Trend Alert: The girls are making office fashion sexy again

It's Been a Minute

NPR

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 8.8K Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Pencil skirt. Kitten heels. Tiny glasses. And a little dark edge. These are just some of the elements of one of the most enduring fashion trends of the past couple of years: the office siren. But we're not just seeing this twist on office norms in fashion: we're also seeing it in TV shows like Severance and Industry, and with musicians like The Dare and FKA Twigs. So what are people expressing by reimagining office fashions? Brittany is joined by NPR's Life Kit producer Margaret Cirino to discuss the "freakification" of office wear — its long lineage in fashion, and what office tensions this trend is speaking to right now.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You have your job, but you also have a life, and you're not just one thing.
0:06.3	Neither is the Here and Now Anytime podcast.
0:09.2	Every weekday, we break down the biggest story of the day and something else, like a new trend everyone's talking about.
0:15.7	It's Here and Now Anytime, a daily podcast from NPR and WBR.
0:23.8	A warning.
0:25.1	This segment contains references to sexuality and sexual violence.
0:31.1	Hello, hello.
0:32.6	I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR.
0:36.3	A show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
0:47.8	Today I have a very special guest here with me.
0:52.1	Margaret Serino.
0:53.4	Welcome to It's Been a Minute. Hi, Brittany. Happy to be here. Happy to have you. Yay. Margaret Serino. Welcome to It's Been a Minute.
0:54.6	Hi, Brittany.
0:55.6	Happy to be here.
0:57.0	Happy to have you.
0:57.9	Okay.
0:58.4	So Marge is my colleague over at Life Kit, but she's also one of the most fashionable people at the NPR New York Bureau.
1:05.8	Oh, stop.
1:06.8	I'm blushing.
1:08.2	It's true, though.
1:09.0	It's true.
1:09.6	It's true, though. It's true. It's true. And she's often dressed in a style that's aptly called office siren.
	...

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