Dress Codes in Post-Apartheid South African Workplaces

Abstract

THERE ARE MANY factors that influence dress code decision making in formal and informal business arenas. In South Africa, with its colonial and apartheid history followed by an exuberant resurgence of Africanism, factors such as diversity of race, ethnicity, religion, and culture play a critical role in lifestyle and worldview. These many and often competing influences and interests may enrich our lives (and dress sense) but may have served to confuse and confound. Historical context, climate-both physical and cultural-and globalization also play a crucial role in how we choose to present ourselves.In this article, these overarching and interrelated issues of diversity and climate and their perceived impacts on business attire will be explored. Role of Cultural DiversitySouth Africa, like much of Africa, has a deeply divided and traumatized missionary and colonial history. The church and state frowned on the dress (often state of undress) of the "primitive natives" and sought to "civilize" them by introducing and insisting on Western dress (Ramaite & Mdhluli, 2008, p. 106). Men more than women