Oh, it gets worse! Years ago when I was a student working part time in retail, men had to wear black dress slacks (not jeans/sweat pants/cargos, etc. Women could wear slacks or skirt – slacks had to be full length, though) but there was one guy in the meat department who substituted his slacks with blue jeans or in summer, board shorts. Thankfully this colleague wasn’t in view of the customers often but when he came out to restock the meat fridges, I found myself cringing. I fully agree with you: business casual isn’t hard and for retail, black slacks (and whatever shirt colour depending on the department you worked in) is not hard.

Unfortunately it’s not just the workplace where dress codes are falling down. In Australia, I honestly don’t know of a single eatery that has a dress code; otherwise, they don’t enforce it or it’s very elastic. Case in point: RSLs, while not formal, used to refuse entry to those in thongs, athletic wear (or shorts shorter than a particular length), things revealing bare midriffs, etc. I went to the local RSL for lunch with relatives this Easter and was horrified at what I saw. There were quite a few in athletic shorts, t-shirts and thongs and ripped jeans; the worst, though, was a rather overweight man wearing sweatpants, a football mascot graphic t-shirt and thongs – I felt embarrassed for him walking past with his bare beer gut hanging out. It makes me wonder how he dresses at home if that’s what he puts on to go out in.

Eek. Thankfully, I’ll likely never have to see anyone in cargo shorts here. If a person takes pride in what they do for a living, they should dress accordingly (especially if they’re in an office most of the time). Dress like you want to be there. Business Casual is not that hard. It IS hard to be taken seriously in cargo shorts and a t-shirt.

You’re not wrong there. One work place I worked in, our dress code was ‘neat casual’ because we weren’t dealing with the public or people in general. They might have said ‘anything goes.’ We guys mostly wore chinos (1-2 dress slacks; 1 wore neat non-distressed black jeans with collared shirt and leather boots or shoes) with collared shirts but I was aghast to see one often showing up on warmer days dressed in cargo shorts and a t-shirt.

Indeed. I like argyle socks a lot, and I wear them often, particularly with chinos of various colors and solid shirts. Gives the otherwise “quiet” outfit a bit of character without being too crazy. But yeah, feel free to also wear them with tweed, if you’ve got it!

I might expand it beyond tweeds, depending upon the context and formality scale. Argyle socks could go well with a pair of grey flannel trousers, a button-down collar shirt ad a blazer, as well as a pair of Weejun-style loafers.

Tweeds.