Staff Reports
Greg Gutfeld and his Gutfeld! panel didn’t just crack a joke about suits — they asked a question a lot of Americans are asking out loud: when did men stop wearing ties and suits to work, and does it matter anymore?
From suits to sweatshirts: how the workplace changed
The short answer is: a long time ago, and then faster after the pandemic. Gallup now finds just 3% of U.S. workers call their usual office clothes “business professional” — suits are basically a museum piece for most jobs. About 41% wear business casual and 31% show up in plain street clothes, driven by hybrid schedules and employers who say, “dress for your day.”
That shift didn’t start with Gen Z; banks loosened ties years before the pandemic, tech firms never owned them, and remote work pushed the whole thing over the edge. The result is obvious when you walk into an office: fewer jackets, more hoodies, and managers who are deciding whether appearance even matters.
Why clothes still matter — whether people admit it or not
There’s a fancy term — enclothed cognition — that says the clothes you wear change how you think and act. Call it common sense: a suit can make a person carry themselves differently, and other people notice. That’s why the Senate dust‑up over casual floor attire became a political story; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said senators can choose what they wear, while others argued for standards that signal seriousness.
This isn’t just theater. For everyday Americans, dress affects interviews, promotions, courtroom impressions and even how customers judge a business. You can debate whether that’s fair, but it’s real: some doors open for people who look the part, and they stay closed for others.
Rules, nuance, and the cost of abandoning standards
Companies are muddling through solutions — “dress for your day” policies, client-facing exceptions, and a lot of HR guesswork. Young workers rightly push for authenticity and comfort; older workers rightly worry about professionalism and discipline. The compromise some employers reach is practical, but it also hands a lot of discretion to managers and leaves the signal — who we are and what we expect — weaker than it used to be.
That matters to taxpayers and parents who want institutions — schools, courts, city halls — to model seriousness, not sloppiness. It matters to small business owners who rely on customer trust, and to workers who have to compete for jobs against people who treat dress as optional rather than strategic.
So here’s the question Gutfeld asked between laughs: do we care about the line between casual and professional, or have we decided to trade it away for comfort? Think about your kid’s next job interview, or your small business’s front counter — are we better off with no standards, or is something worth saving?
