Freedom Wears a Watchcap

What is home-worker fashion? One of the things I’m curious about, for those of you who work from home all or part of the time is: what do you wear for working? Pajamas? Overalls? Tuxedo? A speedo?

One of the wonderful things about working from home is that you can eat what and how you want. No more bowls of office candy or cold pizza delivery in the break room, if you don’t want it. If you want crab salad on crackers, that’s what you can have. If you want peanut butter on apple slices, you can go for it. Working from home is an opportunity to be healthy, pleasured, and comfortable in what you eat. You can even take a break at the gym or on the exercycle (or keep working, if you’re one of those with the netbook mounted on the handlebars). Likewise, if your thing is a mug of coffee with Irish Cream and a pipe, you’ve got that too.

You also get to listen to what you want in the background. Everyone realizes that. If you want wild, wailing women, they’re right there with you. Not the kind in your HR department, but the kind on your CD. If you want Dillon and Springsteen, they’re your work companions. If you want Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers in the background on NPR, they’ll happily keep you company.

One of the most comforting things, to me, is that you can also wear what you want. I’m currently wearing sweat pants, a painter’s t-shirt, a fancy warm overshirt, a cashmere muffler, and a watchcap. Why this getup, you might ask, and would I really answer the door in it? Yes, quite confidently. The watchcap because, if you’re from the North, you know that if your feet or hands get cold, you put on a hat. I keep the house barely heated to stay alert and save money, and I wear a hat to start, because I won’t want to stop and get one later. The sweat pants because I think men’s pants should move with you, not against you, when you work (think uncrimped), and I’m sitting in an office chair. The muffler because, besides the fact that I personally am incontrovertibly stylish, it keeps my neck warm. If there’s one thing that’s distracting to a brilliant thought in formation, it’s a chill at the neck. And the rest because it’s just comfortable.

So what do you wear? Do you do the tie at your desk no matter what thing, because it helps you with the psychology of it all? I did that when I was in sales, and I think it works. I felt professional, and I acted professionally. Clothes are a part of the mind’s picture of itself. They contribute to mood just like food and music do. Dressed to the nines, I felt confident, cool, sharp, deliberate, and sexy. Yes, sexy – that word we couldn’t say if there were an HR department in our home office. Sexy, despite the Victorian hypocrisy that prevails in corporate settings, is part of being effective too. If you feel sexy, you feel effective, potent, able to accomplish what you want and able to obtain what you desire. So dressing to feel sexy is a good idea too, as long as you don’t chase that rabbit too far and end up at your corner store hitting on cashiers during your break. I have friends that should slob up a little before they go out.  At least the married ones should.

Wear swim trunks and put the laptop by the hottub? Is it TV trays and night shirts? Are you “business casual” and, if so, do you have casual or Hawaiian shirt Fridays? Do you hammock up, like “The Todd” in Scrubs? Do you work in the nude? Is your attire now reflecting every sports team you’ve ever adored, from football jersey to fitted baseball cap? Do you wear whatever you passed out in the night before? Is it your chance to put on sequins and pearls? Are you dressed like Ozzie Nelson or Kramer in his apartment? I don’t actually want to know, tho if you want to leave a comment and tell the world, that’s fine. I’m more interested in whether you’ve thought about it.

What’s it like to be free? How does freedom dress? What does freedom eat and drink during the day?

In case you were wondering, I’m having minted green tea and have a movie  Sex and Death 101 keeping me company in a little window on my left. No, it has nothing to do with what I said above – it just happens to be my latest pick. Yesterday morning’s was a really awful horror flick, and earlier I was listening to an up and coming new artist (one of my wailing women).

Freedom. Here, freedom wears a watchcap.