Working from home sounds like a dream come true: set your own hours! Be your own boss! Take “personal breaks” whenever you feel like it! Laugh to yourself when you realize you’re using euphemisms for “masturbate” aloud at home to no one! And while never having to deal with your older colleague Linda who just wants you to explain this tweeter thing to her even though she never totally gets it and having your bedroom for a break room are true real delights of home office livin’, there is no denying that it can take a real toll on your sartorial swag. It can also take a toll on your ‘leaving the house’ swag, which is something to watch out for, certainly. No one wants to be that freelancer the authorities found in their apartment months after the smell starts seeping into the hallway because they choked on a spoonful of Cheerios straight-out-the-box, having rat king-ed themselves to their own pull-out sofa. It can be hard to dress nicely for the office when your desk is your bed and your colleagues are two sad potted plants that you can’t bring yourself to throw out even though they are clearly dead, but no one is asking you to go full McBeal on this. However, a little effort will keep you in work mode instead of nap mode and means your mom won’t be worried if she stops by to visit you during real working hours (approx 12 p.m.-3 p.m.). What to wear? Let’s talk this out.
I never thought I held myself up to a particularly high standard of put-together-ness on busy days working from home. But I had not realised the depth of the issue until a few months ago when, during the middle of a third day of looming deadlines, the doorbell rang. I froze. I basically made this face. I was wearing a gigantic greige bra and a sarong that had been wrangled into a vague approximation of harem pants. My hair curled around my glasses and stuck to my forehead in casual chunks. I looked like an unshowered Medusa. Children, I am not proud. I offer this story as a warning: check yourself before it gets to a point where you are hiding in your kitchen, afraid to move in case the mailman hears you scuffling around in there. He just wants to deliver that self-help book you bought late at night on Amazon (“Culottes and You: Believe in Yourself”) and get on with his day. Consider mixing comfy elements with some more Real Human clothes–pair moccasins with a nice lookin’ v-neck and some leggings, or a slouchy sweater with some shorts made out of a non-stretch fabric. Even if you’re only halfway there, you are still… halfway there. Just sign for the package and move on with your life.
In a way, working from home is a lot like living in the 70s: no one will judge you for using the word ‘groovy,’ bras and shaving are optional, and unsupervised drug use is helpful and encouraged. Okay, maybe not helpful. Or encouraged. But definitely possible, in that you are unsupervised and a grown-up human who makes their own choices. (Probably don’t choose to do drugs alone during the day, though?) Something crucial to adopt from the 70s, however (great link, makes perfect sense, everyone gets it), is an important clothing element that has gone the way of the manpri and needs to COME BACK: the dickey. You know, dickies? Just the neck part of a shirt? A formal bib with a collar or mock turtleneck element? In an average home office day the only people you will speak to face-to-face will likely be face-to-computer, over Skype. If you have a large and varied collection of mock-shirts at the ready, you can pop on an illusion sweater whenever you need to face the outside world, and instantly look as professional as you need to. The person on the other end will never know that all you are wearing from the waist down is a C-string. (“I love my c-string because I hate panty-lines and being comfortable while standing, sitting, lying down or moving!” – You) You heard it here first: dickies are gonna be hot in 2013.
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Monica Heisey is a writer and comedian from Toronto. She has also written for VICE, Huffington Post, and She Does the City. Follow her on Twitter @monicaheisey.
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