This paper explores the phenomenon of dress codes in professions. Even though organizational dress has been thoroughly studied, inter-organizational dynamics remain to be better understood. Indeed, considering the rise of turn-over within companies and that careers are now built on multi-organizational trajectories, a fine-grained understanding of professional dress codes would allow for an enrich understanding. Dress codes can be considered as carriers of both organizational communication and individual identity that will be central for professions as communities and through the professionalization process. Therefore, we will ask the following question: what is the role of understanding and complying with dress codes in becoming a professional?

In this, becoming a professional can also be understood as an aesthetic experience through which all senses are involved. For a cook, a specific taste can signify something that no one else would detect, as for a surgeon touching his patient skin, a musician listening to the tune of an instrument, an architect seeing a building or a mechanic smelling smoke from an engine. In this article, we will focus on the ways professionals dress. Indeed, dress codes are fundamental ways to automatically – and discreetly – recognize someone from your own tribe, community, or profession. Moreover, these ways of dressing can incorporate other specific information – encoded messages such as integration to a subgroup or last week’s performance. Exploring dress codes in three typical professions in finance, we have discovered that they also are mediums of communication within the group, strengthening a certain aesthetic sense of belonging and of presenting the self.

The aesthetics of professions
Aesthetic allows for an understanding of how fragmented segment of activity (such as the financial sector for example) can constitute professions despite the looseness of formal components. Considering professions as being also aesthetic communities shifts the focus – or rather enlarges it – toward symbolic, corporeal and sensorial elements. Besides, the formal components are also carriers of aesthetic processes. For example, through similar trainings, novices learn how to express and dress themselves accordingly. “Across these schools students are acquainted with shared ways of expressing their ideas visually through conventionalized symbols and signs (…) Thus, aesthetic knowledge becomes seen as a form of knowledge that is jointly held and enacted by members of professional communities, organizations and networks” (Ewenstein & Whyte, 2007). The expression and enactment of a certain aesthetic, within knowledge or appearance, not only communicate an affiliation but also a shared view on the activity to be carried, the community to belong to and the worldview to sustain.
Professions should also be explored as aesthetic communities, through the many corporeal, symbolic and sensorial elements that allow professionals to define themselves as such. Consequently, we have chosen to focus on an apparently non-productive dimension of the activity: the way people dress.
Dress codes are an inherent element of professions allowing for a direct visual distinction between members and non-members. They can go from finely defined uniforms to general indications, and not respecting them can result in sanctions going from dismissal to insults and mockeries (Rafaeli & Pratt, 1993). Companies spend billions of dollars each year to define, purchase, maintain and monitor these dress codes (Solomon, 1987). Therefore, dress codes can be considered as important carriers of both organizational communication and individual identity that will be central for professions as communities and during the professionalization process. Extending Rafaeli & Pratt (1993) definition of organizational dress, we will define professional dress codes as the clothing (jackets, pants, shirts, skirts, sweaters, etc.) and artefacts (watches, jewellery, shoes, belts, ties, handbags, etc.) that members of a profession are expected to wear while performing their activities. Whatever the profession, dress codes allow for an aesthetical recognition, often on the very first impression (Douty, 1973; Conner, Nagasawa & Peters, 1975). Moreover, they influence the hiring process (Forsythe, 1990; Forsythe, Drake & Cox, 1985), especially for young professionals. A fine-grained understanding of professional dress codes allows for an enrich analysis of organizational dress considering the rise of turn-over within companies and that careers are now built on a multi-firms trajectory.
For younger aspiring professionals, adopting a dress code constitutes a way of stating their will to join the profession. In their study, Cardon & Okoro (2009: 358) showed that “business students about to enter the workplace strongly prefer business casual over casual workplace attire (because) various professional characteristic are communicated along a continuum of formal to casual workplace attire”. Another study conducted by Easterling, Leslie & Jones (1992) underlined the importance of dress codes in developing and enforcing traditions and conventions of professions. Consequently, compliance to dress codes provides “a symbolic statement that an individual will adhere to group norms and standardized roles and has mastered the essential group skills and values” (Joseph & Alex, 1972: 723). Therefore, dress codes cannot be fully separated from professions in which they take place and through which they can communicate professionalism and convey professional identities.
To better understand the different professions in finance and their dress codes, a series of 29 interviews has been conducted. Lasting between one and two hours, these were semi-conducted and often within of the interviewees’ offices. Topics went from their entry to the profession, the history of this profession, the way they dressed every day, and the consequence of non-compliance with the dress code. Five topical sections emerged: the absence of official formal dress codes, the idea of the activity that was stated through outfits, the informal constraints that maintain compliance, the importance of dressing appropriately for the interview and the gendered and identity aspects of dress codes.

Dressing professional

• No formal dress codes

According to Biecher, Keaton & Pollman (1999: 18), 78 % of the 200 companies polled had no formal dress code and none of the top eight accounting firms had a written one. None of the organizations studied had an explicit, formalized dress code. However, every employee had the mention of an obligation to dress “business casual”. The meaning of this expression was never clarified directly but every actors interviewed found it obvious.
“After one week in an audit form, a guy who didn’t know how to dress has to get it; if one is observant one knows the code, otherwise he is just blind.”
“In audit, we have a kind of uniform: grey suit, blue shirt, dark blue tie. There is no official dress code, nothing is written. But a senior gave us some guidelines during our first-week training: no white socks, no black suits, nothing eccentric (colours or accessories), no curb chains, no exuberant rings or jewellery.”
“Even though it is not written, we have some real rule: no beige suits with pink shirts or that kind of stuff. And nothing too formal. Some interns confuse dressing professionally and going to a wedding…”
“We don’t need it to be written, we just have to dress appropriately. We are rather classic, with just a few things forbidden: no white suit, no clear suits in general. We usually remain in the same colour scale: dark blue, black, grey.”
“At Lazard, I had been reprimanded once or twice because I didn’t put my tie straight enough. For them it is really important, you know. The tie is part of the job so it has to be perfect. They are crazy on this… But when I arrived in hedge, in New York, not only did I lose the tie, I had to lose the rest of the suit. In a hedge fund, it’s casual Friday all the time… You have to be casual!”
Even though not clearly written, dress codes were always omnipresent. Whether detailed or more loosely defined, there was an implicit appropriate way to dress, or a way not to dress. It was all the more important that it appeared to differentiate one profession from another.

• Stating an idea of the activity

Clothes carry a meaning; it is a visual statement of who you are and what values you stand for. Dress codes in financial professions convey an idea of the activity, a deontology regarding what has to be done and the way these professionals consider their clients.
“Historically, the guys in hedge funds were against the system, against the banking establishment. They are engineers, mathematicians, quant’s and they don’t respect the classic codes of trading. They told the world that the traditional approach had to be broken and that they were better than the old school. And it has be shown, all the way to clothes. In hedge funds you don’t wear a tie, and you often are in jeans. You can see the shortage in the dress codes.”
“There are two main professions in finance: trading and banking. On one side, dealings rooms, on the other, private deals and a Chinese wall in between. A lot of things change from one to the other: workings hours, representatives, information and, obviously, dress codes. We don’t do the same thing, so we dress different. In investment banking, we tend to be more formal because we meet client a lot and we don’t want to give them the wrong impression.”
“They want to turn you into the perfect son-in-law. Once, while we were renegotiating a contract, I wasn’t perfectly shaved. It was after a full week of non-stop work you know… So my partner passes in the hallway, sees me and comes back. He told me that it wasn’t the time to look sketchy, that we had to look perfect, especially before a meeting with the client. He wasn’t aggressive or mean, but I shaved immediately. I didn’t want to piss off the client…”
“By the end, the way you dress shows who you are and how you work. It reveals your idea of the job.”
Since they convey such important messages, dress codes are a central element to professions that ‘sell an expertise’. Yet, as we have seen, dress codes tend to remain implicit in financial professions. How can such an important part be apparently let uncontrolled?

• Informal constraints

Being not formally defined does not mean that there are no mechanisms constraining how professionals dress. Dress codes can be strongly enforced as well as tacitly supported. Their implicit nature in our case renders constraints informal, although always present and sometimes harsh. As an investment banker in Paris told us:
“We have no formal obligations; we are just supposed to dress appropriately. But if you don’t respect that, the most you’re going to get shouldn’t go further than a remark. Maybe mockeries but nothing worst. But sometimes it is organized. I remember in my last position – you’re going to like this anecdote – we had a casual Friday. However, it was sometimes a bit out of control with people arriving late and dress very very casually. So my boss established a new rule. He sent an email saying that from now on, he was creating a commission to designate every Friday the two employees that were the latest and the most poorly dressed. These people had to buy lunch for the whole floor. We were thirty, thirty-five people in my floor. To show his good faith he paid the first time. Well, I was nominated once because of a stain on my sweater I didn’t see… That was the last time I wore it… “
« Once, one of my interns was wearing a pocket scarf on his jacket. I wasn’t there this morning but when my partner saw him, I heard that he really didn’t appreciate. Apparently, he told him in front of the entire open space that he should learn to stay at his place. We are supposed to remain low-key with client you know, so you can understand why the partner was upset. None of the interns are thinking about wearing that kind of accessory now. »
Dressing appropriately is part of the socialization and any young professional learns, sooner or later, how to dress by looking and trying (and sometimes failing). Having the proper outfit allows for a quicker, better integration within the community. For this reason, dress codes are already enacted in the recruitment process.

• Dressing professional for the interview

Knowing how to dress for an interview is a universal problematic for every candidate, whether young student or older professional. Considering the importance of dress codes within organizations and professions, it is logically present during recruitments.
« The recruitment interview goes more smoothly when the candidate shows that he is capable of respecting the code, to make an effort to respect the expectations. Candidates have to keep in mind that human resources tend to be a bit strict so they should try to respect the dress code, at least a minimum, and show it. Moreover, knowing that you are dressed appropriately gives you confidence, you feel legitimate. But by the end, you are just showing that you are willing to fit into the pattern. »
« I hate interviews in which the candidate isn’t well dressed. How hard is it to pay attention!? I do it everyday, they can do it once for the interview, right? »
The role of dress codes in interviews is as informal as these dress codes are. However, they are as much omnipresent. By dressing appropriately, candidates show that, beyond their competences, they are able and willing to integrate the community, to join the team. There is a challenge there and more generally in dress codes, on how to express one’s personality and identity while complying with generic ways of dressing.

• Dress codes, social identities and genders

There is a tension between compliance to a generic dress code and a sense of identity expressed through outfits. If professionals have to dress accordingly to look so, how can they also be themselves? Do they have to lose their personality to enter their profession? The ideal ‘sons-in-law’ in audit manage to remain themselves while dressing appropriately:
« I like to accessorize, discreetly of course. I often wear cufflink and since almost no one sees them, I can go a little nut. I am not really into watches but lots of my colleagues are like collectors. But the watch is a little too ‘bling bling’ for my taste. In audit, you cannot really express who you are in a too visual manner. We do a discreet and serious job, we have to be discreet and serious. »
« How you dress shows who you are. »