Christina Haselbusch was told she shouldn't wear the camisole or the sundress that bared her shoulders to her accounts receivable job at a Century City law firm.
But down the street, Kimberly Barrow, a Northrop Grumman Corp. switchboard operator, is considered perfectly acceptable in a matching camisole and skirt, and tennis shoes.
Tyneia Hawkins and Laurie Haines, both dressed in snug, lowriding jeans and clingy, bare camisole tops, look as if they're headed to a hip bar. The 20-something legal assistants have the freedom to dress as they please. They suspect that not everyone in their Century City law offices approves.
"I know that people are probably talking behind my back," says Hawkins, 28, who is also a law student. "But I like to dress with flair." Her boss, litigator Daniel Ben-Zvi, says he has never had a problem with his assistant's attire, though he did ask her during a recent lunch, "Are you going to dress like that when you're a lawyer?"
"Either I'll win the case on the merits, or by the way I look," she quipped.
Such cheeky attitudes--and dress--have helped bring casual office clothes to new states of undress that some employers find unbearably bare. It's no wonder that the office fashion patrol, as they race to keep up with changing styles, are seeking out the advice of consultants who favor putting the business back into business-casual codes.
Ten years after the first casual dress codes freed men from ties and women from stockings, employees are pushing the limits of appropriateness. With fashion pushing bare styles and employers offering few clear-cut rules, the office tsk-tskers cluck about how bare is too bare.
The list of working-world taboos today reads like a women's summer fashion's bestseller list: camisoles, halters, sheer mesh tops, lowriding jeans and clingy, spandex-enhanced skirts, pants and shirts. The strapless, backless and skimpy styles that have sailed out of stores and across the office threshold have made bosses wince--and retailers smile.
Ironically, some retailers responsible for the parade of barely there clothes have thrown a blanket over the work world striptease. Sales associates at the Express chain of contemporary women's wear can sell their trendy tank tops, crocheted halters and clingy camisoles, but they can't wear them on the job. The Limited Inc.-owned company requires its store employees to cover their shoulders, said corporate spokesman Anthony Hebron, who explained that the store's skin-showing styles are for off-duty hours.
