Klara Klarowicz broke out her favorite dress for her first day back at the office last month: a navy blue, three-quarter-sleeve number she purchased in Poland that hadn’t seen the light of day in a year.
It’s like a good-luck charm, she says. The moment she got her return-to-work date, she knew she’d wear it for her long-awaited return to in-person work.
“I enjoy wearing business clothes,” says Ms. Klarowicz, a 25-year-old investment associate at LDC, a private-equity firm in London. Even though she’s only going in once a week, she’s thrilled to swap out the Lululemon leggings that had become her de facto uniform for remote work.
Omnipresent sweatpants and spandex marked the early stages of quarantine, but many workers returning to the office now, like Ms. Klarowicz, can’t wait to say good riddance and dress up like old times for work again.
“Honestly it’s been really fun to rediscover my closet. It’s almost like a brand-new closet again,” says Paula Nichols, a 27-year-old project manager at a land-development company in Arlington, Texas.