Is Your Office Ready For The Corpcore Trend That’s Gone Viral?

Do you pine for a fax machine? Are you riveted by the memory of a Rolodex? Misty eyed over the thought of a freshly printed business card? Counting down the seconds until the American Pyscho remake drops? Well, tighten your Windsor knot, you couldn't be more current. In a world where we can multitask from a park bench and digitally nomad up the career ladder, there remains a curious affection for those static office days of old.

At the autumn/winter catwalk shows earlier this year, designers lent into glamorising the work station. At Calvin Klein, Veronica Leoni presented her first collection (think cool '90s skirt suits - already worn by Daisy Edgar-Jones) for the house in its minimal 39th Street HQ in New York. Duran Lantink in Paris also showed in an office space; while Stella McCartney went further, creating Stella Corp, a full scale corporate set, complete with desks, landlines (!), computers, Post-its, pot plants, swivel chairs and, erm, pole dancers. The collection title? From Laptop to Lapdance.

For McCartney, the show marked her first since parting ways with LVMH and taking full financial control of her brand. In that context the corporate boss bitch schtick made sense. Backstage she said, ‘The day-to-night thing is really important for my brand. I want to be women’s friends. I want them to rely on me, and I want them to wear that suit out to a club.’

It’s all very Industry – the cult show that has put branded gilets, short-selling stock and back-stabbing on primetime. Or perhaps you’ve changed your Zoom background to the chillingly clinical corridors of Lumon Industries from Severance (filmed at the former Bell Laboratories complex in New Jersey).

In New York, creatives have taken this meta office affection one step further by actually going to Wall Street. In a 1980s-built tower block in the financial district, formerly home to AIG insurance, designers Rosie Assoulin and Bode have taken space among others in the serviced space, which offers free matcha coffee before 11.

More IRL office affection comes from the emerging demographic of corporate-coded influencers using their glossy workplaces for art direction. See Kat from Finance (her bio reads ‘a corporate slay a day keeps the doctor away’), who’s amassed 23K Instagram followers since February after using her office loo as backdrop. What started out as a Gen Z subculture – think 20-year-olds on nights out in pinstripes – has evolved into a broader movement.

Emily Gordon-Smith, content director at trends intelligence business Stylus, is calling it ‘athleisure ennui’, believing it comes ‘as a response to the chaotic times we’re living in, we’re seeing more mature mindsets come to the fore – sensible, stable, even conservative – and this is playing out in aesthetics. We’re seeing huge interest in anything alluding to old-fashioned intellectual nourishment as an antidote to our digital dumbing down.’ The result is, she says, a ‘desire to look clever or naturally smart’. Equally, with the politicising of the prairie dress by Trump’s trad wives, a harder, armour-like look feels increasingly preferable.

At Banshee of Savile Row, the only bespoke women’s tailoring brand to show at London Fashion Week, designer Ruby Selvin has noted the shift, too. Her clientele is split between corporate and creative professions. When she re-launched the label post-Covid, ‘There were all these articles coming out saying the suit is dead, which was slightly terrifying, I was worried people would just want to [keep] wearing tracksuits. Actually, people were sick of it and wanted to dress even better than before. It was almost like an act of rebellion.’

In the last year she’s seen a shift from women wanting soft silk blouses to a greater demand for ‘business’ sharp, cotton shirts, striped blue with a white collar, and ties – so much so that she’s started making her own. ‘I collaborated with the artist Eleanor Ekserdjian. They’re silk, very feminine.’

This smartening up has even extended into the athleisure market, see the polarising vogue for ‘loafer trainers’. StockX reports that sales of loafers and loafer-style sneakers have increased 351% year on year, with best- sellers including New Balance’s 1906L sneaker loafer and Vans’ Japan loafer.

Sophie Jewes, founder of PR agency Raven, has found herself embracing what she calls her ‘midlife Eilish’ uniform of ‘expensive blazer, pinstripe shirt and my dad’s vintage ties’.

‘It’s universally flattering,’ she points out. ‘Those of us with big boobs are often caught in an internal battle about whether to reveal or conceal... suit-and-tie dressing feels like a really neat third space. It’s sculptural but protective, too. So I wear a tie not to hide my femininity, but to reframe it.’

Shop: The Corpcore Look

Victoria Moss is a freelance journalist who has written for The Sunday Times Style, Elle, The Evening Standard, The Telegraph and The Financial Times, as well as her own Substack, Everything is Content.