Corporate clothes DON'T suit me

I've always felt liked dressing up; the thrill of looking like someone you aren't but you might be.

That’s how I felt when I got my first office job.

Coming from a place where my adult image was all about standing out, I had romantic notions of what it might mean to dress up for the grown up corporate world.

 I wanted a work place I could develop a sense of sophistication that so far had been so needless in my twenties. The polished female prototype I wanted to dress up as hadn't suited my role as a student bar maid that rode a bicycle or my lifestyle choice as an all night party girl.

I hoped in an office I might style test an alternative image other than that cute, funky girl, draped in faux fur, proud owner of ten pairs of Converse high tops, and pairs and pairs of multi coloured knee high disco socks (I bet even Peter Pan longed to wear a tux just the once).

My first day as an office girl arrives.

After keen observations of the white collar worker and painstaking image preparation I’m still undecided as to whether I am groomed like a genuine corporate.

Dressed in an aptly named pencil skirt and suit jacket, the teasing sexuality I usually favour is zipped up and tucked in. Wearing safe grey tones and flattering blacks it feels like a dark time for my colourful individuality.  Even the roll neck jumper I’m wearing to induction is a safe blend of materials in a bobble proof wool and classic angora mix). As the material begins to over warm my covered skin I can’t help but wonder if the ‘modest’ image transformation I've made, from Von Teese to Miss Trunchball may be a tad melodramatic.

Stifling a giggle that feels terrible inappropriate and girly, I introduce myself at reception.

With as much conviction as I can muster, I make perfunctory joke about how I take my tea (that is usually green and detoxing) and tell the dear on reception, “I’ll have it fully fat and in a nice mug,”(the last thing I’d want to do is come across as intimidating).

Sipping on my sink tea and nibbling my custard cream in the office waiting area, I feel a long way from the mad hatter’s tea party I’m usually sat at.

With little to occupy me aside from over thumbed copies of a free In Style magazine, I look around at all the other new recruits. I stare at them with the intention of mentally sorting those that might be friends and deselecting the bores.  

 I surprise myself at suddenly feeling unequipped to make those snap decisions of who is like me with only personal appearance to go on.

Unfitted suits are worn on unforgiving shapes; two matching Beige V necks, and the glorious decoration of dangly earrings. My colleagues sit across from me as indistinguishable as a dice face thrown from a distance.

I can’t find my double.

Ever the conspirator, I long to wake up my colleagues with a peak of my tattooed thigh art that lies there hidden by my appropriately crossed leg and the length of my new pencil skirt. I wonder who else’s office attire is their style Hijab.

 Training to be a corporate begins under the phospherent glare of cheap office lighting. Those first few days pass in a creative coma as I learn slide by slide what I’ll be expected to do and expected to be.

Once it’s clear there is no one to clearly impress the personal image of my colleagues quickly declines- some are even wearing fleeces by day nine.

I mourn for lost opportunities to wear metal heels that make confident clicks on marble floors and look around the office hopefully for chivalrous men that open doors.

I chide myself as wrong to expect that in the public sector.

Payday’s pass and I observe the real style guide that ensures good humor at the office.

Never stand out or never fit in, and don’t ever brag about being thin. The  mean girls scream it but you never hear it as they huddle together leaving out those poor girls in the cold that dare to look a lot less conventional.

Chiffon scarf’s become the only labels to tell us all apart

“Oh that’s sally the one wearing the pink hearts”.

Eschewing the need for canteen chatter I continue to wear an overly slim lined trouser, metal black, turquoise piping- I know it will be considered shinier plumage than the girl next to me.

          Own clothes days are used in the office to celebrate, dispensations for those of us that occasionally like looking less ordinary.

I watch in amusement as Phil from pod three struggles to look appropriately casual for Sport Relief and remark with kindly sarcasm on how athletic his linen suit jacket and trainers combination is.

          I personally look forward to Christmas, where we are free to wear a festive jumper- I have one handpicked from the eighties.

          Then comes Jeans for Jeans Day, a chance to rock the casual cool look immortalized by James Dean.  It’s then I know my personal image might tell the ‘suits’ this office girl is really not all she seems.