Functional over formal: How Canadians could redefine office wear as many go back to work
Global News
A fashion expert says the COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the way people dress and present themselves at work these days, and that more even change is expected.
Ever since Alva Bourque entered the workforce in 2011, she always made sure to dress up, choosing to wear a pencil skirt with a blazer or a long-sleeved top with a necktie, and of course heels, for work.
Even during her pregnancies, Bourque who lives in Halifax, N.S., and works at a non-profit organization, dressed the same way, but the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way she presents herself professionally.
“I still look presentable, but maybe the pandemic has made me care for more important things rather than my power dressing,” said Bourque. “I don’t need to be in blazer and heels right now … I’m just too exhausted coming from this pandemic. Super exhausted.”
As a mother of two kids — aged three and seven — Bourque says it has been exhausting to work from home while simultaneously caring for her children.
Even now, as she returns to the office twice a week, she says she’s been choosing to dress more comfortably in leggings or lower-heeled boots.
With the easing of public health restrictions, more and more Canadians are going back to the office, but what they choose to wear to work is going to change drastically, one expert says.
A graduate program director for fashion at Ryerson University, Henry Navarro Delgado says that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the way people dress and present themselves. Delgado says office wear has changed a lot and will change more going forward.
“Trends die and sometimes pick up again. We saw something similar in the 1990s where there were a lot more relaxed dress codes at work because of the culture from Silicon Valley,” said Delgado.