FashionLawTuesday

Tuesday Trends : working from home by Keeley

The clear advice from Prime Minister Boris Johnson and our hard working heroes in the NHS is: Stay at home. And where possible, work from home. Naturally, our very stylish solicitor, Keeley’s thoughts turned to what she should wear in these unprecedented times!

 

 

Tuesday trends when working from home

So, the advice from the government is to STAY AT HOME and work from home (if you can). As such, in these unusual and pressing times, the majority of the legal profession is having to work from home. Courts have had to become “super remote functioning champions” in the space of about 7 days.

We are all now having to become familiar with the latest remote working apps and technology. The faves, at the moment, being Zoom, Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams. This technology offers not only a voice communicating function but a video function as well.

Obviously the first thoughts which came to my mind were:

What does one wear to work from home?

What if my telephone hearing turns into a video hearing and I haven’t got a suit on?

What if, as office manager, I have to video call the team?

Do I need wash my hair now to work from home?

It appears I’m not the only one whose WFH attire is weighing heavily on their fashion minds. I’ve heard one story of someone, I will not name, not being ready for a conference call and being naked from the waist down. Another who did a final hearing this week in a tracksuit and questioned whether this was appropriate? The hearing this person attended was a telephone hearing as opposed to a video call.
I asked a barrister: “what does one wear to a remote hearing? The response was: “whatever you want on your bottom half and your shoes but make sure you’ve got a nice suit jacket on your top half”.
I also saw an amazing tweet this week about a barrister wearing his wig with his dressing gown whilst on a remote hearing!

Now, to keep my general mental health, if not sanity, under control, it will not be all tracksuits whilst working from home for me. That’s not to say that I haven’t ordered myself some loungewear to give myself a well deserved “dress down Friday”.

Our own Rachel has threatened to wear her children’s slippers for a hearing

The reality is, I like getting dressed up for work and with a few more weeks ahead of us at home its important we stick to our routine. So I will be sticking to my nice work dresses when I can. I may give the straighteners a rest and minimal makeup (this quarantine will be good for the skin!) but I will be ensuring the hair is washed regularly, just in case we receive that unexpected video call from the CEO or from the junior member of the team who needs advice before advising the client. The last thing the poor trainees want is to see their training principal looking like the great unwashed with no bra!

Shoes remain as important as ever (as does glitter) and so although I worked from home in these beauties today………………..

 

It will not be all comfort for me in future. Spice it up a bit, be a bit cheeky and stick on those glitter stilettos for that all important Court of Appeal case you’ll win in your front room!  I know I’ll be wearing my glitter heels from time to time and as @sglaisteryoung put it recently,  you may as well wear heels if you haven’t got to walk anywhere. Great advice Shelly!  I will let both @tiaChildrenLaw and @sarahJLenihan share their working from home attire with you!

Now a big shout out needs to go to @briggs1GC for the public service announcement this week that Zoom has a “touch up my appearance” button to add that extra sparkle to our remote hearings. Thanks Laura!

Please please please share your WFH attire as we would love to hear from you in these crazy times!

Stay safe.

With glitter and washed hands

love

Keeley x