[linkregister]

It seems the way to wear dress clothes in the startup/tech environment is not to wear a simple two-piece suit. The folks in my office that get away with business attire wear more stylish items such as vests paired with unmatching slacks, coupled with a bold-print shirt. These kinds of looks look way more difficult to create than going to Brooks Brothers and asking for two suits.

One legitimate reason why I would expect suit-wearers to be challenged is the fear of formal wear being required in the office.

[dragonwriter]

> One legitimate reason why I would expect suit-wearers to be challenged is the fear of formal wear being required in the office.

Business suits are business wear, not formal wear, which is a whole different category of clothing. Formal wear being required in the office would be a very odd thing, indeed.

[zyxley]

> Formal wear being required in the office would be a very odd thing, indeed.

"I know it's inconvenient sometimes, but you would not believe how cheap it was to rent out this extra space from the local symphony orchestra."

[linkregister]

Oops. Thanks for that!

[ThrustVectoring]

A formal requirement isn't what engineers are against. Dressing up and getting management attention because of it is a positional good, and they're enforcing a clique of "if nobody dresses up, nobody has to dress up or get ignored by management."

[linkregister]

You're right, the business attire arms race is a real occurance. I'm being a bit dramatic, but I remember an office that stopped wearing sneakers for that reason.