Forget suits – dress for the other type of bar, lawyers told
A LEADING law firm has told staff to avoid wearing suits as they are “the domain of bankers and estate agents”.
Lawyers at Vardags, a divorce and family law firm that specialises in high net worth cases, are instead being urged to dress for the office as if they were going to a high-end London club.
Vardags issued the instruction in a memo, seen by The Daily Telegraph, sent to its 120 staff across its offices in London, Manchester and Cambridge.
The memo said: “We’ll move on to a dress code more like Annabel’s – the essence being ELEGANCE.” Annabel’s is a private members’ club in Mayfair, frequented by the rich, famous and royalty. The club says its dress code is “intended to encourage individuality and fabulous party dressing”, with guests encouraged to “be respectful in their choice of smart, elegant attire”.
Jeans of a solid colour, linen suits only if they are freshly pressed are permitted, and smart leather jackets and trainers are only deemed acceptable if they are in “good repair”.
In the memo, lawyers are encouraged to wear whatever they feel like, ranging from an “electric blue sequinned jacket” to “gold leather trousers” and scarlet Dr Martens boots – when they are not in court.
This is not the first time that Ayesha Vardag, who founded the company, has issued a decree to her staff about style in the workplace. In 2020, her memos telling staff to adhere to the firm’s previous dress code were leaked to a legal gossip website. One email headed “Cardigans!” read: “I am seeing cardigans in the office. Look at the dress code in the handbook. Woollies are verboten.”
Ms Vardag, 54, rose to prominence for her role in the landmark Supreme Court case of Radmacher v Granatino in 2010, which changed the law to make prenuptial agreements legally enforceable in the UK. In her latest memo, she tells staff: “Business suits are so much the domain of bankers and estate agents that they’re eschewed by some of the funkier London clubs. So we’ll move on to a dress code more like Annabel’s – the essence being ELEGANCE.
“Still formal, still absolutely topend… but you don’t have to wear ties, you can still wear your suits if you like (and probably need to for court, more or less) but day to day if you fancy an electric blue sequinned jacket and gold leather trousers, if you want pink hair or scarlet DMS, that’s all good.”
If the American legal drama Suits – where the future Duchess of Sussex received her first exposure to a global audience – were made now it would need a different name. Vardags, London’s self-declared top divorce lawyers, have sent out an edict to their staff that suits are out. They are now “the domain of bankers and estate agents”, not such exciting creatures as divorce practitioners to the rich. Unless in court, solicitors should dress as if they are heading for Mayfair nightspot Annabel’s. “Electric blue sequinned jackets” and “gold leather trousers” are apparently in; woolies remain verboten. Twenty years ago, a director of the bargain fashion chain Topman declared “very few of our customers have to wear suits to work. They’ll be for his first interview or court case”. The same rules now apparently apply for lawyers and defendants.