The Break Room: 4 More Work-From-Home Fashions to Bring Back to the Office
Create a new office look with these underappreciated fashion choices.
A few months ago, we shared 4 Work From Home Fashions to Bring Back to the Office. We thought it was time to revisit it, and bring you 4 more WFH fashion you should bring back to the office when this pandemic is over … whenever that is.
1. Yoga pants
No more belts pinching your waist. No more snaps, buttons, or buckles. Yoga pants manage to stay up without such medieval mechanisms. Why is it so hard for other pants to follow suit?
A recent study revealed that many women derive more comfort from their yoga pants than from their favorite foods, movies, pets, or significant others. It used to be that we couldn’t wait to trudge through the door at the end of the day, shed whatever constraining lowerwear we had on, and slip into the snug yet gentle embrace of our favorite yoga pants. Once we realized that none of our coworkers would see much below our shoulders for the foreseeable future, the temptation proved too strong.
The collective brilliance sure to be unleashed by normalizing yoga pants in the workplace may take years to realize.
If and when offices reopen, expecting people to forego the comfort of the yoga pants they’ve become accustomed to would be what lawyers call an “undue burden.” Besides, it’s been said that yoga pants aid circulation and boost blood flow to the brain. The collective brilliance sure to be unleashed by normalizing yoga pants in the workplace may take years to realize. But until then, we get to wear yoga pants!
2. Harem pants
While many folks enjoy the soft hug of yoga pants, others prefer a looser fit. Sweatpants or pajama pants may prove sufficient, but there are some of us that — deep down — would like our pants material to stay as far away from our flesh as physically possible. That’s where the vastly underappreciated harem pants come into play.
What are harem pants? Well, you know that dude at every music festival who dances with flower sticks? His pants are harem pants.
Celebrities like Aladdin and certain aging Hollywood eccentrics have popularized harem pants. Fun fact: Their mutual love of harem pants brought Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson together for the first season of True Detective.
3. The low-maintenance top
No, we’re not talking about shirts here. We’re talking the top top. Specifically the face and the hair. For the first few weeks of remote work, many of us were still trying to preserve some semblance of a “professional” look. But as these months have worn on, employees have rightfully asked, “What’s the point?” Stubbled faces for the guys, no makeup for the ladies. Hair up in a scrunchy. We may not look like a million bucks, but the collective time saved each morning by forgoing our usual cranial maintenance routines is practically immeasurable.
For the first few weeks of remote work, many of us were still trying to preserve some semblance of a “professional” look. But as these months have worn on, employees have rightfully asked, “What’s the point?”
4. The “toga”
Have you ever had an early conference call that you overslept for and had to make the choice between getting showered/dressed and making coffee? It’s an easy choice as the former is really a matter of vanity and the latter is a matter of survival. So you drape a sheet or blanket over yourself and start the coffee brewing as you sleepily fumble to plug in your headset and track down the conference call number somewhere among your emails.
You pour yourself a nice, hot cup and join the conference (video disabled of course). You finally, fully awaken with about 10 minutes left in the call — just enough time to chime in with a smart, savvy idea for the latest project. Having heard several grunts of affirmation, you log off, lean back, and realize how comfy and wise you feel in your blanket toga — Aristotelian even. Thus, you decide to wear it for the remainder of the day.
Now imagine an office with your coworkers sort of gliding around in togas, sharing wise thoughts, and making thoughtful proclamations wherever they go. If that doesn’t sound great, your workplace may have deeper culture issues worth examining. More on that next week!
