How common are jobs in the USA with a relaxed dress code?
March 25, 2026
Are there workplaces in the USA that allow Scottish men to go to work wearing kilts, Middle Eastern men to work wearing qamis and Middle Eastern women to work while wearing Abaya ?
How common are jobs in the USA that allow traditional clothing?
43 comments
Yes
You can literally wear sweatpants at my office, they dgaf
Where I work if you agree to donate $10 to charity you get to wear jeans on Friday
In software dev, you can wear anything.
I don’t think “relaxed” is the word you’re looking for in this context.
It really depends on the industry. I’ve also found that customer-facing jobs tend to have more strict dress codes than those where you’re just in an office all day.
Very common
I work in a warehouse and can wear whatever I want…as long as it includes steel toes boots.
Im in my pj’s and clocked in… but I work from home, lol.
There are federal laws to protect people from religious discrimination that for a long time had included clothing requirements although currently might be a bit harder to get enforced. Kilts would not be included in that since it’s not religious but there are definitely jobs where nobody cares what you wear – probably not “professional” ones though.
Relaxed dress code in terms of wearing casual clothing is quite common.
Religious clothing is usually allowed as it’s protected by law unless there’s a good reason not to allow it. Usually something health or safety related.
Traditional clothing which is not religious in nature depends on the workplace. They aren’t forced to allow it, but as long as it’s not something disruptive many do.
I think kilts would be acceptable almost anywhere, as long as it was “dressy” enough in situations that require it. Also are Muslim women that are forced to wear veils usually allowed to work?
My job is pretty relaxed. They do request pants and dresses go down to your ankles, but that’s about safety through skin coverage, just like how we have to wear closed toes shoes. But I have done sweats that look like normal pants that I wear and no one has cared. They just aren’t plain grey sweats. Those jobs do exist though, plenty around
Sure. I could wear all that and I teach high school. American dress is generally more casual than, for example, Western European fashion.
I have worked in the professional theatre industry for 25+ years. Wear whatever you want. Lots of our crew wear utility kilts.
I am in I.T. at a college. I wear jeans, a misfits hoodie when it’s cool and a mohawk just about everyday to work without issue.
I worked in IT and some people would show up looking like they came to work straight from the Goth Industrial club. It was great.
I think it would be a minority of jobs today that would prohibit any of these, unless there were safety issues.
Even in workplaces with a dress code, cultural and religious wear would generally be considered acceptable. Some places will still try to discriminate, because a fair share of people are racist and xenophobic, but they should be protected by the Constitution (or at least would have been before this current administration and the biased current Supreme Court).
I don’t know if it’s common but I work for a corporate office and I’ve seen girls with cropped tops and mini skirts, open toed shoes, sweats, tanks.
Most workplaces in the US have only limited dress codes and wouldn’t prohibit such things, except for purposes of safety, though some still require business attire. Loose clothing is generally unsafe around heavy machinery, and that may include the outfits you specified.
Very common these days, especially in office/tech jobs where dress codes are pretty relaxed. Cultural or religious clothing (like abayas, qamis, etc.) is generally a non-issue as long as it doesn’t conflict with safety requirements.
How would the examples provided be considered “Relaxed Dress Code”?
Do you mean accepting of cultural norms of staff?
It is rather illegal to ban an employee from wearing religious garb unless it fully impacts the position due to safety, whereas the employer must make reasonable accommodation.
Your question was rather crass.
Depends on the industry and company. At my last job you could wear shorts and hoodies despite a ‘business casual’ dress code. The only thing was if someone was touring the building which was rare and you were usually informed ahead of time. It was very much a ‘dont make us enforce a dress code by wearing dirty/ratty clothes.’
My current job has more strict rules, business casual but I have never seen it enforced and as long as you look respectable and well put together nobody is going to make a fuss. Provided of course it’s safe for a job, like no open toe shoes.
In some industries safety is a concern. Like construction or manufacturing. But if the clothing in question doesn’t interfere with safety than it’s acceptable.
I’ve been in research for about 15yrs, through a number of different sectors. Most strict was biopharmaceuticals. Jeans were fine but polo shirt for men was expected.
Plant biotech, semiconductors, automotive battery… It was whatever. Same as the naval lab I’m in now. Graphic tees. Baseball hats. Tattoos, piercings, beards. Buttons/pins, patches, and fun lanyards with our credentials on them.
Working as a cashier in highschool was more strict. Retail in general. The professional workplaces I’ve been in since college have been super casual. Only requirement that’s been ubiquitous is closed toe shoes and full length pants- that’s a lab safety thing.
In my city lots of Muslim women work as cashiers, many of them in hijabs and other traditional clothing, but never with their faces covered. It’s not illegal or anything but it certainly would be off-putting to many customers.
As always, it depends. I live in the DC area, and we are notoriously more formal. If you work federal, expect to wear a suit and tie.
Saying that, most places don’t care. I wear a t-shirt and jeans most days. I have coworkers with green hair and snake bite piercings. We have a high middle eastern population, so lots of hijabs as well.
Never seen a full-body veil in a workplace, but I don’t think those women typically work, so…
Most traditional cultural dress is saved for special occasions here. In theory you could wear a lot of it as long as it was safe and fit for purpose. The Niqab is a little different because it springs from religious practice. My wife teaches and works with a woman who wears it, but in a lot of places it would make people very uncomfortable. Religion’s a protected class, so HR can’t say no, but the looks you’d get outside a majority Muslim company would be… tough.
Very relaxed
Some guy in my office wears a kilt from time to time. I don’t think anyone’s given him a hard time about it.
I’m wearing a kilt under my burqa right now.
Relaxed is separate.
A workplace cannot stop you from wearing cultural or religious garb. Title VII explicitly protects that.
Now if you’re talking about just sort of wearing anything, in my experience, that’s fairly common. Where I work, we have “business casual” on the books but that’s mostly interpreted to mean clean-looking clothes, no logo graphic tees and that’s about it.
Right now I’m wearing a pair of jeans, sneakers and a long sleeve henley shirt. Yesterday it was the same thing with a simple tee shirt and a cardigan.
So, you are asking if we discriminate with dress codes?
No.
People in the US may wear their religious and/or cultural attire in any office.
This scales with how important you are.
Engineer at my last job wore t shirts, shorts and beat up sandals every day. Project manager at my current job wears shorts despite dress code requiring pants and nobody tells him anything because he’s too important.
Chicagoan here: People wear kilts at celebrations (weddings and funerals) so it’s seen as formalwear.
I know a very highly paid mechanic that wears a kilt. We try to be elsewhere when he’s doing anything elevated.
I worked in tech (I still do, but now I work from home) and you could wear any of those things in the offices of the bigger companies I worked for. You could also wear a suit, a dress, or basketball shorts, tube socks and slippers.
Your question seems to be less about formality and more about cultural expression. It doesn’t seem to me (please correct me if I’m wrong) that any of the things you mentioned are u professional or informal. So they should be allowed in any office place or I would think the employer was being discriminatory, which is BS and possibly illegal.
My office considers a kilt part of business casual. It comes up once or twice a year. Mostly because some guy will complain about the lack of warm weather options like shorts and a manager or HR will suggest a kilt
I’m an attorney I’ve seen another attorney go to court in a kilt.
West coast tech really doesn’t care.
There is a guy at my company who shows up regularly in a kilt. And half the staff wears athletic shorts.
Another looks like an anime character.
And one — just one — guy shows up in a tie. Not the CEO.
When I first read relaxed, I thought you meant t-shirt and jeans. Hoodie and leggings. But yeah, most workplaces on the west coast are relaxed and you could wear “traditional” if you wanted to.
The dress code for my workplace is, almost literally, “don’t be naked.”
I work at a large university on the west coast. No one cares what you wear.
43 comments
Yes
You can literally wear sweatpants at my office, they dgaf
Where I work if you agree to donate $10 to charity you get to wear jeans on Friday
In software dev, you can wear anything.
I don’t think “relaxed” is the word you’re looking for in this context.
It really depends on the industry. I’ve also found that customer-facing jobs tend to have more strict dress codes than those where you’re just in an office all day.
Very common
I work in a warehouse and can wear whatever I want…as long as it includes steel toes boots.
Im in my pj’s and clocked in… but I work from home, lol.
There are federal laws to protect people from religious discrimination that for a long time had included clothing requirements although currently might be a bit harder to get enforced. Kilts would not be included in that since it’s not religious but there are definitely jobs where nobody cares what you wear – probably not “professional” ones though.
Relaxed dress code in terms of wearing casual clothing is quite common.
Religious clothing is usually allowed as it’s protected by law unless there’s a good reason not to allow it. Usually something health or safety related.
Traditional clothing which is not religious in nature depends on the workplace. They aren’t forced to allow it, but as long as it’s not something disruptive many do.
I think kilts would be acceptable almost anywhere, as long as it was “dressy” enough in situations that require it. Also are Muslim women that are forced to wear veils usually allowed to work?
My job is pretty relaxed. They do request pants and dresses go down to your ankles, but that’s about safety through skin coverage, just like how we have to wear closed toes shoes. But I have done sweats that look like normal pants that I wear and no one has cared. They just aren’t plain grey sweats. Those jobs do exist though, plenty around
Sure. I could wear all that and I teach high school. American dress is generally more casual than, for example, Western European fashion.
I have worked in the professional theatre industry for 25+ years. Wear whatever you want. Lots of our crew wear utility kilts.
I am in I.T. at a college. I wear jeans, a misfits hoodie when it’s cool and a mohawk just about everyday to work without issue.
I worked in IT and some people would show up looking like they came to work straight from the Goth Industrial club. It was great.
I think it would be a minority of jobs today that would prohibit any of these, unless there were safety issues.
Even in workplaces with a dress code, cultural and religious wear would generally be considered acceptable. Some places will still try to discriminate, because a fair share of people are racist and xenophobic, but they should be protected by the Constitution (or at least would have been before this current administration and the biased current Supreme Court).
I don’t know if it’s common but I work for a corporate office and I’ve seen girls with cropped tops and mini skirts, open toed shoes, sweats, tanks.
Most workplaces in the US have only limited dress codes and wouldn’t prohibit such things, except for purposes of safety, though some still require business attire. Loose clothing is generally unsafe around heavy machinery, and that may include the outfits you specified.
Very common these days, especially in office/tech jobs where dress codes are pretty relaxed. Cultural or religious clothing (like abayas, qamis, etc.) is generally a non-issue as long as it doesn’t conflict with safety requirements.
How would the examples provided be considered “Relaxed Dress Code”?
Do you mean accepting of cultural norms of staff?
It is rather illegal to ban an employee from wearing religious garb unless it fully impacts the position due to safety, whereas the employer must make reasonable accommodation.
Your question was rather crass.
Depends on the industry and company. At my last job you could wear shorts and hoodies despite a ‘business casual’ dress code. The only thing was if someone was touring the building which was rare and you were usually informed ahead of time. It was very much a ‘dont make us enforce a dress code by wearing dirty/ratty clothes.’
My current job has more strict rules, business casual but I have never seen it enforced and as long as you look respectable and well put together nobody is going to make a fuss. Provided of course it’s safe for a job, like no open toe shoes.
In some industries safety is a concern. Like construction or manufacturing. But if the clothing in question doesn’t interfere with safety than it’s acceptable.
I’ve been in research for about 15yrs, through a number of different sectors. Most strict was biopharmaceuticals. Jeans were fine but polo shirt for men was expected.
Plant biotech, semiconductors, automotive battery… It was whatever. Same as the naval lab I’m in now. Graphic tees. Baseball hats. Tattoos, piercings, beards. Buttons/pins, patches, and fun lanyards with our credentials on them.
Working as a cashier in highschool was more strict. Retail in general. The professional workplaces I’ve been in since college have been super casual. Only requirement that’s been ubiquitous is closed toe shoes and full length pants- that’s a lab safety thing.
In my city lots of Muslim women work as cashiers, many of them in hijabs and other traditional clothing, but never with their faces covered. It’s not illegal or anything but it certainly would be off-putting to many customers.
As always, it depends. I live in the DC area, and we are notoriously more formal. If you work federal, expect to wear a suit and tie.
Saying that, most places don’t care. I wear a t-shirt and jeans most days. I have coworkers with green hair and snake bite piercings. We have a high middle eastern population, so lots of hijabs as well.
Never seen a full-body veil in a workplace, but I don’t think those women typically work, so…
Most traditional cultural dress is saved for special occasions here. In theory you could wear a lot of it as long as it was safe and fit for purpose. The Niqab is a little different because it springs from religious practice. My wife teaches and works with a woman who wears it, but in a lot of places it would make people very uncomfortable. Religion’s a protected class, so HR can’t say no, but the looks you’d get outside a majority Muslim company would be… tough.
Very relaxed
Some guy in my office wears a kilt from time to time. I don’t think anyone’s given him a hard time about it.
I’m wearing a kilt under my burqa right now.
Relaxed is separate.
A workplace cannot stop you from wearing cultural or religious garb. Title VII explicitly protects that.
Now if you’re talking about just sort of wearing anything, in my experience, that’s fairly common. Where I work, we have “business casual” on the books but that’s mostly interpreted to mean clean-looking clothes, no logo graphic tees and that’s about it.
Right now I’m wearing a pair of jeans, sneakers and a long sleeve henley shirt. Yesterday it was the same thing with a simple tee shirt and a cardigan.
So, you are asking if we discriminate with dress codes?
No.
People in the US may wear their religious and/or cultural attire in any office.
This scales with how important you are.
Engineer at my last job wore t shirts, shorts and beat up sandals every day. Project manager at my current job wears shorts despite dress code requiring pants and nobody tells him anything because he’s too important.
Chicagoan here: People wear kilts at celebrations (weddings and funerals) so it’s seen as formalwear.
I know a very highly paid mechanic that wears a kilt. We try to be elsewhere when he’s doing anything elevated.
I worked in tech (I still do, but now I work from home) and you could wear any of those things in the offices of the bigger companies I worked for. You could also wear a suit, a dress, or basketball shorts, tube socks and slippers.
Your question seems to be less about formality and more about cultural expression. It doesn’t seem to me (please correct me if I’m wrong) that any of the things you mentioned are u professional or informal. So they should be allowed in any office place or I would think the employer was being discriminatory, which is BS and possibly illegal.
My office considers a kilt part of business casual. It comes up once or twice a year. Mostly because some guy will complain about the lack of warm weather options like shorts and a manager or HR will suggest a kilt
I’m an attorney I’ve seen another attorney go to court in a kilt.
West coast tech really doesn’t care.
There is a guy at my company who shows up regularly in a kilt. And half the staff wears athletic shorts.
Another looks like an anime character.
And one — just one — guy shows up in a tie. Not the CEO.
When I first read relaxed, I thought you meant t-shirt and jeans. Hoodie and leggings. But yeah, most workplaces on the west coast are relaxed and you could wear “traditional” if you wanted to.
The dress code for my workplace is, almost literally, “don’t be naked.”
I work at a large university on the west coast. No one cares what you wear.