Let the workplace air ring with profanity. Let the bare feet mingle with the Demonia's, sharing the same bland carpet or concrete. Let the employees unabashedly cover their uniforms in pins, their desks with stickers, and their arms in ink. Professionalism is a lie made up to homogenize the images that businesses already fail to uphold.
The waiter who takes your order has a different face than the chef who cooks it. Are her hair, her face, her single modest earring, the only things she's allowed to use to set herself apart? Regardless of if they want to, shouldn't either of them be able to get tattoos covering their neck without fearing perpetual unemployment?
When a tech employee sits in their office, reading an email, does it matter what the sender wore when they CC'D the whole department? Wearing two sweaters and jorts to a meeting should be accepted whether in the back of the room or in the front, giving the presentation. A proper suit stops being a guarantee of a competent person the moment you hear about this week's eleventh workplace harassment lawsuit being settled without repercussions.
Let the bars have as many ties as televisions. Let the sidewalk be barely graced by the hem of a full-length dress. Let slacks and blazers decorate dispensary clientele. "Being casual" implies zero or low expectations of appearance, mood, tone, or word choice. "Business casual" is an oxymoron.
All these expensive outfits bought regularly are saved for special occasions. Just living is special enough. The odds of you attending a second prom are low, but the odds of you waking up today in yesterday's world are nil. You may (understandably) not see how tomorrow has any difference from today. That dress you haven't worn since graduation two years ago can be that difference.
There's always a spectacle in sight on the streets. Sometimes it's an unfortunately unhoused dude blocking the intersection. Sometimes it's the rhinestones (fake or not) glistening off a particularly smooth dress on the opposite side of a fast food restaurant. Hell, sometimes it's someone in a fursuit, in whole or in part. If you want, if the Horrors of Being Perceived decide to fuck off for a little, you can have people see you in a condition you're proud of.
If someone has a problem with you being comfortable, you need to figure out if they're offended or you're offensive. The court of public opinion resides in the pubic, not in some manufactured standard. Almost every dress code is "tradition" disguised as necessity. Almost every tradition is a practice that can no longer be justified with anything but previous adherence.
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