Americans are reluctantly returning to the office — albeit with a slightly different wardrobe.
Kastle Systems data showed that 44% of workers in 10 major U.S. cities clocked in during the most recent week, the highest that number has been since the start of the pandemic.
Menswear trends, however, have changed in the last two years of working at home, and men are continuing to opt for performance fabrics, according to Mizzen + Main Founder Kevin LaVelle.
“There’s no going back to the clothes that require ironing and dry cleaning all the time, that don’t stretch, that just make you feel stiff and uncomfortable,” LaVelle told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “People have just changed their expectations.”
Mizzen + Main’s own research shows that searches for dress shirts on its site are up by several hundred percent in the last year. The retailer has also seen a spike in searches for polo shirts, which LaVelle attributes to another COVID-related spike: the golf craze.
“The biggest explosion over the last two years has been golf,” LaVelle said. “The interest seems to be at an all-time high. And while we always had kind of a toehold in the golf world — and that increased with our partnership with Phil Mickelson — we ultimately have seen just an enormous expansion of interest in clothes that can blend from the workplace into golf.”
While LaVelle never saw the pandemic coming, he was ahead of the curve on the athleisure and comfort trends of the past two years.
“It's the kind of perfect blend of business casual, but not totally casual,” he added. “Guys are doing that, play a few holes in between meetings. And ultimately, the expectation is, I want to be as comfortable as I was over the last few years, sitting at home on my couch, even if I have to be dressed up on Zoom or going back into the office.”
Advertising with 'fun content and escape'
Mizzen + Main has leaned into the crossover between workplace attire and golf attire in recent years, including with its most viral social media ad to date, a TikTok video viewed more than 3.7 million times that shows a golfer zooming around the course with an office backdrop on his golf cart.
According to LaVelle, creating engaging content on social media platforms like TikTok has helped the company connect with consumers in a cluttered digital advertising landscape.
“People aren’t just looking for a product, they’re looking for a brand that is an extension of who they are,” he said. “When you put something on, it says a lot about who you are as a person. And so we just work to stay connected to our customers, give them that fun content and escape and respite.”