It can't be denied that there is a significant chunk of people for whom more casual dress is important. This might be due to perceived comfort, or perhaps the e

It can't be denied that there is a significant chunk of people for whom more casual dress is important. This might be due to perceived comfort, or perhaps the expense of the fancy dress and its maintenance. Whatever the reason, enforcing a dress code imposes a cost on employees, both financially and in some cases emotionally. In an age of tight money, I would expect that more firms would find this a way to save on employment expenses. Other things being equal, at the margin they'd be able to attract better talent for equal benefits. Or, conversely, they'd be able to attract equal talent while spending slightly less on benefits. Thus, allowing casual dress can be a money saver for companies, with no real cost to implementing it. Several posts in this thread assert that "dressing up" is a matter of respect for one's coworkers. I don't see why this is so. Certainly, observing hygiene and grooming habits so as not to be offensive fits into this framework. And certain ritualized situations (weddings, funerals, proms) demand it. But I fail to see how dress fits into the more general case. Indeed, it seems to me that in what we like to think is a diverse, open-minded, tolerant society, that the real act of respect would be to look deeper at a person than just clothes. It's in the mind of the viewer, not the wearer.