Style of dress of Denver professionals (Mountain View: attorney, to buy, assess)

[COBound213]

I'm curious, do the professionals who work downtown Denver dress like the east coast professionals...suits/ties for men and skirts/whatever for woman? Or do you have a lot of flip flop t-shirt types like silicon valley?

Thanks in advance for everyone who responds!

[cowboyxjon]

It depends.

What kind of industry are you working in? I work downtown and see all kinds of attire, ranging from casual to business professional. My office is casual, as in, flip flops and t-shirts in summer.

[COBound213]

Originally Posted by cowboyxjon

It depends.

What kind of industry are you working in? I work downtown and see all kinds of attire, ranging from casual to business professional. My office is casual, as in, flip flops and t-shirts in summer.

Finance. Would someone who dresses well stand out? I know Denver is a lot more relaxed/casual.

[zoonik]

Originally Posted by COBound213

I'm curious, do the professionals who work downtown Denver dress like the east coast professionals...suits/ties for men and skirts/whatever for woman? Or do you have a lot of flip flop t-shirt types like silicon valley?

Thanks in advance for everyone who responds!

I would say the average is somewhere in between. Business casual is the norm out here for most offices. Unless you are in a specific industry (Banking, Law) you will probably not be wearing a full blown suit to the office, or even a tie most days. However, that's just an average. You will definitely see both ends of the spectrum out here.

I think it's a somewhat agreed upon standard nationwide, that work attire tends to get slightly more casual on average the farther you get from the east coast.

[billiken]

My office is downtown as well. It's far more varied than what I'm used to; you'll see everything from jeans & flip flops to suits. Then again, I work in a building that seems to be everything from law/professional services to techy startups. I'd say the average is business casual--slacks and button down, but no tie/jacket. When I see suits, I automatically assume they are an attorney or work at one of the banks.

[cowboyxjon]

I work in the tech industry and we're casual. I usually wear jeans and a button-down shirt or a t-shirt. My partner works for a finance-oriented company, though his job specifically has to do with risk assessment, so more of a business analyst role. His office is not quite business casual, but not full-blown suite and tie. He usually wears dress pants, dress shirts, nice shoes, but no tie.

[JBPisgah]

If I were the OP, I'd wait to buy some of my professional clothing until I got to Colorado and saw firsthand. Even if financial professionals were to dress formally in Denver, what formal means here and what it means in say, NY or Chicago, is going to be different.

[Owain1]

There goes my entire wardrobe of slacks and button downs..

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by COBound213

Finance. Would someone who dresses well stand out? I know Denver is a lot more relaxed/casual.

I'm going to go against what everyone else is saying. If you work in finance, dress the part. If you dress sharp and you stand out a little, that is not a bad thing. You'll just be know as the guy who knows how to dress. No downside there in my opinion, especially in finance. You can always lose the tie if that is too much for the office, but a suit works anywhere.

If you are outdressing the office though, make sure you know your stuff when it comes to fashion. Nothing worse than the guy who thinks he is dressing sharper than everyone else, but is showing up in pleated black suits and chunky shoes.

[unbeliever]

In dress and in many other ways, downtown Denver is very midwestern. You'll see a few suits, but mostly men wear dockers/khakis. You're lucky if they wear shoes. I see a lot of sneakers and boots. So, being a Manhattan native, it's not NYC and after spending 7 years in the silicon valley, it's not Mountain View.

Dress to your company's standard. I moved out here to take a job with a company based in London, with a suit and tie dress code. All of our offices are in major cities (Paris, Shanghai, Sao Paulo) except for the Denver office, and I found myself constantly explaining the "culture" here to my European bosses, to no avail. Luckily, a change at the top resulted in a company wide dress code change, with no more ties allowed. It was a big load off my mind, since I work in IT and had no reason to dress.