For the past five months, my office has overlooked the kitchen counter, the couch, or, admittedly, sometimes my bed. Unsurprisingly, I have adopted a more laissez-faire attitude about what I wear to work. Fitted blouses, ankle-grazing skirts, and heels once part of my regular rotation have been replaced with more relaxed pieces, like comfortable prairie dresses, striped long-sleeve sweaters, and loose button-downs. I like to think that I’m living in one perpetual casual Friday, and it’s helped me find equilibrium with my wardrobe again.
When I first started working from home, I’d wear too-fancy tops with sweats at the bottom, dressing solely for Zoom. Then, I went through an all-too-comfortable phase, where head-to-toe sweatsuits became my go-to. After a few weeks of crewnecks and elastic waistbands, I found myself overdressing for outings to the grocery store—an obvious sign that I was overcompensating for weeks of informality.
Recently, I tried getting dressed in a more pared-down version of what I’d wear to the office, throwing on a comfortable floral dress and some worn-in loafers, and I finally found some semblance of normalcy. I was comfortable enough to work from my kitchen counter, but I felt dressed up enough to seize the day. And I’m not alone. Vogue’s Willow Lindley shares a similar sentiment. “I don’t get dressed with the same tour de force that a full-body look used to require. My greatest form of interaction is my local fish market, so I like to make sure I’m 2020 dressed up—jeans, maybe a crisp shirt, and a well-matched mask.” Here, items that hit the Goldilocks zone between comfort and formality, the 2020 way of getting dressed up each day.
