Defy conformity: Dress up

Tags

business casual, dress code, fashion, silicon valley companies

Slip into your jeans, T-shirt and hoodie – you’re ready for work, right?
Unless you’re Mark Zuckerberg, maybe not.

To truly defy conformity, many West Coast companies have instigated “Formal Friday” when they don their Sunday best. It’s hard to believe the same nonconformists who pioneered the “Casual Friday” trend now are ready to free themselves from the flip-flops that have become standard weekday dress.

(Apparently, sloppy attire is no longer seen as a way of transcending corporate politics.)

Business-etiquette expert Lydia Ramsey is delighted.

Ramsey wrote the book, “Manners That Sell,” and blames Microsoft Corporation for cementing the casual dress code so common among technology companies, but says startups today have “taken it to a new low.”
The Savannah, Georgia, resident is excited to see more companies putting the A-game back in their dress and believes employees are more productive when they dress in formal attire.

At some Silicon Valley companies (like gaming giant Zynga Inc.) small groups of employees have begun to dress up on Fridays. Even the employees at Peet’s Coffee Shop in San Francisco’s financial district reportedly started Formal Fridays about a year ago: Baristas don bow ties and top hats to brew customers’ coffee.

“Friday’s the best day of the week anyway, right?” said employee Kyle Serpa, dressed in suspenders and a tie. “Why not celebrate it with some style and grace?”

Those of us who live on the East Coast wholeheartedly agree.

Think pinky

Tags

14 karat gold, aristocrats, cameo, fashion, nobility, ring, signet, style

My mother always wore a pinky ring.

She may not have known that, for centuries before it became a chic accessory for modern women, an engraved signet worn on the little finger was a symbol of family and social status for kings, queens and European aristocrats. According to Keith Penton, head of the jewelry department at Christies in London, noble families would have their coat of arms or crest which they would press into wax to seal letters.

Wealthy people (who didn’t have a crest) began to engrave their initials on rings instead. Penton says many Englishmen – including Prince Charles – even wear their wedding ring on their pinky along with their crest ring.

Of course, not everyone who sports the style is nobility: Al Capone wore a 14-karat gold pinky ring bearing the letters “AC.”

But whether you’re an heiress or a hitman, the key to wearing a ring on your little finger is finding the right style.

Mother alternated between an oval cameo in summer months and a diamond ring in winter. I have them both and have discovered that virtually any stone looks bigger on a pinky.

“Women who wear pinky rings have lots of style and self-confidence,” she once told me.

I hope it is true.