Cycling in Work Attire

We all have different notions of "work attire". What's yours? Today I accompanied the Co-Habitant on part of his work commute, and was able to coax him to model.

Who says you can't look chic in scrubs? I think the purple thermal tee looks quite nice under the baby blue. It was a ridiculously hot day today in Boston and a jacket was out of the question. But otherwise he wears a blazer or a coat on top. I like it!

The Pashley Roadster basking in the December sunlight. The Co-Habitant really needs to write a guest post reviewing this bicycle. He loves it so much.

And there he goes, off to work, as I cycle in the opposite direction.

This is the same passageway/shortcut pictured here. What a difference a month can make! - though ironically, it was warmer today than on the day the golden-leaf photos were taken.

Comments

  1. And you are the star of velocouture this month! Lovely!

    http://velocouture.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/velocouture-favorites-november-2009/

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  2. My "work attire" is usually whatever I manage to find that's not crumpled, stained, or torn. In the dark. This may explain my complete failure at cycling to work recently - I never manage to get dressed on time!

    Love the scrubs!

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  3. I love the cap - it just suits the Roadster to a t! Very dashing indeed.

    How different that shortcut looks without its carpet of blazing leaves.

    So this must be the last hurrah for warm weather before a Bostonian winter? It looks like a lovely day there.

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  4. Emma - Oh how nice of them, thanks for sending the link!

    M. - That's completely normal. The key is to only have nice clothing around in a coordinated colour pallet. That way, no matter what you grab from the pile and put on in the dark, it will have no choice but to look good. Oh, and I am a big fan of crumpled clothing on men; so sexy - especially if it is formalwear.

    Carinthia - It has been pretty chilly here for the past couple of weeks, around 40-45F (0-5 Celcius). Then today it suddenly shot up to 65F (18 Celcius!). Crazy.

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  5. i consider myself lucky that i can wear whatever attire i want to work, most of the time. there are times when i have to dress "smart" if i have a meeting (and by "smart" i mean academic smart, not business smart-- corduroys and a blazer), otherwise jeans and a button-down shirt are in order. i can even get away with jeans and a blazer for most meetings unless i'm presenting. the only people at my work who dress in business attire are vendors trying to get accounts with us.

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  6. My own work attire depends on whether I am in Europe or in the US. In the US I mostly work from home/cafe and generally dress in a mixture of "casual, quirky and bizarre". In Europe I am at a "real" workplace every day and it's more formal - some version of a suit. For me it is especially important to keep up the formal attire at work, because I am younger than most of my colleagues. If I am not in a suit, I get mistaken for a student.

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  7. I'm envious of those that can wear work clothes on their commute. Unfortunately, that's difficult much of the year around North Texas except for those with a short commute. My "Grumpy's Tough Guys" tank top would not pass as work attire at many places, but it is just the ticket for a long ride home in 100+ degree heat.

    It's why I just keep my work clothes at work and do the commute in clothing that works for whatever the weather dishes out each day. Snow flurries predicted for tomorrow around here so Grumpy will stay in the closet. Instead I'll wear my ski mask and my "Whistler/Blackcomb" neck warmer, along with ski mittens. Likewise, not good work attire.

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  8. Nice to see the men's side, sometimes I forget about them when it comes to attire. The scrubs and Pashley actually look very natural together - the hat helps. My sister wears scrubs to work, and I am always jealous of her. When I got her started on bike commuting, I told her she already had the perfect outfit for it.

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  9. I'm luckily I live in a relatively temperate climate here in the Philadelphia region. Nine months of the year, I just wear on the bike whatever I plan to wear at work, including suits. Although one of my main sports jackets is an English tweed that is special made to allow it to be wadded up and even washed without problems.

    Summers are the problem for me, just like for Steve in Texas. Then I dressed very light for the ride and change at work.

    This year I actually tried an electric assist on my bike ( a Bionx system) to see how that went. It worked out very nicely. I was able to wear work clothes on the bike and even bike between work sites during the heat of the day. I still got pleasant exercise but whenever I felt like I'd break out into a sweaty mess I'd turn up the assist. Now that it is cool again I took it off.

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  10. I wear whatever I'm going to wear at work, even in the summer I just wear something a bit lighter, like a short-sleeved linen shirt or something, and I've never really had a problem getting sweaty on the way to work in the morning, even though we do have our share of 90+ days in the summer. On the way home is another issue, but that doesn't matter as much, since I can just hop in the shower when I get home.

    Most of the year though, I look something like this (sometimes with jeans, or a t-shirt and sweater):

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/poetas/3706846041/

    These days, more like this (and today with mittens too, it was below freezing):

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/poetas/4153561673/

    or this

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/poetas/3348682808/

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  11. Dottie - I am jealous of the scrubs as well and find myself coming up with all sorts of ideas of how I would wear them. On the show House, I have noticed that the medical staff all have tailored scrubs - taken in at the waist and such to be more form-flattering - so I would probably give that a try.

    Peter - I lived in Phila as a college undergrad in 1997-2001, and the summers nearly killed me. That is about as South as I am able to take. Anybody who can cycle in 95F heat and 100% humidity has my respect!

    Steve - Is it also humid in your part of Texas, or just hot? I can deal with hot, but humidity is my kryptonite.

    Portlandize - Those are really nice outfits; I especially like the slate-gray colour scheme of the first one. The climate on the West Coast is so mysterious to me. I have a few friends in the Portland area, and some of them tell me that the weather is just like in the NorthEast, while others tell me that in never snows there and only rains. Hm?..

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  12. Oh! I'm a sucker for a man in scrubs. B wears them a lot as well and I'm sure he'll be happy to hear they were described as stylish. I love the pic of you riding away. Very cool

    mamavee

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  13. Well, we usually don't get much snow in Portland proper (last year was a bit of an exception, we had snow for about a week and a half, and it built up to almost 2 feet).

    It does rain a lot here, but it's very rarely a torrential downpour, usually more drizzly. There are really only 3 or 4 days a year that I get totally drenched, and usually a wool coat is plenty to keep me dry.

    The coldest we usually get in the winter is right around freezing, but having lived in a place where it gets much colder, I actually prefer colder temps to right around freezing, because when it's just a couple degrees above or below freezing, it still feels wet, and that's more bone-chilling. It also gets pretty windy here at times, which makes for a weird combination of arriving home with your face and ears numb from cold, and your body all sweaty from pedaling against the wind :)

    In the summer, it's usually pretty dry actually, not much rain at all, drizzle or otherwise, and we usually stay in the high 80's most of the time, but this year we had a record number of 90+ days. Humidity is pretty moderate, especially compared to places like the south or Japan.

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  14. This might be the wrong place to ask, but I've been wondering about this for a while. Why do hospital employees wear scrubs?

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  15. Giffen - It is actually for the opposite reason than I thought before the Co-Habitant entered the field. I used to think that srcubs were supposed to be fresh and disinfected, and that the purpose was to have a medically-clean outfit when dealing with open wounds. But in fact they are to keep the practitioner's clothes clean from being sprayed with blood and yucky fluids.

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  16. ...which isn't to suggest that people ought to wear dirty scrubs outside or not change them once they get dirty, but I suppose it's true that the primary purpose of scrubs is an easy to change "medical uniform" designed to cheaply protect everyone involved.

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  17. I wear the uniform of the day...in my case work clothes are a blue jeans, boots and a shirt with my name on it ;-) In the winter I will add a Carhartt jacket and on really cold days (below 30*f) possibly a set of Carhartt bibs.

    In the summer in this part of the deep south...I just ride, much, much slower.

    Aaron

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  18. I wear a suit/uniform at work, and I don't wear it on the bike. I keep it in my locker and change when I get there.

    Although sometimes during lunch I'll take off my shirt, don my neon jacket, and pedal down to Taco Bell in my suit pants and shoes.

    I'd be tempted to wear my suit if it wasn't icy (slippery, with a good chance of falling and getting dirty) or snowy most of the winter, or if I didn't sweat so much during the summer.

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