Dressing Down.

The phrase "dress-down days" had barely been seen in print at the start of the 1990s, yet within a few years the idea of casual clothing worn at the office took off. Employers and employees called the innovation the casual day, casual Friday, or office casual. By some estimates, loosened dress codes applied to half of all U.S. workers by 1995. A survey published in the May 1996 issue of McCall's revealed that 64 percent of all readers who responded worked in an office with a casual-day policy that applied year-round. Although employers often instituted these policies as perks, some workers found them confusing. Traditional offices had definite rules for dress; casual offices did not. A host of seminars, magazine articles, and books tried to fill the void. Levi Strauss, which in 1996 estimated that 90 percent of employers allowed some casual days and 33 percent had...