The recent burst of telecommuting is damaging fashion sense, according to a number of fashion pundits. They blame the ability to work from home for the way that both men and women have been letting their clothing standards drop.

Some supermarkets have taken to banning customers in pyjamas from shopping because it can offend. They claim that it’s because customers have got used to shopping online in their pjs and now expect to be able to do the same in person.

It’s just one sign that business-casual is devolving into ‘anything goes’ but for those who hope to travel up the career ladder it’s a dangerous path. Companies have taken complex dress codes and turned them into ‘use your best judgement’ but for savvy employees, owning a good pair of trousers or a skirt, a smart shirt and a decent pair of shoes is still the minimum requirement. If your CEO suddenly turns up in your home town and the company want you to drop off some papers or take him or her a memory stick, then you need to look right. And for those who work in ‘back offices’ it may be tempting to wear shorts, flip-flops and casual teeshirts but if you tend to look sloppy and unprofessional, you may fail to win promotion.

Find a middle path by wearing polo-shirts instead of T-shirts, lightweight casual trousers instead of shorts and simple pumps or even this year’s fashion winner, high-top trainers, instead of flip-flops.

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In Mansfield Ohio, a new detailed dress code has been drafted for court staff – it’s meant to ‘inspire confidence and respect from the public, create a professional image and install a sense of pride in city government’.

So municipal employees will be denied lip piercings and excessive tattoos. Jeans and T-shirts will be limited to Friday only in office areas.

In the USA any rules about dress codes must be careful not to infringe on First Amendment rights and religious freedoms and Casual Friday has become a contentious issue, because it’s a test of what is acceptable or not – can you wear a shirt, tie and smart jacket on Dress Down Friday if you’re Mormon or is that seen as a non-team choice? Can you turn up in a T-shirt with an overtly religious or controversial sporting message or is that somehow also against the spirit of teamwork?

This is why many companies prefer to impose casual uniforms which are usually a soft-collared top such as a polo-shirt, worn with the employee’s choice of skirt, trousers or jeans. This allows issues of gender, age and cultural equality to be balanced with health and safety issues.

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There’s no doubt that the dictates of catwalk fashion don’t rule menswear – remember David Beckham and his World Cup sarong? Yes, and how many chaps actually have a skirt in their wardrobes now? Exactly.

But some designer fashion does spill over, although it does it slowly and it hangs around longer. For the third year in a row we are seeing bright colours in menswear on the catwalks, and that means bright colours in male clothing in the shops and offered through online retailers.

This year Calvin Klein went for blues and oranges, in a sort of cubist block style, and Paul Smith, who has always had a tendency towards the ‘dressed in the dark’ approach to colour, went for a wild palette of light and dark blues, purples, and reds. So we can expect to see lots more bright T-shirts, light and striped shorts and colour contrasts between shirts and jackets in the year ahead. If you’re not confident about colour, choose your bright shade and match it with grey, so grey shorts and a yellow vest, or an orange hoodie worn with grey trousers, as grey will tone down anything too bright, while black will tend to make it look brighter.

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According to the Ralph Lauren style guide, every woman should have five essential items in her wardrobe:

• Classic polo shirt – this shirt, usually in a RL colour such as pink and white, or mint and lavender, or just pure plain white or baby blue, is teamed with any casual item of lower body clothing such as jeans, shorts or a casual skirt.
• Skinny-fit polo – this tailored look works with more polished clothing such as fitted trousers or a heavyweight skirt in wool or silk. Often worn with boots and a tailored jacket by WASP girls in the USA.
• Traditional Oxford shirt – this versatile wardrobe classic can be dressed down to wear with jeans if you put a form-fitting T-shirt or vest underneath and wear trainers, while with dress trousers and a fitted jacket, especially if teamed with a smart handbag, it’s suitable for an interview or smart lunch date.
• Lightweight sweater – Ralph Lauren says this is a great layering piece that can elegantly accompany any basic.
• Jeans in stretch denim – these are the final components of the RL look and he suggests that you choose from a sophisticated dark dye look or the faded style for a more casual look.

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Women often feel that they are disadvantaged in the workplace: if they dress dowdily they are overlooked for promotion or interesting tasks, but if they dress attractively they earn envy and resentment and may be taken less seriously!

If it seems that you can’t win, there is a simple solution that helps you stand out, without putting you at risk of being considered either frivolous or tarty.  The answer is to combine your wardrobe to hit two different targets in each outfit.

This means everything you wear should be meet one of these three aims.

•    Combine bright colours and neutral ones
•    Mix floral prints with geometric ones
•    Always balance any feminine touches (such as frills) with and masculine details such as tailoring and fitted clothing.

How do you do it? Well if you wear a white or blue plain work shirt, for example, you can team it with a flounce-hemmed skirt as that’s a nice mixture of feminine and masculine.

Chosen a pair of formal black trousers? Why not match them with a red or yellow jacket that has a contrast trim or a bright detail to meet the bright/neutral colour target?

If your bag is ‘girly’ or pretty, carry a formal black leather wallet to balance it out.

And if you’ve got a striped or contrast trim polo shirt, why not pair it with a floral patterned skirt to achieve the floral/geometric balance?

While this way of dressing takes a little bit of getting used to, it produces the right effect by allowing you to dress so that you stand out from the crowd, without being pigeonholed in a way that doesn’t further your career.

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Polo-shirts are popular and comfortable and most people, men in particular, are very happy to wear them, but how do you make a polo-shirt work if you’re going from daytime wear to an evening out?

First, remember that a polo-shirt is unlike a T-shirt because it has a collar. The lack of a collar is one reason that utilitarian T-shirts are often classed as work-wear, rather than smart clothing.

Polo shirts are also more flexible in the way they can be worn from workplace, to dinner, and on to a night out. The weave of a polo-shirt is designed to keep the wearer cool and the collar can be turned up to prevent sunburn – this is often derided if you do it when the sun goes down though, so don’t ‘pop’ your collar unless you are actually working outside in the day.

To dress up a polo shirt from day to evening, choose a shirt in a muted colour such as grey, navy, black or beige and then, for the evening, add a multi-coloured belt or one that’s got detailing such as studs or an intricate buckle that adds interest to your overall appearance.

Wear something as casual as a polo with a formal or semi formal jacket made from linen or wool. A smart shirt can be worn with a more casual jacket or fleece but if you combine casual with casual the appearance can be two laid-back to satisfy restaurants or night clubs.

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It’s becoming more difficult to find a job, so here are three top tips on how to survive the world of work:

Pen and paper, not mobile

Write down the names of people you meet and tasks you are given. Nobody will expect you to remember everything. But don’t use your mobile or laptop to check your email or surf the web, or even to store the names and numbers of your new colleagues – many companies worry about the way staff use the web now and looking like a net surfer in your first week can suggest you are not serious about your new job. Leave your phone and laptop in your bag and only use them when you are out of the office at lunchtime.

Dress Code

Remember what you wore for interview? Make sure you have enough clothes to dress similarly for your first week of work – this should be smart trousers with a short or long-sleeved shirt for men, and a skirt and shirt for women. On Friday a lot of people may dress down into polo-shirts or T-shirts but don’t assume that dressing down is your right – it’s better to ensure that you are over rather than underdressed in that first week, and also, over-dressing allows you to be dressed formally enough to cope with anything that’s thrown at you. It’s quite common for companies to take on new staff in weeks when the senior managers are all on leave or at conferences and that can mean that everybody relaxes their dress code. Come Monday, you might be the only person who is casually dressed and the returning bosses will not be happy!

Scent

Remember to avoid wearing perfume, aftershave, or body sprays that might affect others – in your first week you’ll probably have other people hovering over you a lot of the time, checking how you’re doing, and if your scent irritates them, you’ll soon be an unpopular colleague.

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Everybody wears cotton clothing – babies are popped into it from birth because of its softness, its breathability and the way that it can take heavy laundering (therefore its absolute cleanliness can be guaranteed). Baby clothing is, quintessentially, cotton clothing.

Once we grow up we move into the kind of rugged cotton clothes that our mothers can wash and wash and wash – whether it’s sports gear for the budding footballer or gymnast, or short-sleeved T-shirts for the incipient artist or junior trainspotter. This cotton wear is wash-and-wear style, in bright colours and is often the kind of garment that a child will fall in love with and insist on wearing all the time. It’s a good thing it’s tough!

And as we become adults, we moving into our own fashion preferences: brilliant white shirts worn for interviews, brand new black T-shirts to impress the opposite sex at the weekend, comfy hoodies for weekend meet ups.

Caring for Cotton

While cotton is robust, you can do quite a lot to keep it looking better for longer. Deep colours benefit from being washed inside out – especially if they have transfer designs on them. Light colours take almost any amount of laundering, but be careful not to wash them with anything dark, or they are likely to pick up a tint of the darker colour.

Cotton or Poly-cotton?

The choice isn’t as simple as you might think. Pure cotton has advantages – it becomes more comfortable the more it’s worn, and you can iron it on a very high heat without destroying it. It holds its dye colour well too. On the down side, it does crease quite badly.

Poly-cotton doesn’t crease nearly so badly, but it does have a tendency to pill, which is where the fabric makes tiny bobbles over time. Also it can’t be washed on as high a temperature as 100% cotton can.

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This is the time of year that many of us look forward to a couple of weeks in the sun – if the airlines, baggage handlers and trains aren’t on strike!

Assuming we manage to get to our destination, what should we have packed to make sure we don’t have a clothing meltdown during the Easter holiday?

You’re almost certainly heading for a region famous for sunshine, great beaches and warm nights, so you need to be prepared but pack as lightly as you can, as every gram will count towards excess baggage if you’re flying.

Ensure that you put your daily toiletries and at least one change of clothes, plus swimwear, plus evening wear in your carry-on or overnight bag. This means that if your luggage is delayed (or even worse, lost) you can spend the first day and night of your holiday enjoying yourself while working with the carrier or holiday representative to sort out compensation or delivery of your togs. The items you should carry are: a spare T-shirt and comfortable shorts or jog pants which can double as sleepwear if necessary, a swimming costume for women or trunks for men, a smart polo-shirt for men and a simple lightweight dress for women. This means you can go to the pool and dine out without having to wear your creased and tired day clothes. It also means you have a chance to launder some of your clothes while you wait for the rest to arrive.

A lightweight jacket will protect you from unseasonable spring rains, and that, along with several pairs of shorts or casual trousers, half-a-dozen T-shirt, a formal shirt in case you’re invited somewhere really posh, and underwear, will serve most men. Women will need to consider adding a couple of pairs of lightweight trousers to wear when sightseeing in the day so as to avoid causing offence in some cultures, as well as looking good with pretty camisole tops under jackets at night.  Similarly short crush-proof dresses are great for the pool and can double up with T-shirts in the evening when it gets cooler. One formal dress is necessary for visits to casinos or posh restaurants and you might want a good telescopic umbrella, just in case of heavy rain.

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It turns out that employers and Human Resources departments are googling candidates for employment or promotion and checking out their Facebook pages to see what they say about themselves.

Uploaded photos are considered to be a good indicator of a person’s view of themselves, because that’s what they’ve chosen to show the world – so those dodgy pictures of you (male) in a mankini or (female) taking part in a wet T-shirt contest, might  be doing you real harm in the career stakes.

On the other hand, smart casual clothing, a big smile and photographs in which you’re just one figure in a big group can all enhance your employment prospects because the right clothing, a happy face and a big circle of friends all tend to convince the viewer that you’re adaptable, popular and intelligent.

So what should you wear in your Facebook profile picture to get a job? A fresh polo-shirt and chinos is the favoured look for the under forty male, while the under forty female should choose a dress or skirt (the skirt should cover her knees and the sleeves of her top should cover her shoulders, but it appears any amount of cleavage doesn’t influence an employer).

It’s even more important for the over forties – men shouldn’t wear a tie because it looks ‘old and sad’ and should have their shirtsleeves, if long, rolled up a few inches to suggest they are active and practical, not stuffy and hierarchical – soft shirts are preferable to stiff starched ones. Women should ensure they don’t show bingo arms or appear in ‘mother of the bride’ type dresses – jeans are good for slim older women, and the more casual the clothing they can get away with, the better, so a contemporary T-shirt with well-fitting jeans would be ideal.

For all ages, it’s important to look fit and healthy, so pictures taken out doors in sports clothing, are a good idea, as long as they aren’t your profile picture – even a blurry picture of the back of your jacket as you walk the dog on a rainy day is enough to give a potential employer the impression that you’re dedicated to doing your duty.

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