everybody's obsessed with the retro corporate aesthetic

Mina Le
16 Apr 202433:30

Summary

TLDRLa mode actuelle s'inspire largement de l'esthétique du travail en entreprise des années 80 et 90, avec des éléments comme les costumes, les chemisiers boutonnés et les pantalons droits. Cette tendance, qui a été popularisée par des personnages de fiction tels que Patrick Bateman dans 'American Psycho', est à la fois une aspiration à la séparation entre vie professionnelle et vie privée et une nostalgie d'une époque où le travail était moins omniprésent dans la vie quotidienne. Les campagnes publicitaires modernes reflètent cette aspiration, proposant une version idyllique du travail en entreprise qui ignore les aspects négatifs tels que les longues heures ou le stress. Cette fascination pour le 'corporate fetish' peut également être vue comme une réaction au monde du travail actuel, où la culture de l'entreprise traditionnelle a été ébranlée par la pandémie et l'adoption du travail à distance.

Takeaways

  • 🎬 Le script est sponsorisé par Squarespace, une plateforme tout-en-un pour construire une marque et développer son entreprise en ligne.
  • 📈 L'engagement de Monica Lewinsky dans la campagne de Reformation en 2024 a généré plus de 2 millions de dollars d'exposition médiatique et visait à inciter à l'inscription électorale.
  • 📰 La couverture médiatique négative a affecté considérablement la vie de Lewinsky, qui a lutté pour trouver un emploi et subvenir à ses besoins après l'affaire Clinton.
  • 👚 L'esthétique de la collection Reformation est inspirée de la tenue professionnelle, avec des vêtements tels que des blouses boutonnées, des costumes et des jupes pencil.
  • 💼 La mode actuelle incorpore des éléments de tenue professionnelle, incluant les couleurs neutres, les chemises boutonnées, les costumes et les jupes pencil.
  • 👠 L'auteur Emily Sundberg a baptisé le phénomène de la glamorisation de la vie de bureau 'corporate fetish', qui englobe des éléments de la culture de travail des années 80 et 90.
  • 📚 L'influence de la mode des années 80 est visible dans les descriptions détaillées des vêtements dans le livre 'American Psycho' et son adaptation cinématographique.
  • 👗 La tenue professionnelle est de retour sur les podiums de la mode, avec des marques comme Luar et The Elder Statesman s'inspirant de la culture d'affaires new-yorkaise.
  • 👜 Le 'commuter core' est une sous-catégorie de la mode corporate qui célèbre l'aspect décontracté du trajet des employés vers le bureau.
  • 👖 L'acceptation des costumes pantalons pour les femmes a évolué au fil des décennies, reflétant les changements dans les normes de la société et le travail.
  • 💼 La mode corporate est devenue aspirationnelle en 2024, peut-être en raison de la nostalgie d'une époque où le travail et la vie sociale étaient plus distincts.

Q & A

  • Quelle a été la campagne de Reformation de février 2024 avec Monica Lewinsky ?

    -La campagne de Reformation de février 2024 avec Monica Lewinsky s'appelait 'You've Got the Power' et a généré plus de 2 millions de dollars d'exposition médiatique. Le but de la campagne était de sensibiliser et d'inciter à l'enregistrement des électeurs.

  • Comment a décrit Emily Sundberg le phénomène de la mode inspirée de la vie professionnelle ?

    -Emily Sundberg décrit le phénomène de la mode inspirée de la vie professionnelle comme 'corporate fetish', un terme qui encapsule l'attraction culturelle générale pour le look de bureau.

  • Quels éléments de mode des années 80 et 90 sont mentionnés dans le script ?

    -Des éléments de mode des années 80 et 90 mentionnés dans le script incluent les costumes de tailleur, les lunettes Bayonetta, les blouses boutonnées jusqu'à la poitrine, les jupes-pilotes serrées et les talons hauts ou plats.

  • Quels avantages le Squarespace offre-t-il pour créer un site web de commerce électronique ?

    -Squarespace offre des modèles préfabriqués pour démarrer, la possibilité de personnaliser ces modèles, des outils pour ouvrir une boutique en ligne pour vendre des produits physiques, téléchargeables ou des adhésions, et une fonctionnalité de newsletter pour interagir avec les clients.

  • Comment la mode de bureau a-t-elle évolué au fil des décennies selon le script ?

    -Selon le script, la mode de bureau a évolué pour inclure des éléments des années 80 et 90, des costumes de tailleur, des lunettes d'époque, et des looks professionnels qui allaient au-delà des tendances des années 2000 pour inclure des aspects des décennies précédentes.

  • Quel est le terme utilisé pour décrire la tendance actuelle de la mode qui met en avant les vêtements professionnels ?

    -Le terme utilisé pour décrire cette tendance est 'corporate fetish', bien que d'autres noms comme 'office siren', 'geek chic', 'corpcore' et 'businesscore' aient également été mentionnés.

  • Comment la campagne de Reformation avec Monica Lewinsky a-t-elle été perçue ?

    -La campagne a reçu une bonne réponse en partie à cause du réinterprétation moderne de l'histoire de Lewinsky et en partie à cause des silhouettes tendance de la collection de vêtements.

  • Quels sont les éléments caractéristiques du look 'office siren' ?

    -Le look 'office siren' est caractérisé par des lunettes Bayonetta, des blouses boutonnées jusqu'à la poitrine pour révéler un soutien-gorge push-up, des jupes-pilotes serrées et des talons hauts ou plats.

  • Quels sont les éléments de la collection Reformation qui inspirent le look de bureau ?

    -La collection Reformation est inspirée de la tenue de bureau avec des blouses boutonnées, des cravates, des gilets assortis et des jupes-pilotes assorties, et quelques photos posées dans un espace de bureau avec vue sur la skyline de la ville.

  • Comment la tenue de bureau est-elle devenue aspirationnelle en 2024 ?

    -La tenue de bureau est devenue aspirationnelle en 2024 en partie à cause de la nostalgie d'une époque où le travail et la vie professionnelle étaient plus séparés et moins omniprésents dans notre vie quotidienne, et aussi parce que la culture de la corporation, qui est devenue obsolète pour de nombreuses personnes, est devenue un concept à la mode.

  • Quels sont les avantages et les inconvénients de travailler à domicile, selon le script ?

    -Les avantages incluent la flexibilité, la possibilité pour certaines personnes de mieux gérer leur vie professionnelle et personnelle, et l'accessibilité pour les personnes handicapées ou les parents sans garde d'enfant. Les inconvénients comprennent la perte de la culture de travail, la confusion des frontières entre vie professionnelle et vie personnelle, et l'absence de retour à l'ancien mode de travail.

Outlines

00:00

🌐 Présentation de la plateforme Squarespace et l'impact médiatique de la campagne Reformation

Le paragraphe introductif met en avant la plateforme Squarespace comme outil pour construire une marque et développer un business en ligne. Il présente Mina Le, la PDG, qui accueille de nouveaux employés et aborde des sujets liés à la mode, à la culture et aux médias. L'accent est mis sur la campagne de février 2024 de Reformation, avec Monica Lewinsky en tant que figure de proue, qui a généré plus de 2 millions de dollars d'exposition médiatique et visait à inciter à l'inscription aux urnes. On évoque également la vie professionnelle de Lewinsky, son activisme anti-harcèlement, et la manière dont la presse a influencé sa vie après l'affaire Clinton, soulignant le traitement médiático-sexualisé et la stigmatisation qu'elle a subis.

05:01

📈 Tendance du look 'Corporate Fetish' et son influence sur la mode actuelle

Ce paragraphe explore l'influence du look 'Corporate Fetish', ou 'fétiche corporatif', sur la mode contemporaine, en décrivant la popularité des teintes neutres, des chemisiers boutonnés, des costumes, des jupes pinces et des cravates sur les défilés de mode. Il mentionne également d'autres termes tels que 'Office Siren', 'Geek Chic', 'Corpcore' et 'Businesscore'. L'auteur discute de la définition de ces termes et de leur relation avec les vêtements de bureau, en citant l'exemple du film 'American Psycho' et son impact sur la mode.

10:05

👜 Tendance des sacs à main et des sacs à dos larges comme symbole de la culture de la通勤 (commute)

Le paragraphe examine la tendance actuelle des grands sacs à main et à dos, qui sont perçus comme un symbole de la culture de la通勤 (commute), ou du trajet de travail. Il décrit comment cette tendance est devenue aspirationnelle en 2024, peut-être en raison de la nostalgie d'une séparation de vie professionnelle et personnelle qui est devenue plus flou avec le travail à distance. Il mentionne également le mouvement 'Quiet Luxury' et la réapparition des sacs grands et spacieux, comme ceux de Miu Miu et de The Row.

15:08

🏢 Critique de la culture de travail des années 80 et 90 et son idealisation par la mode

Ici, l'auteur critique l'idée de l'idéalisation de la culture de travail des années 80 et 90 par l'industrie de la mode, soulignant les problèmes de la société de l'époque, notamment le favoritisme envers les hommes blancs collers. Il décrit comment la récession des années 90 a affecté les travailleurs de bureau et a fait des cubicules un symbole d'impermanence et de jetable. Il compare également la fascination actuelle pour ces décennies à une forme d'évasion, car la réalité du travail quotidien est souvent ignorée dans les médias qui les représentent.

20:11

📚 Réflexion sur l'évolution de la mode professionnelle et son impact sur la société

Le dernier paragraphe réfléchit sur l'évolution de la mode professionnelle au fil des décennies, de la manière dont les conseils de mode pour les femmes ont changé, et de l'impact de la mode sur la société. Il souligne comment les conseils divergents sur le port de vêtements sensuels ou professionnels pour les femmes ont influencé les attentes et les opportunités professionnelles. L'auteur conclut en disant que, malgré les changements, il est important de développer un style personnel qui vous aide à vous démarquer, tout en soulignant l'importance de la tenue appropriée au bureau, même si le travail à distance a changé la dynamique de la culture de travail.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡Squarespace

Squarespace est une plateforme tout-en-un qui permet de construire une marque et de développer son entreprise en ligne. Dans la vidéo, il est mentionné que la plateforme est utilisée pour créer des sites web et des boutiques en ligne, personnalisables et faciles à gérer, ce qui est directement lié au thème de la création de contenu et de la présence en ligne pour les entreprises et les influenceurs.

💡Monica Lewinsky

Monica Lewinsky est une activiste anti-harcèlement, écrivaine et productrice qui a fait les manches pour sa relation avec Bill Clinton pendant son mandat. Dans le script, son implication dans la campagne de Reformation en 2024 est évoquée, montrant comment son image a été réinterprétée et utilisée pour sensibiliser aux enjeux de l'enregistrement des électeurs, ce qui est un exemple de la manière dont les figures publiques peuvent influencer la culture et la société.

💡Reformation

Reformation est une marque de mode qui a choisi Monica Lewinsky pour figurer dans sa campagne 'You've Got the Power'. Le script souligne comment cette collaboration a généré de l'exposition médiatique et comment la marque s'est inspirée du look de travail pour créer une collection qui reflète l'empowerment et le style de Lewinsky, intégrant ainsi la mode de travail dans la culture de la mode.

💡Corporate Fetish

Corporate Fetish est un terme utilisé pour décrire l'attraction culturelle pour le look de travail et l'esthétique des vêtements de bureau. Dans la vidéo, il est discuté en relation avec la tendance actuelle de la mode qui voit s'intégrer des éléments de tenue professionnelle dans les looks de rue, montrant comment l'influence du travail sur la mode est un phénomène qui dépasse les années 2000 pour inclure des éléments des années 80 et 90.

💡American Psycho

Le film 'American Psycho' est mentionné comme un point de référence pour l'esthétique de la tenue de bureau dans les années 80. Le personnage principal, Patrick Bateman, incarne le style de la finance d'époque avec des costumes couturés, ce qui a influencé la mode de la tenue de bureau et est utilisé dans le script pour illustrer l'impact de la culture pop sur les tendances actuelles.

💡Commuter Core

Commuter Core est une sous-catégorie de la mode de travail qui se concentre sur l'aspect non raffiné et pratique du look de trajet des employées. Dans le script, il est présenté comme une version romantisée de la vie quotidienne d'une femme travaillant, incluant des sacs grands, des parkas et des baskets, qui contrastent avec l'image plus raffinée de la tenue de bureau traditionnelle.

💡Work-Life Balance

L'équilibre entre vie professionnelle et vie personnelle est un thème clé abordé dans le script. Il est discuté dans le contexte de la génération Z et de l'attitude vis-à-vis du travail, soulignant le désir d'une vie en dehors du travail et la nécessité d'un équilibre. Le script mentionne comment les tendances actuelles en matière de mode de travail peuvent être vues comme une réponse à cette aspiration.

💡COVID-19 Pandemic

La pandémie de COVID-19 a été un facteur clé dans le changement de la culture de travail et a influencé les tendances de mode. Le script mentionne comment la pandémie a provoqué un changement de priorité pour les gens, avec une découverte de nouveaux passions et un rythme de vie plus lent, et comment cela a mené à une réévaluation de la culture de travail traditionnelle.

💡Zoomer

Les Zoomers, ou génération Z, sont mentionnés comme un groupe qui a une perspective différente sur le travail et la mode en raison de leur expérience limitée de la vie de bureau traditionnelle. Le script explore comment cette génération perçoit le look de travail et la culture de l'entreprise à travers des tendances de mode qui peuvent être vues comme une forme de subversion ou d'ironie.

💡Office Wear

Le vetement de bureau est un élément central du thème de la vidéo. Il est présenté non seulement comme un aspect pratique du travail mais aussi comme un symbole de pouvoir, d'autorité et de style. Le script explore l'évolution de l'office wear, de son importance dans la culture de travail traditionnelle à son adoption dans les tendances de mode actuelles.

💡Remote Work

Le travail à distance est abordé comme un facteur qui a changé la dynamique de la vie professionnelle et, par conséquent, l'importance de l'office wear. Le script discute de la façon dont le travail à distance a tué la culture de travail des salles de bureaux traditionnelles, influençant ainsi les attentes en matière de mode pour ceux qui travaillent à partir de chez eux.

Highlights

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Transcripts

00:00

- This video is brought to you by Squarespace,  an all-in-one platform for building a brand and  

00:04

growing your business online. Coming to you live  from our New York City headquarters, this is your  

00:10

CEO speaking. My name is Mina Le, and welcome  new hirees! And on this channel, we talk about,  

00:16

or sorry, in this company, we talk about fashion,  culture and media. So in case you missed it,  

00:28

Monica Lewinsky became the face of Reformation's  February, 2024 campaign, "You've Got the Power,"  

00:35

which generated more than $2 million in media  exposure. The purpose of the campaign was to  

00:39

call to action for voter registration. Monica  Lewinsky is an anti-bullying activist. She's  

00:44

a writer and a producer, though she first made  headlines as the 22-year-old White House intern,  

00:50

who Bill Clinton had an 18-month long affair with  during his presidency. This is all made public  

00:55

in 1998, and of course, because this was the 90s,  the Wall Street Journal referred to her in print,  

01:02

as "a little tart." And Maureen Dowd won a  Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of Lewinsky,  

01:07

in which she called her, "a ditsy, predatory White  House intern." An intern being predatory towards  

01:13

the President. Love to hear it. Don't you miss  90s media, everyone? Lewinsky has talked at length  

01:19

of how the negative press coverage affected her  life afterwards. In 2021, she told the Hollywood  

01:24

Reporter, "Just because I wasn't on the news  every night for 20 years in the same way that I  

01:28

was in 1998, doesn't mean that the story ended. 10  years on, I still could not get a job. I couldn't  

01:33

support myself." In the last several years, some  feminists have revisited the Clinton-Lewinsky  

01:38

scandal and specifically, the press's treatment of  Monica. As Helen Rumbelow writes for the Times UK,  

01:44

"Those in their 50s now reflect on their younger  selves watching the slut-shaming vilification of  

01:49

a peer and doing nothing, or joining in. Those in  their teens and 20s are meeting Lewinsky afresh  

01:54

as the patron saint of young women whose lives  were casually ruined by rapacious men in power."  

01:59

The Reformation Collection is inspired by office  workwear, with Monica wearing a button-down blouse  

02:04

tie and matching waist coat and skirt, and a few  photos posed in an office space overlooking the  

02:09

city skyline. She's no longer giving intern,  she's giving boss, but like in a cool, sexy,  

02:14

retro way, and not in a cringey 2016 lean-in, girl  boss, kinda way. This was a really smart move for  

02:20

Reformation, in my opinion. And the reason there  was such a good response is in part because of  

02:25

the modern reframing of Lewinsky's story. And also  because of the trending silhouettes of the actual  

02:31

clothing collection. Today I wanna talk about  the incorporation of office wear in fashion these  

02:35

days. How we got here, and what this means for us.  Despite what this video is about, we aren't in the  

02:43

1980s anymore, and most people who work need to  have a website. And Squarespace makes the process  

02:48

as simple as possible. Squarespace offers pre-made  templates to get you started, but don't feel  

02:53

stifled. Once you select one, you can personalize  it however you want, so that your page reflects  

02:57

the uniqueness of your business. If you have  products to sell, you can easily open your store  

03:02

native with Squarespace's tools to sell anything  from physical products to downloadable products  

03:07

to memberships. And Squarespace also makes it easy  for you to engage with your clients through their  

03:11

email newsletter feature. You can introduce your  brand, your work, or yourself to new subscribers  

03:15

with welcome emails, or send announcements for an  upcoming sale, or let your top customers know of  

03:21

a secret discount code. Check out squarespace.com  for a free trial and when you're ready to launch,  

03:26

go to squarespace.com/minale to get 10% off  your first purchase of a website or a domain.

03:44

- It makes me wish I had a job.

03:47

- I've seen so many terms getting tossed  around. Office siren, corporate fetish,  

03:53

geek chic, corpcore, businesscore, among  other names, to describe what's happening  

03:58

in fashion right now. That is the prevalence of  neutrals, especially the color gray, button-ups,  

04:03

blazers, pantsuits, pencil skirts and ties on  the runway. I think the term corporate fetish,  

04:08

which was dubbed by writer Emily Sundberg,  is the term I vibe with the most.

04:12

- That's the one!

04:14

- It encapsulates the general cultural lure  of office wear today and is less defined by  

04:20

individual trends like Bayonetta glasses. Sundberg  describes the phenomena as this. "The corporate  

04:26

fetish is when people glamorize the idea of an  office, the water cooler conversations, getting  

04:30

dressed, actually dressed, dry-cleaner-pick-up  dressed, for an eight to seven job, and spinning  

04:36

around in a desk chair. This is all while  office occupancy hovers around 50% in New  

04:40

York." In comparison, the office siren look is  very specific, and is underneath the corporate  

04:45

fetish umbrella, but mostly takes from early 2000s  fashion trends, like Bayonetta glasses, button up  

04:51

blouses that are buttoned down to the cleavage to  reveal a little pushup bra, tight pencil skirts,  

04:56

and slingback kitten or stiletto heels. But in  actuality, what's happening in the culture goes  

05:01

beyond the early 2000s to also include a lot of  1980s and 1990s elements as well. For example,  

05:07

back in the Fall of 2022, Byrdie put out an  article called, "Why is Every Fashion Girl Dressed  

05:12

like Patrick Bateman Right Now?" Well, Patrick  Bateman, the lead character of the movie "American  

05:16

Psycho," did debut in the popular zeitgeist  in the year 2000. The movie actually takes  

05:21

place in the 1980s and costume designer, Isis  Mussenden, did a fantastic job, in my opinion.

05:27

- Don't tell me, don't tell me, let  me guess. Mm, Valentino couture.

05:32

- She dressed Christian Bale and his colleagues  in couture suits to underscore the late 1980s  

05:36

boom economy and its corresponding self-obsessed  Wall Street culture. She said in an interview,  

05:42

"The Italian house of Cerruti sent me the  catalogs of their collections from those days,  

05:47

and I chose some designs which they then remade  from the original patterns." As just a fun fact,  

05:52

the film actually had issues with designer  labels because of the subject matter,  

05:57

the murderous subject matter. Cerruti only agreed  to let Christian Bale wear their clothes when his  

06:02

character was not killing someone, and Comme  des Garcons apparently refused to allow one  

06:07

of their overnight bags to be used to carry  a corpse. So they used Jean Paul Gaultier  

06:12

instead. Gaultier would definitely be down  for this movie, which I think is so hilarious.

06:16

- Where did you get that overnight bag?

06:19

- Jean Paul Gaultier.

06:21

- "American Psycho" is also based on the  Bret Easton Ellis book of the same name.  

06:26

And in the book, Patrick Bateman is equally, if  not more obsessed with clothing. And he and his  

06:32

coworkers regularly discuss fashion trends with  each other. I skimmed through this book on my  

06:37

Kindle because I don't think I have the stomach to  actually read this. I've just, I don't know, I've  

06:42

just heard that it's really sadistic and violent  and much worse than the movie. And once again,  

06:46

I have a weak stomach. I couldn't even watch  "Game of Thrones," so I didn't read it. But I  

06:51

found a blog where the writer, Kyle Barbeau,  tried to chronicle all mentions of branded  

06:56

clothing in the book and found over 60 mentions  before giving up. Spoiler, most of the items are  

07:02

Armani. Bateman also wears a 1980s, two-toned  Rolex Datejust 16013, which he references in  

07:09

the movie as well. But the one Christian Bale  actually wears is a dupe, the Seiko SNXJ90,  

07:15

because Rolex didn't wanna be on the wrist of a  serial killer. Which, you know, can we blame them?  

07:19

It's not the best endorsement. If only they knew  how impactful "American Psycho" would be today,  

07:25

in terms of fashion. I'm gonna read a passage here  from the book regarding one of Bateman's suits,  

07:30

to give a sense of how detailed Ellis gets with  these style descriptions. "The suit I wear today  

07:35

is from Alan Flusser. It's an 80s drape suit,  which is an updated version of the 30s style. The  

07:40

favored version has extended natural shoulders,  a full chest and a bladed back. The soft-rolled  

07:45

lapel should be about four inches wide with the  peak finishing three quarters of the way across  

07:49

the shoulders. Properly used on double-breasted  suits, peaked lapels are considered more elegant  

07:55

than notched ones." He keeps going, but I think  you get the gist. As you can see in the movie,  

08:00

Bateman wears a Valentino dinner jacket  that has the 1930s-esque double-breasted,  

08:04

peaked lapel design he mentions. This is all super  in line with actual 1980s formal wear. By the way,  

08:11

GQ's December, 1984, Annual Formal Wear  Review, states, "To be sure, the 30s remain the  

08:17

inspiration. Double-breasted dinner jackets with  peaked satin, or grosgrain lapels." So I mean,  

08:23

Ellis definitely did do his research. There's  also a gym outfit featured in the book that's  

08:27

not in the movie that's lifted entirely from  the May, 1988 issue of GQ. Bateman narrates,  

08:33

"I slip into a pair of crow-black cotton and Lycra  shorts with a white waistband and side stripes  

08:37

and a cotton and Lycra tank top, both by Wilkes,  which can be folded so tightly that I can actually  

08:42

carry them in my briefcase." Honestly, I would've  loved to see this outfit in the movie. But let's  

08:48

get back to the present day runway. At the most  recent New York Fashion Week, Luar's collection,  

08:53

which featured broad shouldered tops and jackets  was inspired by designer Raul Lopez's childhood  

08:59

people-watching the corporate crew on Fifth  Avenue and Wall Street. The luxury knitwear  

09:03

brand, The Elder Statesman, based their recent  campaign on New York City's corporate culture as  

09:08

well. According to Emily Sundberg, who messaged  the brand's Creative Director, Bailey Hunter,  

09:12

the theme was "American Psycho." The campaign also  shot in the WSA, an old office building that's  

09:18

getting revamped by the hospitality management  company, Happier People. WSA IG bio currently  

09:24

reads, "A new downtown hub blurring the lines  of the arts, production, working space, food,  

09:29

play and culture. An 80s icon." The vintage office  space itself is of course included in this larger  

09:35

corporate trend and we can see it as a backdrop  of many other campaigns, including Balenciaga's  

09:40

Spring 2023 campaign, the Skims Ultimate Nipple  Bra campaign, and following Kim Kardashian GQ  

09:46

photo shoot, the Lewinsky Reformation campaign,  Boyish Beauty's Brow Duo campaign, among others.  

09:53

I'd even include campaigns that embrace the clunky  lo-fi UI seen on old computers as part of this  

09:59

trend. Corporate fetish has gone so far as to  include commuting culture, dubbed by Harper's  

10:05

Bazaar as "Commuter Core," which I honestly  think this is just like splitting the atom at  

10:10

this point, and I think it's a fake term. Because  I literally haven't seen this term used anywhere,  

10:14

and I looked on TikTok hashtags, couldn't find  anything. But apparently, commuter core refers  

10:20

to the messy unpolished vibe of a working girl.  Like what she looks like before she even steps  

10:24

into the office. Like all core aesthetics, it's a  romanticized version, so this working girl is not  

10:30

a girl working an entry-level job who can't afford  a taxi. She's inherently a cool girl at the start  

10:35

of her adult life. Features of the style include  large bags, hoodies under blazers, wrinkled trench  

10:41

coats and sneakers. If you've seen the 1998 movie  "Working Girl," the main character, Tess McGill,  

10:46

iconically switches her white sneakers for pumps  while at the office, showcasing the reality of  

10:51

many commuting women of her time. The so-called  "commuter core" is a fetishization of her with  

10:57

the sneakers still on. Miu Miu's Fall/Winter 2024  runway show hail the commuter girl with their big  

11:03

leather top handle bags seemingly loaded to the  brim with so much stuff that they're too heavy to  

11:08

carry by the handles. New York designer, Jane  Wade, even titled her Spring 2024 collection,  

11:13

"The Commute," saying that she was inspired by  her own experience working in corporate fashion.

11:17

- Oh, so you're wearing a suit?

11:19

- What's it gotta do with you?

11:25

- [Mina] It's been customary for people  to wear professional outfits long before  

11:28

the 1980s. But Patricia Cunningham notes  the 1970s as a major shift for women's  

11:33

fashion in the workplace. Because  more women were joining than ever  

11:36

before. So the question was, "What  should women wear to the office?"

11:40

- I don't know what to wear.

11:42

- Ever?

11:43

- John Molloy stepped up with an answer. Don't you  love it when a man steps up to answer? He actually  

11:48

published two manuals, "Dress For Success,"  in 1975, for men, and the women's version,  

11:54

"The Woman's Dress For Success Book," in  1977. In the woman's guide, Molloy emphasized  

11:59

that a woman's outfit choice could be the reason  for her success or her failure in the workplace.  

12:04

He wrote this scathing critique of the fashion  industry in his introduction, which I thought  

12:08

was really funny. "A society in which the people  in power are intent on keeping women barefoot,  

12:13

pregnant, and as far from the boardroom as  possible cannot design clothes for women who  

12:17

have serious executive ambitions. The fact that  the fashion industry's big number of the mid-1970s  

12:23

was the peasant dress, often made with the yards  of taffeta, shows how out of step the fashion  

12:28

industry really is. And while the Europeans  design clothes that will keep you at home,  

12:33

the Americans are churning out garments that  will keep you in the secretarial pool." Honestly,  

12:37

reading some of the chapters in this book,  Molloy was actually way more progressive than  

12:41

I thought he would be. His book for woman largely  supported the same standards and methods he used  

12:47

in his book for men. The main idea for whatever  gender, was that you should dress as if you were  

12:53

already successful. His ideal uniform consisted of  a skirted suit and blouse, preferably a dark suit  

12:59

with a light colored blouse. And the skirt should  be slightly below knee length with natural color  

13:04

pantyhose and simple pumps. Accessory options  include a feminine fedora, a contrasting scarf,  

13:10

a plain wristwatch, and a leather attache  case. Where he majorly flops is his attitude  

13:14

towards pants. Molloy wrote, "In most business  offices, the pantsuit is a failure outfit."

13:20

- That is enough. And shut up. I hate you.

13:22

- Well, this attitude towards pants comes across  as really annoying, especially today. Molloy was  

13:27

actually pretty tame in comparison to other men  of his era, which tells you all you need to know  

13:31

about men in that era. In the 1970s, there were  actual offices, schools, and even restaurants that  

13:35

forbade women from wearing pants. As a response  to the changing political climate, women protested  

13:41

and some filed lawsuits against their employers,  arguing that not allowing women to wear pants but  

13:47

allowing men to do so violated Title VII of  the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed sex  

13:53

discrimination in employment. In response, many  employers start to allow pantsuits and even mini  

13:58

skirts as acceptable office attire. So it's been  like a six decades of corporate pantsuit-hood for  

14:04

women, but suits are still a masculine coated  garment. Probably because men have just been  

14:09

wearing suits for a lot longer. They've basically  been wearing some version of the suit ever since  

14:14

"The Great Masculine Renunciation," which is a  very funnily named phenomena coined by John Carl  

14:20

Flugel to describe men's widespread adoption  of plain dress at the end of the 18th century.  

14:26

Because in case you forgot, Western men used to  dress like this. The suit also carried an air  

14:32

of authority, discipline, and rigidness, traits  associated with masculinity in the post-war era.  

14:37

James F. Bere, a former chief executive who worked  in the 1950s, once told a reporter, "We were all  

14:43

the same way. We all wore white shirts with our  suits. The thing here, the tie, is one of the  

14:48

craziest things ever invented. The symbolism of  the tie had some elitism in it. It told the world  

14:53

that you were a manager. The suit was mandatory.  It never even entered my mind to challenge that.  

14:59

It was just what we did. We never complained about  wearing uniforms in the Army, so we certainly  

15:04

weren't going to complain about wearing suits in  the business world. What you had to understand  

15:08

about that time is that when the boss said, "Be  there," you were there. You were totally committed  

15:12

to your job. Your responsibility was to be there.  No excuses." There was a moment in the late 60s  

15:19

and 70s where suits and overall dress became  more individualized, however. You can see this  

15:23

progression really clearly in the period TV show,  my favorite TV show, "Mad Men," which spans the  

15:29

entirety of the 1960s. At the start of the show,  all the businessmen are wearing their identical  

15:34

gray flannel suits. And by the end of the show,  there are characters like Stan Rizzo, who comes  

15:40

to the office in more relaxed, colorful attire.  Much of the return to drab colors and standardized  

15:45

dress can be, in my opinion, just like the result  of trend cycles. Even though John Molloy gets  

15:51

a lot of credit for suggesting classic dress in  the workplace, before he even published his book,  

15:56

classic suits were already on the rise. For  example, at the Dallas Convention Center in 1974,  

16:01

the middle-of-the-market buyers, 60% of the  market, were shunning the more contemporary  

16:05

Shantung jumpsuits and patchwork jackets, and  heading for safer classics. Blue blazers, gray  

16:12

slacks and button-down shirts. And Forbes reported  that suit sales jumped 4.4% in 1976, with classic  

16:19

suits even being purchased by the guy who never  bought a suit in his life. They noted that even  

16:23

the vested suit was making a comeback. Molloy's  book and other advice books were probably so well  

16:28

received also because the economy was booming.  And more people were hungry to be climbing up the  

16:33

corporate ladder. But let's get back to women. If  you are a woman, how are you going to climb that  

16:38

corporate ladder? Jennifer Paff Ogle and Mary Lynn  Damhorst analyzed business dress advice for women  

16:45

from 84 magazines and newspaper articles published  from 1986 to 1994. And found that there was  

16:51

actually a lot of conflicting advice on whether or  not you should wear sexy clothing to the office.

16:56

- Your outfit.

16:58

- What? What's wrong with my outfit?

17:01

- [Mina] Some authors said that wearing blatantly  suggestive dress increased a woman's chances of  

17:05

harassment, increased chances of rumors alleging  that the wearer's success was based on something  

17:10

other than her job performance, if you catch  my drift. And that woman should just not rely  

17:14

upon their feminine wiles to get ahead in the  workplace because they have so many other skills,  

17:19

like intellect, creativity, and competence. The  articles that were pro-suggestive dress claimed  

17:24

that a woman should use all her available  resources to reach success. And that at  

17:28

some point, women should be able to depart  from the male standards of conduct, which I  

17:32

guess include looking unsexy, once they got their  footing in the business. Regardless, there was  

17:38

a general consensus that women should develop a  personal style because looking extremely drab or  

17:44

conservative is often boring and doesn't make you  stand out in front of all the other people working  

17:50

this job. And women should therefore use their  appearance in some way to help them move up the  

17:55

career ladder. Even though magazines and companies  go out of their way to shell out products,  

18:00

and a lot of this advice could be seen as attempts  to promote consumerism, there's actually truth in  

18:05

how important it is to dress appropriately for  the office. At least, pre-pandemic. Nowadays, I  

18:10

think it's more important to at least know how to  dress appropriately from the torso up. **Samira Guerra

18:17

wrote about how the corporate  dress code is a way of exercising control over  

18:22

workers. In 2015, they talked to a 30-something  year old market researcher named Heather, who  

18:27

lived in London. Her company had a casual Friday  dress code, where they could wear jeans. However,  

18:32

Heather said, "On these days, I wouldn't probably  get up as much and walk around because I'm  

18:36

conscious of the fact that I'm wearing jeans and  I don't want people to notice and it doesn't look  

18:41

professional." Heather also talked about a former  colleague who once received a letter from HR about  

18:46

how her revealing dresses were inappropriate. The  authors write, "The fact that Heather's colleague  

18:52

was approached by a faceless HR department  illustrates this disindividualized, panoptic power  

18:57

at work in her office environment." But corporate  fetish glosses over actual dress codes. Much of  

19:03

what we see in these fashion campaigns would  actually be wildly inappropriate for the office,  

19:07

if 90s standards are to be abided by. So maybe  all of this is subversion at the end of the day,  

19:12

it's reinterpreting codes we're all familiar  with to create new meaning. For some, putting  

19:17

on an oversized business suit could give them the  feeling of control that a Wall Street executive  

19:21

had, made even more subversive if the person  wearing it is someone who in actuality, faces more  

19:28

glass ceilings than the straight, White man. For  others, dressing in edgy business clothes, while  

19:32

hating your job, could be ironic. For whatever  the reason, corporate aesthetics have become  

19:49

aspirational in 2024. And it might be because of  how non-existent corporate culture has become,  

19:55

at least in comparison to what it was. It's even  more interesting, given all the think pieces about  

19:59

how Gen Z is the most anti-work generation to  date. The reason we're seeing this anti-work,  

20:05

or less work agenda, is partially due to  the COVID-19 pandemic, which activated as,  

20:10

Angela Yang writes, "A radical shift in priorities  as people around the world, especially those who  

20:15

had the means to isolate at home, discovered new  passions and a slower pace of life. Corporate jobs  

20:21

pivoting to remote work showed for the first time,  and on a massive scale, that flexibility in work  

20:26

was possible without compromising productivity.  And now that employees have gotten a taste,  

20:31

they're refusing return to old ways." The term  "fake email job" has spawned on TikTok recently  

20:36

to describe the kind of aspirational jobs that  are usually remote, require few hard skills,  

20:42

have little managerial oversight, and with little  time commitment. And even though Gen Z gets a  

20:47

bad rep for their supposed not wanting to work, I  think it's not bad to want work-life balance, and  

20:54

to not wanna have your work be your entire life.  And to also be able to have time to do things that  

21:00

you wanna do and to not wanna sit in traffic for  three hours commuting. I think it's less about  

21:05

not wanting to work, and more about wanting to not  have work be your entire life. But regardless of  

21:12

how much you're actually working at your remote  job, one thing most people can agree on, is that  

21:16

remote work has killed the workplace culture.  The Wall Street Journal interviewed Priya Parker,  

21:21

author of "The Art of Gathering, How We Meet and  Why It Matters." Parker explains, "On Zoom, when  

21:27

everything is muted, the signals that you get as  to whether or not a group is with you are deleted.  

21:31

It becomes a sterile environment. You can't hear  people's sighs, groans or laughs. It destroys one  

21:38

of the core elements of group conversation, which  is a feedback loop: call and response." That's not  

21:44

to say that remote work is all bad. It makes  some jobs more accessible for disabled folks,  

21:49

can be beneficial for parents who have young  kids who can't afford childcare. And some jobs,  

21:55

like these fake email jobs, really don't  require someone to sit in an office for  

21:59

eight hours a day. But all this is to say is that  corporate culture has become sort of obsolete for  

22:03

many people. Michelle Santiago Cortes observed  for Dirt media. "Shards of corporate culture's  

22:09

remains are now floating around social media as  memes or congealing into dystopian novels like  

22:13

'Severance,' or 'The Other Black Girl.' 'Finance  bros' and 'tech bros' are still easy shorthand,  

22:18

but nobody quite knows where they work  anymore." I also noticed that most of the  

22:23

corporate fetishizers are people who have never  worked a real, cubicle office job to begin with.  

22:28

And so it's unsurprising that the 2024 fashion  version of the 90s office is a better, unrealistic  

22:34

version of what it was. Emily Sundberg explains  the difference. "The corporate fetish office  

22:39

provides structure, routine and friends. Nobody is  discussing the dreadful commute, or awful hours,  

22:44

or the looming horror of AI replacing a team.  Everyone answers the phone and nobody is texting  

22:49

at their desk. It's the best version of the office  we imagine, and the one that we're not going to  

22:54

get anything close to as people get forced back  in." There's also a sure crossover between this  

22:59

aestheticization and the old corporate fashion  magazine industry, as exemplified by "The Devil  

23:04

Wears Prada." I think a lot of young people, me  included, had the dream of working at a fashion  

23:10

magazine in like a Andy Sachs, Jenna Rink, Carrie  Bradshaw kinda way. While these women didn't dress  

23:16

for the office in accordance with the corporate  handbook, they did have seemingly high-earning,  

23:21

glamorous positions, in the corporate world with  opportunities to move up the ladder. They also  

23:27

didn't have iPhones. But as magazines become less  powerful, and journalists become less respected,  

23:32

the dream has burst for many people. But  ultimately I think one of the biggest drivers of  

23:36

this trend is the desire for work-life separation.  There's the idea that a place of work also means  

23:41

a place where that work is contained. The minute  you step out of the office door, you're no longer  

23:45

on call, no longer expected to answer emails, and  no longer thinking about work until you head to  

23:50

the office the following morning. Obviously this  is an oversimplification of what work life was  

23:55

actually like, but compared to now, when many  of us are overstimulated by email and Slack,  

24:00

pinging at all hours of the day, and the  overall exhaustion of tech screen exposure,  

24:05

yes, the 90s office life could appear like a  dream. Of course there's also non-office fantasy  

24:11

reasons that make corporate core more enticing  for the fashion industry at large. For one,  

24:16

the quiet luxury movement last year was a small  bag movement. It also coincided with "Succession,"  

24:22

a show which denigrated the ludicrously  capacious bag as being a symbol of too poorism.

24:28

- What's even in there? Huh? Flat  shoes for the subway? Her lunch pail?

24:32

- Also in general, small bags have just been  having a moment for years now because of the  

24:36

recycled Y2K small bag trend. So it makes sense  that large bags would become trendy again because  

24:42

trend cycles, they cycle. Even quiet luxury brand,  The Row, released their own capacious Birkin-esque  

24:48

bag, the Margaux. I also came across this  newsletter, Cartoons Hate Her, which talked about  

24:53

the revival of "The Boobs" era, which I don't even  know if I'm allowed to use these terms because of  

24:57

YouTube policy, so I'm going to refer to them as  "the cleavage and the butt" era. I think I can  

25:05

say butt. The writer makes the case that we were  previously in a butt era for 15 years. She writes,  

25:11

"It was new and exciting to see Kim Kardashian in  2009 when we were on the tail of the 2000s, which  

25:16

was a Skinny Era and Cleavage Era. Women were no  longer afraid to get bulky in the gym. In fact,  

25:23

we intended on it, as long as it was confined to  our glutes. Everyone wanted a big butt, including  

25:28

girls who were terrified of having a big butt just  five years earlier." And 2010s fashion trends like  

25:33

athleisure and high waisted jeans correlated with  the butt era. But ultimately, pendulums swing,  

25:39

and that applies to body types too, which is why  everyone was freaking out when Kim Kardashian  

25:43

allegedly reversed her BBL. Furthermore,  the author suggests that the office siren,  

25:48

with its button-down blouse is a sign of the  Cleavage Era transition. In my personal 2024 "Ins  

25:54

and Outs" list, I put menswear as an in and bows  as an out. And I think the corporate core trend  

26:00

is complementary to my prediction, not to brag. We  just had a period of girl everything. Girl dinner,  

26:06

girl math, girl blah, blah, blah. My girl  culture soundbite from YouTube even became  

26:10

a trend on TikTok, which was weird. And so  naturally it makes sense that people would  

26:15

grow tired of this and hop onto the opposite,  which is adulthood. And I don't know about you,  

26:21

but I feel like the stereotype of adulthood,  to me, is a business suit and high heels,  

26:25

the image of our parents when growing  up in the 80s, 90s and/or 2000s.

26:29

- Just trying to locate my  cubicle. I can't find it anywhere.

26:36

- For anyone who's actually worked in  one of these 90s time-capsule offices,  

26:44

fashion's corporate fetish might sound like a  joke. People of my parents' generation remember  

26:48

a time when office culture was a normal thing  to complain about, not aspire to. In 1992,  

26:54

Robert Downey Jr. visited Wall Street for  a documentary and said this to the camera.

26:58

- If money is evil, then that building is hell.  This is the most obnoxious group of money hungry,  

27:05

low IQ, high energy jackrabbit, wannabe  big time, small-time talking, bothersome,  

27:13

irritating, I have ever had to  endure for more than five minutes.

27:17

- [Mina] When Christian Bale visited Wall Street  to prepare for his role as Patrick Bateman,  

27:21

he told GQ, "I got there and a bunch of the  guys on the trading floor, they were going,  

27:25

'Oh yeah, we love Patrick Bateman.'  And I was like, 'Yeah, ironically,  

27:29

right?' And they were like, 'What do you mean?'"  Throughout the 80s and 90s, plenty of movies,  

27:35

books and shows highlighted the problems  with corporate executive greed. And in 1999,  

27:40

Hollywood even focused on the monotony of  office life that stifled the everyday worker.

27:44

- Sounds like somebody's  got a case of the Mondays!

27:47

- There's a really great "Now You See It" video  essay on this. The guy calls these movies,  

27:51

"Cubicle movies." I'll play a clip from his video.

27:55

- [Narrator] "Being John Malkovich,"  and to an extent, all cubicle movies,  

27:58

seem to reflect this idea in some way.  Social forces compel us to conform ourselves  

28:02

into a certain definition of success, like  having the good job and a comfortable life.  

28:06

But having to do this requires the belief  that who we already are isn't good enough.

28:10

- But I think the disconnect here for Zoomers and  young millennials, other than the fact that we  

28:14

never actually experienced 90s office life, is the  fact that Silicon Valley's coolification agenda in  

28:19

the 2010s feels almost worse. What I mean by  coolification is, for the last 10-plus years,  

28:25

we've seen these large tech companies build  out their offices to create not just a working  

28:29

environment, but a home, a lifestyle. A New  York Times reporter took a look at a Google  

28:35

office in 2013 and noted the "labyrinth of play  areas, cafes, coffee bars and open kitchens,  

28:41

sunny outdoor terraces with chaises, gourmet  cafeterias that serve free breakfast, lunch  

28:45

and dinner. Broadway-themed conference rooms with  velvet drapes, and conversation areas designed to  

28:51

look like vintage subway cars." The office perks,  while nice, were designed to keep people in the  

28:56

office for longer, maximizing productivity while  building company loyalty. Once revolutionary, now  

29:03

it's cheugy. It doesn't help that more and more  founders and executives are caught in the middle  

29:08

of company scandals, getting arrested for fraud,  facing lawsuits, tweeting just insane takes,  

29:14

and ultimately shattering the illusion of a  prestigious working environment. Last year,  

29:18

Reuters published an in-depth report  on Axon, the company that makes tasers,  

29:22

and its fraternity-style hazings that involved,  you guessed it, tasing their own employees. And  

29:30

just in the face of mass layoffs over the past  year or so, it's also clear that company loyalty  

29:34

is not that prized, after all. After FTX filed  for bankruptcy in November, Brian Chesky, the  

29:39

Chief Executive of Airbnb tweeted, "It feels like  we were in a nightclub and the lights just turned  

29:44

on." The desire to dissociate from your boss has  never been more necessary. And people are all but  

29:49

trying to separate the corporate body from its  demonic head. In contrast, the retro 80s and 90s  

29:54

corporate lifestyle appears brandless. There are  no logos and no Elon Musks. You have no idea what  

30:00

company any character in "Fight Club" or "Office  Space" works for because the identical monotony  

30:05

signifies only work. The idea of work, and nothing  more. But of course, the idea of work itself is  

30:11

political. After all, the 1980s catapulted  a new era of capitalism. Management got more  

30:17

powerful and declining union membership gradually  reduced the influence of big labor. Corporations  

30:23

accelerated this trend by closing factories  where unions were strong, shifting production  

30:27

to Sunbelt states that had long anti-union  traditions, and attacking government antitrust  

30:32

and regulatory policies. Ronald Reagan, who  was president from 1981 to 1989, famously said,

30:39

- Government is not the solution to  our problem. Government is the problem.

30:44

- Not to mention that it was the white collar,  straight White man who benefited the most.  

30:48

People of color, women, working class, and queer  people all faced brutal inequalities, workplace  

30:54

harassment and barriers to success. And as  Annette Lynch and Katalin Medvedev put it simply,  

31:00

"Suits never do their own dirty work. They are not  that kind of 'work clothes.' The suits are not on  

31:05

the front lines in Libya, Iraq, or Afghanistan.  Class-based power has its privileges. And one of  

31:11

them is not to soil your clothes." But in 1990,  not even the white collar White man was fully  

31:17

spared. America entered a recession, and within  two years, 1.1 million office workers had been  

31:22

laid off, many of them from the middle management  tier. Nikil Saval, who wrote "Cubed: A Secret  

31:28

History of the Workplace," told Vox, "During this  time, layoffs became common, and there was a rapid  

31:33

increase in mergers, and you had workers emerging  from them and being thrown into cubicles. So the  

31:38

cubicle became the symbol of the transforming  workplace, of impermanence and the disposability  

31:43

of workers." Because of the economic context,  and also because cubicles were actually getting  

31:48

smaller, complaints against cubicles ballooned  in the 90s. Some people compared them to prisons.

31:53

- Hopefully it won't be too much like prison.

31:56

- Ironically, in Texas, a prison system responded  to overcrowding by redesigning their jails along  

32:01

the lines of an open-plan office with cubicle  partitions. But like most aesthetics of today,  

32:08

corporate fetish is vibes forward. I think it  says a lot that in all these corporate movies, we  

32:13

rarely see what it is the employees are actually  working on. Even in shows like "Mad Men," that's  

32:18

literally about work, where most of the show  takes place in an office, there's an air of work,  

32:24

but the everyday drudgery is off-screen.  The more exciting bits, the socializing,  

32:28

the drinking, the dinners with clients, the flashy  presentations, that's what we're shown. And it  

32:32

makes sense because these movies and shows were  coming at a time when people were still mostly in  

32:36

the office. And so this media was an escape from  that office life. No one wants to come back home  

32:42

from work to see more work. And also would just be  bad storytelling. Like the idea of having a show  

32:49

where people just send emails and copy papers,  who wants to watch that? But I think this is  

32:54

why most corporate fetishizers are people who have  never experienced the reality of it. If they did,  

33:00

they'd probably be more obsessed with a different  experience. Maybe next on the slate, for instance,  

33:05

will be a retirement core. Anyways, this is the  end of the video. Thank you all for watching.  

33:11

My name is Mina, and I hope you have a lovely  rest of your day. And take the day off. Bye.

33:18

- Congratulations.

33:23

- Thanks.

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Tags associés
Mode corporateCulture de travailMonica LewinskyTravail à distanceSilhouettes de modePouvoir des femmesInfluence des années 90Critique médiatiqueTrendsettersÉquilibre vie pro/vie persoAnticapitalisme