Dressing like you’re in an X-rated film at work for the latest #OfficeSiren trend isn’t empowering, it’s degrading
A SEXY secretary takes off her glasses, removes the pen holding up the bun in her hair and slides it between her lips.
She undoes a few more buttons on her pinstripe blazer and . . . you know the rest.
You’d be forgiven for thinking you were watching a retro porn flick or even a scene from a Carry On film.
But this look is doing the rounds on TikTok, the catwalk and beyond.
It’s frequently hashtagged #officesiren or #corporateslut and, as those names suggest, it feels like a massive blow for feminism.
The latest model to lean into overly-sexualised workplace attire is former Victoria’s Secret Angel Elsa Hosk.
As the face of Aussie fashion brand I.AM.GIA’s Office Collection, the 35-year-old Swedish model can be seen posing in a frilly pinstripe bra and knickers with her bum cheeks pressed up against a photocopier.
But if you actually went to the office in one of I.AM.GIA’s suggestive looks — including a totally sheer top and a mini dress so short you can see the gusset of your tights — you’d probably give Nigel in accounts a heart attack.
This trend for dressing like you got ready for work, then lost half of your outfit in the lift, took off in October 2023, when Kim Kardashian launched the Skims Ultimate Nipple Bra with an advert that saw her in wire-framed spectacles and a skin-tight body stocking tapping away at a clunky computer in a retro beige office.
Cleavage-baring
Since then, designers such as Prada, Retrofete and Tory Burch have sent models down the catwalk in looks that are not so much business-casual, more business-casual-sex.
Model Bella Hadid has been working the sleazy office siren look for some time, with her Miu Miu half-unbuttoned striped shirts, micro mini skirts and thick-rimmed glasses.
At Paris Fashion Week, Hollywood star Jennifer Lawrence wore a three-piece grey suit, with enough cleavage on show to trigger an HR investigation.
Model Hailey Bieber loves an oversized blazer, with black opaques and very little underneath, while pop star Sabrina Carpenter recently posed in a plunging pinstripe two-piece with a pair of glasses hanging suggestively out of her mouth.
And actress Florence Pugh is currently on the cover of British Vogue wearing a cleavage-baring midi-dress by Dolce & Gabbana, her black bra proudly on display.
The high street has quickly followed (pin-stripe) suit, with BooHoo launching an Office Siren collection and Asos bringing out a Nineties-inspired Office Core range.
What’s confusing is that some items do look office appropriate. But others definitely are not.
Think shirts that end above the belly button and mini skirts with massive splits in them.
There’s definitely something deeply nostalgic about these looks, which feel like they have been ripped straight from iconic films and TV shows about office life.
At work, I’d rather be judged for my outcomes, not my outfits
Remember Gisele Bundchen’s bespectacled cameo in 2006 movie The Devil Wears Prada, or the vampy secretary who has an affair with Alan Rickman in 2003’s Love Actually?
Perhaps the biggest influence on this trend is Maggie Gyllenhaal in 2002 movie Secretary, where a receptionist and her boss fall into a BDSM relationship.
Some office siren looks are even more retro, featuring Eighties-style stockings and huge shoulder-padded blazers as seen in Melanie Griffith’s hit 1988 movie Working Girl.
Of course, TV’s most glamorous sexy secretary — Joan from Mad Men — is far too covered up to tap into the office siren trend.
I realise the corporate slut look is largely tongue-in-cheek and that Gen Z are far more likely to wear it to the club than to the actual office.
But it still feels regressive that we are encouraging young women to dress like they are in a male fantasy from the 1980s.
There’s even an online article, How To Office Siren Your Way Into A Promotion, with tips on how to dress the office siren way.
Seriously? We’re not so far away from a time when women were routinely objectified in the office.
Generations of us have fought hard to win respect at work and this is taking us back several decades.
Is that really the message we want to give to young women starting their careers?
Images feel jarring
That to get ahead at work you have to show some leg and flash a bit of cleavage? They shouldn’t be aspiring to be office sirens, they should be aspiring to be CEOs.
Celebrating the idea of being a corporate slut feels irresponsible and even damaging.
The shoot for the I.AM.GIA campaign shows half-naked couples in office cubicles getting it on.
Seriously? We’re not so far away from a time when women were routinely objectified in the office
Given the #MeToo movement — and the fact that many companies have now banned office relationships — these images feel quite jarring.
When I was in my twenties, I wanted to be taken seriously in an office dominated by men, but pencil skirts and buttoned-up shirts felt like cosplaying.
It took me many years to find a smart workwear style that also felt like me — a pair of loafers and some high-waisted trousers.
Now, like many people post-pandemic, I work from home, usually in a tracksuit. But there’s a part of me that longs to stride into the office again, in a pair of shiny shoes and a power blazer.
Perhaps that’s the reason the office siren trend has taken off for autumn.
We’ve become so used to slobbing about in athleisure wear, that corporate clothes now feel daring and risqué.
I’m sure there’s an argument to be made that being the “hot girl” in the office can be empowering, but I’m keen to see the back of this particular fashion trend.
At work, I’d rather be judged for my outcomes, not my outfits.