On casual days, Antonini didn't get it either - Kmart's ex president and ceo Joe Antonini - Column

Discount Store News, June 5, 1995 by Don Longo

The word last month that Kmart headquarters is going casual might not seem like big news. Ames decreed casual wear days on Mondays and Fridays, and last time I was at Target headquarters on a Friday, I didn't see a single suit and tie. However, Kmart's jumping on the casual day bandwagon reminded me of a speech the discounter's former chairman and ceo gave at the Private Label Manufacturers Association convention last November.

It was one of Joe Antonini's last major public addresses, and on the whole, one of the best talks he ever made. He frankly discussed the changes in the consumer market and the effect of these changes on traditional discount chains like Kmart.

Among the trends he discussed that day was corporate dress down days.

"As if wearing shirt-sleeves, no tie and slacks is going to improve productivity," he scoffed. I winced when I heard that. If all he had said was that the way a person dresses affects his or her self-esteem, I might have agreed. But there is no denying that casual wear for work is consistent with the changes in lifestyle and social values of the aging Baby Boom generation.

Antonini just didn't get it.

According to USA Today, more than 70% of major U.S. corporations have at least one day when employees can shed the dress-for-success look in favor of more comfortable attire.

Watts Wacker, futurist for Yankelovich Partners, identified casual wear in at least two of his Top 10 Influential Consumer Trends, a report he presented at last month's convention of the International Mass Retail Association.

"Looking backwards, it is always easy to wax nostalgic and claim that life used to be more enjoyable and fun," Wacker said. "And then came the '80s, where everyone was striving for a power job with an important firm. And then in the '90s, consumers shut down, retreated to their homes, and pulled up the drawbridge." The result, said Wacker, is that Americans are less uptight and looking for more fun out of all areas of their lives--from leisure to work "and everything in between."

In predicting what types of merchandise will be hot sellers in the '90s, Wacker cited comfort clothing among his eight top product categories to pay attention to.

During a soft lines breakout session at last month's convention of the IMRA, Ames ceo Joe Ettore cautioned about keeping the dressing down revolution in perspective. "You don't have to be too old to remember that men routinely wore jackets and ties to baseball games," he said.

Ettore described the '80s as the Dress for Success decade. It was a time of expansion, individuality, junk bonds, status symbols like driving BMWs as well as entitlement.

The '90s, on the other hand, has turned out to be the Decade of Teamwork, said Ettore. People work in small, cross-functional, semi-permanent teams. "Casual dress days are a nocost, productivity-enhancing benefit," he noted.

Ettore added that when IBM, that icon of formal workwear, relaxed its dress standards, one female employee observed, "Not having to wear nylons was like getting a raise." Look at today's most successful business leaders. You don't often see people like Bill Gates and Steven Spielberg in suit and tie.

In fact, Ames recently circulated a summer style guide "designed to give associates a variety of options for personal style while ensuring that every associate dresses in a manner that represents Ames as a professional organization."

Ettore summed up the attitude of today's worker as: "What's the big deal about how I dress? I have a job to do." The point is that even the dress-up uniform expected at most of today's traditional companies would have been considered too casual decades ago.

Things change. And a successful company changes too. Or it dies. They may seem like a small thing, these casual days, but casualwear in the corridors of Kmart's Troy, Mich., headquarters is just another sign that Kmart is finally getting it.