I have no clue how the idea of a work uniform came to me, but soon, the solution to my woes came in the form of 15 silk white shirts and a few black trousers. For a little personal detail, I remembered my mother loved to put bows in my hair as kid, so I chose to add a custom-made black leather rosette around my neck. Done. During the colder months, I'll also top my look off with a black blazer. I shopped all the pieces in one day. It burned a hole in my wallet to say the least, but in the long run, it has saved me—and will continue to save me—more money than I could imagine.
To state the obvious, a work uniform is not an original idea. There's a group of people that have embraced this way of dressing for years—they call it a suit. For men, it's a very common approach, even mandatory in most professions. Nevertheless, I received a lot of mixed reactions for usurping this idea for myself. Immediately, people started asking for a motive behind my new look: "Why do you do this? Is it a bet?" When I get those questions I can't help but retort, "Have you ever set up a bill for online auto-pay? Did it feel good to have one less thing to deal with every month?"
More distant co-workers have even asked if I was in some sort of sect—religious or otherwise. However, those types of comments ended abruptly when Mashable published the widely read, "Why Successful Men Wear the Same Thing Every Day." It came out almost two years after I had started wearing my uniform, and to some extent, it was a relief. My work ensemble didn't come off as a mystery anymore. On the downside, I couldn't help but notice that it appeared as if I needed a male authority to legitimatize my choice of clothing in order for others to truly accept it.Other than the burning, "why?" the most common question I get is whether or not it gets boring in the long run. It's a reasonable question that probably has a lot to do with the fact that office style is commonly informal in my industry. We have been given the opportunity to reflect our true personalities in everything we wear, every day—to extol our "creative spirits" in everything we do.
From: www.msn.com
