The Difference in Dressing for Your Corporate Job – from Paris to Calgary
Having delivered several million dollars worth of bespoke suits and shirts in Calgary over the last several years, as well as having seen clients all across Canada, it makes for a unique opportunity to spend time with clients in France and observe the difference between the corporate-dress culture between these two highly unique markets.
To state it simply: corporate dress (surprisingly?) mirrors local cuisine and architecture.
Calgary is a booming Lego-town; a city built in blocks. One of the more modernly developed cities, even our streets are named as numbers, and our city is divided into 4 quadrants where the 2 letters at the end of your street represent in which quadrant you reside. Being on the leading edge of oil & gas, the corporate culture demands results- efficiently. Our dress culture, though evolving, is nonetheless centered around the prototypical financial and legal executive. Navy suits, Charcoal suits, both solid and pinstripe dominate the corporate landscape. Our executive is purposeful, focused and clean-cut; our suits reflect this.
Our architecture and cuisine reflect this also. Our buildings are tall, proud, new and glossy, with straight lines. Tall, wide glass defines our skyline. Our cuisine is well positioned for the busy, successful executive, offering the freshest, the newest and the most novel dishes to be found. We like it fast and we like it easy – we are the business leaders- and from our architecture, cuisine, and yes- dress, we communicate this message.
Now, I take you to Paris, where LGFG Fashion House is making its presence felt with a steadily growing clientele. The buildings have character and uniqueness. The cuisine is diverse and proudly local. Each little street, like its own little magic corridor offers infinite doors into a different world.
You might go into a castle-like villa in the middle of the city, only to find an international law-firm occupying its refurbished space. Next door might be a Dior retailer, and next to that, a restaurant operated from a space no bigger than a 1-bedroom condo by its owner-chef. Corporate dress reflects this also.
Not so confined to the solid blue and gray are the Parisians- and like its city, in stark contrast to Calgary’s corporate downtown core, the look is not quite so clean-cut. For one, you would notice that a slightly disheveled look –facial hair and all- is not so uncommon in Paris amongst its corporate elite. Branding and history carry a certain prestige- to wear a brand that your wealthy colleagues and idols wear is to say something about yourself. And uniqueness is celebrated as a sense of personal style. You might come to work in a stripe suit one day, only to wear chinos with a silk sport coat the next- your style is defined by class, by culture, and like its architecture and cuisine: by exemplary sense of homegrown design. Jackets are more aggressive, the look is more individual, and even though you represent a firm, you just as much represent your own personal brand; you are an original, just like the buildings in which you live and the cuisine you devour.
This juxtaposition of cities in architecture and cuisine is reflected in its corporate dress, yet there’s something to love regardless of which side of the ocean you’re on.
