usually shuts 'em up.

[Mossback Meadow]

I picked up 2 of those walmart dresses this winter - they are pretty nice, and flattering to my figure.I agree - how rude. People don't know how to dress anywhere these days.Bring classy back!

[Alexa]

I'm envious of all the women who don't think twice about slipping on a skirt or dress. My legs are so stick-like, I even look ridiculous in mid-calf length ones. Pants have been my salvation! The double-weave wool ones by Agnona in particular are so beautifully cut that the investment I made in them has paid off countless times over. I know I'm not alone not wishing to expose my legs, and being restricted in this way is very painful. Nevertheless, I always compliment women when I see them in skirts or dresses (not so keen on shorts)--they stand out, and look lovely in comparison to the pants-outfitted ones.

[Nancy Bea Miller]

I can't resist joining in the chorus here. With few exceptions, a simple dress makes the wearer seem "dressier" (duh, right?) than if she were wearing trousers. Even if the dress is mass-produced and cheap and the trousers are designer and costly. So probably the female trousers-wearing co-worker felt intimidated that someone junior to her was dressing "higher up" than her. I'd bet that the male colleague was clueless, but perhaps sensed something was a little out of fashion kilter and when the female trousers-wearing colleague began sniping, he joined in out of solidarity.If the company wants its employees to wear a uniform (sounds like khaki trousers with cheap tops are the preferred look) it should have sent a memo. Your friend did nothing wrong, of course. Vive la robe!

[Anonymous]

I wear dresses all the time, even in my male dominated field. If I know I am going to a construction site, I bring flats. I never worry about last minute invites to lunch with the boss or a client because I look nice. If I worked somewhere where the boss was more worried about how I looked than my actual work, I wouldn't last long. Nor would that business.