Thursday 06 August 2026 5:34 am
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Wednesday 05 August 2026 11:56 am
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During a long, hot summer in the capital, an age- old debate has reared its head: should men ever wear shorts to the office? James Ford explains why it is never, ever ok.No. It isn’t. Not even in a heatwave. End of. Full stop. At the risk of incurring my editor’s ire, I’m tempted to conclude my column there for this week. Nothing more to add. No further comment required. I should just leave a big, blank space in the paper so that any readers who do think shorts are acceptable office attire can just take a minute and think about all the ways in which they are wrong. But maybe – just maybe – I should expand on my point of view. Maybe, dear reader, I owe you a more considered argument as to why wearing shorts in the office is not just unacceptable but unforgivable.Firstly, there are the obvious arguments: shorts are very informal, verging on controversial. Bloomberg recently conducted a poll of US clients in the business world and found that only 45 per cent of them find it appropriate to wear shorts at work. More worryingly, critics called the look “unprofessional.” Opinion in the UK is shifting though. A Yougov poll in 2016 found that just 37 per cent of workers thought that shorts were appropriate office attire. But, when asked the same question this year, that figure was now 68 per cent. Of course, that still means nearly a third of the work force are not on board with the proposition. That is a pretty big chunk of your staff – and your clients – that are opposed.
