If HR Asks Me to Alter My Attire, I Have to Comply — If I Don’t, Will I Get Fired?

One time, I had this brilliant idea to wear my pajamas into work for an entire week then write about the experience. The catch: it was a freelance article that I’d pitched to a publication. My full time job is at a corporate, cubicle-filled agency — not exactly the kind environment that fosters extracurricular guinea pig journalism.

That said, the exercise wasn’t really all that shocking.

I nearly always wear oversized t-shirts with heels to work and I almost exclusively wear oversized t-shirts to bed. Sometimes, depending upon the intensity of the evening and alcohol percentage of that night’s preeminent beverage, those two worlds merge into one.

Still.

My colleagues quickly found out about the little experiment and proceeded to mock me for weeks.

Which is fine. I can handle a good dig. What made me nervous was that I’d drawn attention to the fact that I dress differently from my more corporately-coiffed colleagues. In their pantsuits and pumps, were they automatically considered more exemplary employees?

Possibly. And yet, that wouldn’t be enough to make me change. Despite the potential consequences my less than Claire Underwood-esque appearance could have on my professional relationships and the office-wide respect I receive, I’m still instinctively opposed to modifying my personal style.

But this isn’t college or art class. This is, for better or for worse, the real world. Technically, if HR asked me to alter my attire, I’d have to comply.

And if I didn’t, would I be fired? That’s sort of a scary thought — that inflexible devotion to one’s own personal style could become a professional detriment. Is it possible to settle for a satisfying compromise?

To not express myself via flashy shoes, gargantuan sweaters or masculine nightshirts is unthinkable. It wouldn’t feel right. Besides: if it’s not impacting my work ethic, productivity or professional passion, giving up what makes me happy to appear symbolically “appropriate” seems sad.

But let’s say it becomes a real problem. Do I stop being so steadfast about my style? Do I do as every other maturing human being around me has done, suck it up and buy a pencil skirt? A well-fitted, non-ironic cardigan? Is my mom manically nodding, “YES GABRIELLE,” from behind her office desk while reading this?

Or, should my refusal to adapt to these aesthetic norms necessitate that, even if I love and excel at my job, I find a new career path that accepts my creative wardrobe choices instead of faulting me for them?

I have a hard time believing that our clothing should determine our careers — that we’re so one-dimensional, an affection for unique aesthetics could overrule our other compelling qualities. Why should we be ostracized from potential career paths by long-held sartorial stigmas? Seems to me that deadlines are equally as achievable in distressed denim as they are in pinstriped trousers.

But if the point of fashion — part of why I love it — is that it offers us an opportunity to play different roles, then perhaps the solution lies in finding a middle ground that simultaneously showcases multiple sides of myself. Surely there has to be a way to make a pajama shirt work with a power suit. Maybe it’s my job to find it.

Bracelets by Hermès and Gabriele Frantzen 

Photographed by Krista Anna Lewis

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