Vanessa Friedman: Sweatshirts may be office-appropriate, but context matters

In a New York Times fashion column answering a reader from New York, Vanessa Friedman examined whether trendy, often expensive sweatshirts and hoodies can look polished enough for the office.

Friedman noted that sweatshirts have evolved — from puff sleeves to cropped lengths to quarter-zip styles — driven by streetwear, celebrity merch and quiet luxury. She cited GQ’s description of the moment as “the golden age of hoodies” and recalled seeing a Fear of God sweatshirt that seemed unexpectedly elegant.

But suitability for work, she wrote, depends on the job and the message the wearer wants to send. Office dress codes signal peer groups and hierarchy: a friend at a tech company called the sweatshirt “the final frontier of business casual,” and Friedman said sweatshirts remain coded as casual, youthful and not generally corporate.

Personal stylist Joseph Rosenfeld told Friedman he assesses whether a sweatshirt “undermine[s] authority” in context, and that the real question is whether someone wants to give up visual authority on purpose. Friedman reported that dressing a sweatshirt up — with tailored pants, a blazer and sophisticated shoes and jewelry — is crucial, though making it look ‘‘as little like a sweatshirt as possible’’ may take more work than it’s worth.

Key Topics

Culture, Sweatshirt, Vanessa Friedman, Joseph Rosenfeld, Mark Zuckerberg, Business Casual