What to Wear to the Work End of Year Party

This one is harder than it looks. Everybody wants to look like themselves rather than their work self, and nobody wants to be the person being discussed on Monday morning.

Office parties are also usually a venue, a theme, an awards section, somebody's speech. It is not a casual night out with people you happen to work with.

Find out the theme early

Most Nigerian companies set one, and it will arrive in a group chat about two weeks before with very little explanation. All white. Black and gold. Traditional. Roaring twenties, for some reason.

Follow it. The photos go on the company page and the one person who ignored the theme is visible in every single frame, and not in a good way.

If there is no theme, the venue tells you the level. A hotel ballroom means dress properly. A restaurant upstairs means smart and relaxed.

Dress up, but stay recognisable at work

This is the line everyone is trying to find. You want to look noticeably better than you do at your desk, without wearing something that changes how people see you on Monday.

In practice that means the cut stays considered and the colour or the detail does the work. A deep jewel tone, a good fabric, something with texture. Not a dramatic neckline and not a very short hem.

A useful test. Would you be comfortable if this photo appeared on the company Instagram with you tagged? Because it probably will.

Remember your boss is there

And so is somebody from HR, and the client your team has been managing all year, and the MD who you have spoken to twice.

That does not mean dress conservatively. It means dress in a way that holds up in front of all of them at once, which is a slightly different calculation from dressing for your friends.

You will be there for hours

Office parties run long. There is a cocktail bit, a seated bit, speeches that overrun, awards, then dancing that goes until somebody decides it is over.

So you want something you can sit through dinner in and still dance in afterwards. Heels you can actually last in, or heels plus something flat in your bag for later, which is not cheating.

Also worth checking whether it is indoors with air conditioning or partly outdoors, because the two call for completely different fabrics.

What tends to work

A well cut midi in a rich colour, with something at the ear and a decent shoe. It reads as effort without reading as a statement, which is exactly the right register.

If the theme is black and gold, which it often is, a good black dress with gold jewellery does the job and you will wear the dress again. Buying something highly specific for one office party is how wardrobes fill with things worn once.

What to avoid

Anything very short, anything sheer, and anything you would wear to a club. Not because there is anything wrong with them, but because this is a room containing your head of department.

And avoid white if there is any chance of it being an outdoor evening, because by the end of the night it will have found something to pick up.

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