As heat waves grip Europe, wearing shorts to work is spreading even at companies that have long kept conservative dress codes. Office attire is shifting as governments and businesses encourage breathable clothing to cope with the heat.
Sales of light, breathable garments such as linen have jumped in major European cities including in Britain, Reuters reported on the 24th. British retailer Marks & Spencer said sales of men's linen trousers rose 183% in June and July from a year earlier. H&M has introduced lighter fabrics and pushed back the release of its fall collection to later this year.
Martha Ward, a menswear buyer at Britain's John Lewis, said the line between office wear and vacation wear is blurring. Global men's luxury brand Hugo Boss has expanded its tailored shorts lineup, and its "Boss by Becks" line, a collaboration with David Beckham, sells cotton tailored shorts for 229 euros (about 370,000 won).
A preference for cooler attire is also emerging in Europe's business hubs, including London's Canary Wharf financial district and Frankfurt, Germany. DNB, Norway's largest bank, has allowed employees to wear shorts and skirts, on the condition that they remain neat and meet a set length.
"Suits Are Too Much in 40°C Heat" — Japan Also Allows Shorts at Work
In Japan, too, wearing shorts to work is spreading quickly amid the heat. With daytime highs approaching 40 degrees Celsius day after day, shorts are increasingly seen not as mere casual wear but as practical work attire for coping with extreme heat.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government began allowing employees to wear shorts in June, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun recently reported. The move is part of the "Tokyo Cool Biz" policy championed by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. Within the metropolitan government, staff have said shorts help lower body temperature and reduce work fatigue compared with long trousers.
Private companies are following suit. Real estate firm Open House Group began allowing field sales staff at its Fukuoka sales center to work in shorts in June. The company had maintained suits because the job involves dealing with customers directly, but it concluded that excessive sweating in the heat could instead make customers uncomfortable.
Japanese attitudes are also changing. In a survey of 512 men and women conducted last month by Nikkei MJ, a retail and consumer trade publication, 52.9% said wearing shorts to work was acceptable. Support was especially high among people in their 20s and 30s, at about 70%. The most common reason given for accepting shorts at work was that they are "a reasonable measure against extreme heat," cited by 66.4%.
Unions Even Call for Looser Dress Codes as Heat Reshapes Office Culture
Calls to ease dress codes because of the heat are also growing among unions and workers. Germany's largest union, IG Metall, and the services union Verdi said dress codes should be relaxed, or scrapped where necessary, when temperatures are high. Moritz Tiedemann, an occupational health expert at IG Metall, said the burden on workers is rising noticeably as summer temperatures climb and heat waves become more frequent.
In Warsaw, Poland, one bus driver came to work in a skirt to protest wearing the standard polyester uniform. A petition asking the Warsaw Public Transport Authority (ZTM) to allow drivers to wear shorts has since gathered more than 400 signatures.
The market is moving with the change as well. Japanese menswear maker Aoyama Trading has introduced its first business shorts, designed to be cool and quick-drying. The clothing industry stresses that shorts at work do not mean unconditional casualization, and that restrained colors and neat designs suited to the workplace are important.
