Whether you are of the “the apparel oft proclaims the man” or the “beware of all enterprises that require new clothes” school of thought, I am here to let you know what you can expect from the NAO’s dress code and I’ll be doing so over three whole weeks, just to make sure you get full coverage. In my next post, I’ll be talking about what to wear around the office Monday – Thursday, after that I will focus on the need to dress to impress at the client site and my final post will be about the thrills and spills of Casual Fridays at the NAO.
On joining the office, I thought, somewhat wildly, that I would need to wear heels every day in order to seem adequately well turned out and, probably, wear a suit almost daily and a severe pencil skirt when not. Maybe, I thought I would have one smart dress with a cardigan as a softer option but I oughtn’t to buy more than one, just in case that wasn’t quite the thing.
I bought what are quite possibly the least comfortable low wedge heels in existence – or, at least, I bought them a size too small and found myself hobbled on my first day. Fortunately, I quite quickly realised that heels weren’t actually an office requirement, anymore than suits and pencil skirts, and reverted to wearing clothes I actually liked and felt comfortable in. You’ll be happy to know that my feet have quite recovered and I have since found that I can even pull off heels when I fancy it – just not that pair.
In reality, the office dress code is not strict, nor is it written out in a formal document. There is no official dictate that you must wear a tie or even that you not wear jeans (though I’d suggest you save that for Casual Fridays) because the dress code relies largely upon common sense and common practice. It’s not an easy thing to get your head around when you’re not working at the office yet but that’s why I’m writing about it.
So, watch this space…