The "Sweatpants-ing" of America

The steady erosion of the American business dress code.

I no longer wear a necktie, after sporting one four days a week (I’m religious about business casual Friday) for forty years, while working in business offices.

I don’t accept blame for single-handedly destroying America’s accepted business dress code standards. No, there are others who have taken more dramatic steps which have chipped away at those beliefs and traditions.

Case in point: longtime, successful basketball coach, Larry Brown. Brown is the only coach to lead a team to an NCAA championship victory (Kansas Jayhawks, 1988 - “Rock Chalk, Jayhawk, KU!”) and to an NBA title (Detroit Pistons, 2004). Brown played in the fledgling American Basketball Association (ABA), after his college playing career at University of North Carolina - at 5’9” Larry was the shortest player in the league.

Brown’s illustrious coaching career began in the early 1970’s, where he exhibited sartorial choices which form the crux of my argument that traditional business dress code standards have suffered from a steady stream of frontal attacks. I don’t wish to lead the witness - you be the judge:

What’s with this getup, Larry? Are you planning on performing a little light farming after the game?

Have you been booked to perform at a kid’s birthday party after the game, Larry? Did you forget the big clown shoes at home?

Are you auditioning for a role as an NFL referee, Larry? If I may offer a critique: Keep your fingers together, and point your thumbs slightly inward. Also, as you can see in the image below, referee stripes are typically vertical, and generally eschew every color in the rainbow, in favor of good old black and white.

You don’t see a lot of plaid on the sidelines. . .unless you’re coaching the Carnegie Mellon Tartans - Let’s Go, Tarts!

Whoa, big fella’! Let me help you rope that calf.

Uh, Larry, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there’s a bunch of dudes climbing up your back.

Now, that’s the buttoned-down Larry Brown that I’m familiar with, offering counsel to the 76ers Allen Iverson.

I slipped in that last picture of Brown, taken while coaching the Philadelphia 76ers, much later in his career, to demonstrate that Larry had apparently outgrown his youthful wardrobe indiscretions, although it’s pretty clear that the damage has already been done. And, I’m not buying the “Hey, it was the ‘70’s, man, that was simply the fashion at the time,” argument; Larry: You know what you’ve done.

Another example of the deterioration of style in clothing appears in street gangs. Back in Al Capone’s day, gang members dressed in professional business attire, including fashionable, two tone shoes. . .

Nowadays, gangbangers have adopted a less-formal look, complete with saggy pants. . .

The attire of baseball fans has also evolved - here is a picture of baseball fans in the 1920’s. . .

Men dressed in suits and ties, and sporting bowler hats. Contrast that with this shot of a crowd in more recent times; scanning the photo, I cannot detect even one fan with a tie. . .

But, the greatest damage is being done by those who cavalierly disregard the unspoken rules of wardrobe engagement which have been in place for a long, long time regarding offices. Hell, my dad, an attorney in Chicago for years, would not allow me, or any of my siblings to visit him in his office, unless we were properly attired in a coat and tie; note that this was also the dress code we adopted whenever we flew on an airplane.

Also. . .sweatpants.

Come on, you knew I was going to introduce the topic of sweatpants sooner or later - it’s right there in the headline. You likely didn’t count on such a spectacularly clumsy transition, however.

Some might argue that the collapse of the prevailing business dress code, including the acceptance of. . .you know. . . can be traced to the business interruption caused by the pandemic, and the subsequent bandwagon rush to the work from home movement.

I’ll grant you that those dynamics offered a boost to what can only be termed the “Business Slovenly Friday” dress code advance. But, I believe the shift has been in play for many years now. Note this Seinfeld clip from 1993. . .

So, to recap: My role in the steady erosion of the American business dress code (i.e. abandonment of the necktie) was negligible, whereas longtime, successful basketball coach, Larry Brown, street gang members and baseball fans are clearly complicit, and contributed significantly to this disheartening turn of events.

Also. . .sweatpants.

In addition, I’m harboring an amusing anecdote regarding my participation in firing an employee some years ago, during an organizational restructuring, in which we struggled to locate a young man, and encourage him to come to the office, in order to be fired. He eventually surfaced, and arrived at the office, wearing not sweatpants, but pajama pants, with his stripper girlfriend in tow. Now that was a scene, man!

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