The IWG workwear survey describes the people who answered it, not every workplace. Before using its figures to change what you wear, check who was surveyed, when the questions were asked and which group each percentage refers to. Your employer’s current policy still matters more than a headline about office clothing becoming more relaxed.
01 / THE DEVELOPMENT
The idea in focus.
02 / OUR INTERPRETATION
What it means in practice.
For readers, the useful habit is methodological, not stylistic. When a dress statistic reaches you — and in 2026 they arrive weekly — the first questions are who was asked, when, and about what. A June 2025 poll of hybrid workers is genuinely good evidence about June 2025 hybrid workers' perceptions, and genuinely not evidence about your office's trajectory. If your employer's expectations feel like they are moving, the authoritative sources are the ones the survey excluded: your written policy if one exists, and the visible range of what actually gets worn by the people who decide your promotions.
A survey can tell you how a thousand hybrid workers describe their own wardrobes. What it can never tell you is what the person running your next meeting will think of yours.
What the survey measured
Censuswide surveyed 1,000 US hybrid workers aged 18 and over in June 2025, on both mobile and desktop, and IWG published the results as its Workwear Reimagined report on 30 July 2025. The headline numbers are real — but each one describes a specific denominator.
| Figure | Who it describes | What was asked |
|---|---|---|
| 56% have a defined dress code | All 1,000 respondents, self-reporting | Whether their company has a clearly defined dress code |
| 67% say it has relaxed | Only the subset who said a code exists | Whether that code has relaxed in recent years |
| 92% want work/leisure flexibility | Hybrid workers surveyed | Importance of clothes working for both work and leisure |
| 53% wear an unofficial uniform | All respondents, self-reporting | Whether they default to repeated outfit choices |
| Outfit anxiety ~7 times a month | Respondents' own estimates | Perceived frequency of outfit stress or anxiety |
| 31% prioritise versatile clothing; 21% shop resale | All respondents | Purchasing priorities under economic pressure |
What it does not say
The limits sit in the methodology, and each one changes what a citation can honestly claim. None of them makes the survey wrong — they bound what it is evidence of.
- Hybrid workers only: fully remote and fully office-based workers, the two groups whose dress codes changed most since 2020, are outside the sample.
- Perception, not policy: the 56% who say a code exists were not reading their handbooks, and belief that a code is strictly enforced is a different thing from enforcement.
- Fielded June 2025: it predates the 2026 wave of tighter attendance mandates, so any post-2025 swing toward formality is invisible in it.
- No employer-side questions: there is nothing in it about whether companies plan to tighten or codify dress rules next.
Why it keeps resurfacing in 2026
The survey has become a convenient anchor in a year when dress-code coverage is everywhere but good data is scarce. Business Journals' January 2026 reporting on dress codes being reset cited worker polling alongside job-posting data, and August 2026 coverage of return-to-office confusion leaned on the same IWG figures about unwritten codes.
A survey quoted in 2026 headlines is fresh 2026 data.
The IWG fieldwork was done in June 2025 and published on 30 July 2025. It is retrospective evidence about that moment, and should be dated as such wherever it is cited.
One survey of one worker population is doing the work of a national answer it cannot provide. That is not the survey's fault — its methodology is unusually clear. But it means each citation should carry the same footnote the original press release supplies.
What to check in your actual workplace
For a reader deciding what to wear, the survey's best use is as a prompt, not an answer. The authoritative sources are the ones the survey excluded: your employer's written policy and the visible range of what gets worn by the people who decide your promotions.
Managers and HR can run the same honesty check on their own dress guidance.
- Is there a written dress policy, and has anyone read it since 2020?
- Do expectations differ between office days and home days — and is that written down?
- What do team leads and client-facing colleagues actually wear, as opposed to what policy implies?
- If the code relaxed, was that a decision anyone made, or an accumulation of exceptions?
- Would a new hire be able to dress correctly on day one from the guidance that exists today?
A modest adjustment within policy
- Anchor versatile pieces — the survey's most transferable finding — to your own week of meetings
- Mirror the dress of the most senior person in your next meeting, then adjust one notch
- Ask HR a specific question (“are smart trainers acceptable on non-client days?”) rather than testing a guess publicly
What not to do with the survey
- Don't treat “codes are relaxing” as permission your employer has actually granted
- Don't quote the 67% without its subset denominator
- Don't assume June 2025 hybrid-worker perceptions describe your 2026 office
FROM THE STORY TO YOUR WARDROBE
Take the useful part.
Sources & further context.
- Workwear Reimagined: IWG study examines how increased workplace flexibility has transformed workwear — IWG press release, 30 July 2025
- Company dress codes crashed during Covid. They’re resetting in 2026 — The Business Journals, 20 January 2026
- Office Dress Codes Stay Unwritten as Return-to-Office Fuels Business Casual Confusion — WhatJobs News, August 2026
