Dress for success, but dont ask your boss for fashion advice

Dress for success, but dont ask your boss for fashion advice by Michael Cheary Does your boss know their haute couture from their hippy-chic?If the answer’s yes you may be in the minority, according to our latest survey.We asked nearly 1,500 UK workers some questions to find out just how fashion conscious the UK workforce really is. Here’s what we found out:Three quarters of UK workers wouldn’t ask their boss for fashion advice 93% of UK workers believe that how you dress can have a positive impact on your careerDirty or un-ironed clothes are the biggest office fashion faux-pasDress for the job you wantMore than three quarters of us wouldn’t ask our boss for fashion advice. But despite not seeing our managers as the template for what’s trendy, an overwhelming 93% of UK workers do believe that what we wear can have a positive impact on our careers.So when it comes to the old adage, ‘dress for the job you want, not the job you have’, why don’t we turn to our supervisors for sartorial suggestions? Surely if dressing for su ccess really matters, why aren’t we looking to emulate our boss’s sense of style to help our careers progress?Fashion-ceiling Perhaps the results indicate a subconscious ‘fashion-ceiling’: the point at which how we look no longer matters to our career prospects. Maybe once we’ve reach the highest rungs of the career ladder dressing for success no longer matters.In fact, 10% of us now class our workplace dress codes as being ‘casual’, with the rise and rise of technology companies and smaller start-ups encouraging an increasingly laid-back approach to our office attire.Young entrepreneurs, typified by Mark Zuckerberg and his penchant for hoodies, are proving that it’s brains, vision and ambition that leads to modern business success â€" not just a suit and tie.#OOTDAnd it seems it’s not just our superiors whose fingers are no longer on the fashion-pulse. One in four of us admits to not being worried about what we wear to work, while a third of us also confessed to e ither planning our outfit in the morning, or simply not planning altogether.But just where are the most fashionable places to work?Perhaps predictably it’s the capital that comes out on top, with 42% of Londoners classing their workplace as ‘fashionable’.Fashionistas from Cardiff, Pontypridd and Aberystwyth may wish to look away now, though, as it’s Wales that makes the feeblest showing in the fashion stakes: an overwhelming 95% of Welsh workers agreed that their workplace is stylistically challenged.The survey also highlighted some of our favourite fashion faux-pas. The general consensus is that dirty or un-ironed clothes are the biggest no-no, followed by showing too much flesh, which, thankfully, for most of us, is decidedly out of season right now.So continue to dress for success. Just don’t ask your boss for fashion advice in future.Find a job What Where Search JobsSign up for more Career AdviceSign up for moreCareer Advice Please enter a valid email addressmess age hereBy clicking Submit you agree to the terms and conditions applicable to our service and acknowledge that your personal data will be used in accordance with our privacy policy and you will receive emails and communications about jobs and career related topics. Features