Culture Shock, Part II: Readers Speak Out, WallStreet Journal
Thursday June 28, 2007 2:07 am ET  By Christina Binkley

Tie-less in Los Angeles, buttoned-down in New York: The struck a chord with many readers two weeks ago, including quite a few who wrote to say they feel out of step with the dress codes in their own cities, often because they moved from someplace else.

The fragility of our confidence in our attire was summed up by Ed Quigley, a consultant in Lansdale, Pa. He wrote that once, as a New York publishing executive, he planned to start a new company under the wing of Wadsworth Publishing, headquartered just outside San Francisco. For the first of two meetings with the San Francisco group, he says, "I dressed in my customary N.Y. attire: a charcoal-colored pin-stripe Brooks Brothers suit and black wingtips. The Wadsworth people were dressed in sport coats, short-sleeve shirts, khakis and casual shoes.

"When I returned to San Francisco that afternoon, I went to Brooks Brothers (or was it Abercrombie & Fitch) and bought a sport coat, sport shirt (long-sleeved), slacks and a pair of tan loafers. I wore these new duds to the second meeting. The Wadsworth people were all wearing suits."

While jetting into other people's territory creates complexities for all, some people have a dilemma that's peculiar to our digital age: They don't leave their cities, but their TV images do. Lisa Johnson Mandell, an entertainment reporter in Los Angeles who is frequently hired by East Coast media outlets for on-camera commentary, wrote that it's a constant challenge to consider how people in those other cities expect her to look as a Hollywood reporter. "Do I look like a conservative, East Coast journalist, or a flashy, hip Hollywood correspondent? I've found most clients prefer the latter."

In her note, Ms. Mandell even included a list of ten tips "for professional East Coast women who do business on the West Coast and don't want to appear frumpy, stuffy or dowdy." For instance: Stiletto heels look "like you're trying too hard to be chic."

Moving from west to east causes readers some discomfort, too. Erica Kuo, a 38-year-old attorney with Goodwin Procter LLP in New York, wrote: "When I moved from San Francisco to N.Y. in 2000, I remember being in culture shock. I don't wear makeup, but every time I venture onto a sidewalk in Manhattan, I feel compelled to put on lipstick so I don't feel so 'undressed.' "

Midtown New Yorkers' summertime styles were recently found wanting by Mitch Miller, a Los Angeles lawyer, who attributed the looks to casual Friday:

"Yucch! No beautiful summer dresses, either -- the women were all wearing shorts or denim miniskirts and flip-flops....I may be prejudiced: I'm the last lawyer in L.A. who wears a suit to work every day."

Readers in other parts of the country suffer culture shock, too. Cynthia Hull, in Charlotte, N.C., decried all the stark colors that designers from New York and Paris send south. Black is too hot for southern summers, she noted, adding: "When I go through these big department stores, all I see is black and white!!! It is ridiculous and shows me there isn't any real creativity going on."

A former IBM engineer in Austin, Phil Satz, told this story about how shorts became part of the dress code at an IBM office in Texas: "When I first started, all the male engineers wore ties and the managers wore suits. A friend of mine started wearing shorts to work every day (it's hot here sometimes), and they threatened to fire him. He said they should go ahead and fire him. They didn't fire him -- he was very good -- but the management instituted some rules about what kinds of shorts would be allowed. Doing that sort of legitimized it, and after that most engineers started wearing jeans or shorts."

Some readers also wrote in with some creative solutions to the problems. Arlene Winnick, a Los Angeles public relations executive, noted that when she moved to Los Angeles from New York in 1992, "everything in my closet matched. The first thing my L.A. friends did was scramble my closet, moving casual to dressy and sporty to serious."

Dan Margolis, managing partner of Los Angeles public relations firm Margolis & Co., pointed out a dilemma that can occur when casual codes clash with dressy ones at the same event. Mr. Margolis said that he'd stood in front of his closet pondering what to wear to a political event that was being held at the Paramount film studio where he would be meeting with a potential entertainment-industry client. "In politics, suits and ties still are the norm," he wrote. But he thought the entertainment-industry folks might find this overdressed. "I decided to go hybrid. Blue pinstripe suit with sporty oxford shirt, open collar. Formal, but still cool L.A."

A young investment banker, Alli Henry, described the mind-bending adjustment she faced, coming from California, when she began working in London and New York.

"I was quite off-put by regionalities such as high boots on women in the East Coast, so much black in London and New York, and open-toed shoes, which are de rigueur in L.A., but verboten in the buttoned-up world of Wall Street. I got strange, strange looks from my investment banking colleagues in 2001 for buying a lovely red wool overcoat at Selfridges, long before colored overcoats were trendy. I, being from California, only 21, didn't really realize that red was a 'power color' even for an overcoat!"

It varies in Southern California. I chanced to be having lunch at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel on Friday. I was wearing a casually styled pale gray suit with a Mercer dark blue BD shirt open at the collar. I felt I blended in with the clientele very well. Some were dressed more casually than I, but some others were in suit and tie (many of them, I fear, in these ghastly ultra-short, ultra-slim contemporary styles).

The following night I went to dinner at an expensive steak house in Beverly Hills. I had called the establishment to see what customary attire was. They assured me that many men would be in suit and tie and that that was very appropriate. So, I chose a sort of "sub-tux" look--midnight blue suit, white French-cuff shirt shirt, silver Charvet necktie with blue pin dots, highly polished A-E PAs. You know that kid--I think he posts on Fedora Lounge--who frequents ice cream joints and similar establishments in San Diego while wearing top hat, white tie and tails. Well, I felt rather like him so conspicuously overdressed was I. Most of the clientele were dressed like rabble. Had I worn a sport coat with an open-necked shirt, I would have been ahead of the curve, but at least I would have been inconspicuous. The noise level in that restaurant almost precluded intelligent conversation, but the food and the service were excellent.