Catherwood LibraryILR School

A specter is haunting U.S. businesses: the specter of shorts. Shorts, once seen only on Casual Fridays and often derided as a too-informal dress choice, are rapidly moving up the chain of social acceptability in American workplaces. However, the idea of wearing shorts to the office has not quite hit the mainstream at U.S. employers: none of the New York City banks, law firms, stock brokerages or hospitals contacted by a reporter last week considered shorts an acceptable part of a work uniform, and for reasons that varied from the need to preserve institutional decorum to hygiene. But the seeds are being sown for a shorts revolution: short-wearers of the office world, unite!