Summer’s fun right guys? Cider in the park, holidays to cheap ’n’ cheeful beachside resorts and, best of all, being able to get away with wearing flippy little dresses (no thought involved) and channeling Stevie Nicks circa 1977 on a daily basis.
Except that is, when you’re at work. Work is the opposite of summer, it’s the summer’s fun police. Just when you want to roam free and bask in a meadow full of buttercups, work rears its ugly head and reminds you that you’re actually meant to be in a poorly air-conditioned office staring at spreadsheets while you secretly scroll through Kendall Jenner’s holiday pictures in all their ‘beach body ready’ glory on That Website That Must Not Be Named.
The worst thing about work and summer though is that work curbs your opportunities to dress like a woodland nymph/Coachella escapee or whatever the summer look is that you’re going for. And it’s all thanks to a little thing they like to call a ‘dress code’: that boring old thing that stops you from showing up to work naked every day.
(TBF, some offices are more strict than others (and judging by the accidentally very short skirt I am wearing today we are not one of those offices) but it’s still the way to ruin summer, man.)
Anyways, here’s a few things we’ve learned the hard way that it’s not OK to wear to work in the summer.
Flip flops
Which is bullshit. As long as your feet aren’t touching the ground, who the hell is your boss to decide what is suitable footwear and what isn’t? Apparently, it’s something to do with flip flops being ‘beachwear’ but really, don’t some CEOs of Fortune 500 companies *use *the beach as their office?
We’re just dressing for where we want to be in five years. And, judging by YOUR shoes boss man, the only place you want to be is at the Convention For People With Really Bad Footwear Choices. So there’s that.
Short Shorts
More specifically, of the ‘jeans’ variety. ‘Daisy Dukes’, if you will. TBF, we’re kind of with Boss Man on this one; in fact, denim shorts should be placed alongside coriander on the list of things the UN needs to ban for our own good. No-one looks good in them except Victoria’s Secret models and 2005 Jessica Simpson.
Also, the chafing that goes along with them if you’re not blessed with a bloody thigh gap? Something like that could put you out of sexual action for *weeks. *And nobody wants that.
Full hippie regalia
We’re talking maxi kaftans, headbands, fringing... All totally fine at festivals but deemed ‘fancy dress-like’ and ‘unprofessional’. We say, way to stifle our creativity. It’s a signal of our resourcefulness that we’re able to cultivate a summer wardrobe so vastly different from our all-black winter one. It takes courage to wear clothes that other people might not ‘get’ and, most of all, it takes motivation to want to copy Vanessa Hudgens’ Coachella style with such dedication.
All traits a good manager should be looking for from his employees, so yes, actually, we will have that promotion now please Mr Boss Man and we’ve got our paisley maxi skirt to thank.
Boob tubes
A real Thing in the summer of 2004, not so much now because we’ve all grown up and realised that a stretchy band of material that barely covers your nip nips does not a top, make. Anyways, yes, boob tubes in the workplace: probably frowned upon because your ample bosom might distract the menfolk from tap-tap-tapping away at their keyboards. Which kind of makes us want to pull ours out of the cupboard again.
If we can manage to get on with our work while Gary from Accounts walks around in khaki trousers so tight you can see his disco stick and balls bounching up and down then we, as ladies in 2015, are A-OK to expose our (gasp) shoulders.
Bikinis
Just plain rude this one. First they tell us to be ‘beach body ready’, then they tell us to put it away. FFS.
Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
‘Summer Is A Self-Conscious Cellulite Sufferer’s Worst Season’
‘I Hate Summer Clothes’. Here’s How To Get Dressed If You Hate Showing Skin
Follow Jess on Twitter @Jess_Commons
Picture: Lukasz Wierzbowski
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.