When we hear or think of the phrase “Business Casual,” many of us draw a blank. Within your mind, a number of questions arise. What is business casual? Do I wear a blazer? Can I wear jeans? Do I even wear a tie?
Well look no further. As part of the Strictly Business category, we are featuring individuals that combine their personal style choices with business attire. You can check out our previous posts featuring our friends, Ryan and Malcolm. For this particular post, we are focusing on the casual aspect of business attire.
Below, we wanted to feature an individual that typical wears business casual attire to work everyday. We would like to introduce everyone to Byron, a twenty-two year old college student and shoe sales associate from Camden New Jersey. Fortunate enough for us, we had the opportunity to link up with Byron before he was needed back on the sales floor.
From Monday through Thursday, the everyday 9-5 male employee wears a suit, tailored button down, and neck tie to work every day. However, Friday is the one day out of the week where our employers are more lenient with our business attire. Some may even deem the day as “Dress Down Fridays.” Now, that does not mean show up to work wearing a pair of gray sweatpants (Unless states otherwise). There are a variety of ways in which you can adjust your business attire to accommodate this one special day out of the week.
According to an article entitled, “Five Rules of Style for the Business-Casual Workplace,” from CBSNews, there are five rules to follow if you want to be taken seriously in your business casual attire on Fridays. We have listed the five rules listed in order: 1) Give Details Their Due; 2) Dress One Step Up; 3) Know Business Casual from Weekend Casual; 4) Temper Trends with Classics: 5) Use Pictures to Shape Your Style.
Although these rules discuss separate aspects of business casual attire, they all share a common theme. These rules are applied to your individual potential for success based on the items in your closet. For starters, your employers pay attention to presentation. More specifically, how you present yourself within the office. So on one of those business casual Fridays, keep on the sports coat, button down shirt, and neck tie.
From the word “casual,” a variety of assumptions can be made. We often think of shirts and jeans, which is the wrong idea. Within the working world, casual its just a step below your traditional business attire. With your everyday business attire, you can substitute certain garments for others if you are going for a more casual look. For instance, if you don’t mind wear the sports coat and button down, thrown on a pair of denim jeans in a regular or dark wash. If you decide to wear jeans, make sure you take them to the cleaners once a month for a routine pressing.
For Byron’s business casual attire, he went with more of a traditional approach. Rather than wearing Jeans, he decided to wear a nice pair of gray, wool pants from GAP. The color gray in general is very appropriate and appealing in the business world. You can’t really go wrong with a nice pair of gray pants!
In addition, Byron combined his wool pants with a lightly colored, plaid button down and navy sports coat from Zara with elbow patches. We personally love anything with elbow patches. They are no longer sewn on the elbows of worn blazers, but instead are considered as a trendy, fashion statement.
Although the sports coat, shirt, and pants are very exciting to the style eye, the paisley tie is the most attractive addition to the entire look. Byron states, “Paisley is one of the most eye catching patterns with the diversity to compliment an entire outfit with a touch of color.”
As mentioned above, this is our first feature with Byron. When you get a chance, head over to his Instagram @Kommissioner_6 for more looks.
