[zebrafish]

This is sort of interesting. Typically trends in high fashion come from the counter culture. The counter culture rejects the mainstream and, either intentionally or unintentionally, their fashion pisses people off. The goal of high fashion is to evoke emotion and fear/anger tend to be easy emotions to get out of people (Imagine your mother reacting to goths in the mall).

It seems, from this example, that some future counter culture fashion could be rooted in traditional formal wear considering how uncomfortable it has made your friend's coworkers feel.