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Does Dressing Down Mean Dumming Down - Published by Insurance Day

Published on 19/09/2001 12:09:00


Like most other travellers on the Met Line, and other lines, I keep my head well into the newspaper or a book to avoid the possibility of having to actually make conversation in the morning. Recently I had left my glasses at home and headlines and pictures were the limit to my news gathering, I therefore had time to view my fellow travellers and it came as quite a shock.The carriage was full of what looked like golfers, but instead of a club or a lawn mower at the end of their arm they had briefcases and laptops. It was obvious at Farringdon and Moorgate that the dress down brigade had left the train and once again the travellers were pin striped and grey. The conclusion was that the banking community has a whole new wardrobe to contend with and their suits, not yet with worn out trousers, are now superfluous to requirements.

It was recorded recently how an executive who was forced against his will to dress down every day of the week had taken to mowing his lawn in his best pin striped suit out of protest. There are also stories of city bank dealing rooms now resembling a night club in Ibiza, with chinos and boob tubes the norm.


The problem would appear to lie in technology in so far as it is those industries which have forsaken face-to-face business with screen based dealing and therefore the need for power dressing is no longer a requirement. One also has to say that there is a feeling of reducing style to a lower common denominator. Old hands in the city probably have a suit for every day, but wear the same corduroys with a sprinkle of different shirts every weekend. On a hot tube in the summer there could be some major personal hygiene problems.


If technology is the reason for dressing down, the insurance market in London is confronted with two problems. First, is technology going to be such a catalyst for change that all business currently taking place in the Lloyd’s market will be only through a PC, laptop, palm-pilot or Wap telephone, and secondly will the insurance market want to dress down. It is very obvious at the moment that there is no central body in the Lloyd’s market which is capable of changing working practices in insurance in the same way as the banking and money markets have. Then again there is quite a difference of working practices anyway, which currently require face-to-face relationships. If the Aon’s and Marsh’s of our world decide to make changes to the market then screen based systems will rule in the Lloyd’s building, the London Underwriting Centre and all other non-bourse underwriters. The insurance market may then join the other financial markets in deciding on a casual attitude to presentation.


Once this happens the benefits of London’s quality service will be diminished and the feeling that London as a quality supplier of services might begin to be eroded. The bottom line may be that markets in London were lost because of the abject failure to stand up for London’s expertise while listening to a global market which has looked to take away the Lloyd’s and UK’s strength.


Dressing down in the banking community has put London on a level playing field but below its previous status. The insurance market should retain its style and quality, and maintain its status quo and quality of presentation.


Technology can still be retained but the day that the Lloyd’s building and the London market lowers it’s standards may be the day that global competitors, particularly in America, will have managed to confuse clients with quantity rather than quality.


Dumming down is not what Lloyd’s needs and the suit, shirt, collar and tie are nothing to be ashamed of. It is one of the qualities, which differentiates London’s players weeks from their weekends and the UK business style from the global non-style. Technology will affect our lives, but London and Lloyd’s should still endeavour to retain its global HQ status.


Gucci suits yes, but Levi’s surely not, for Lloyd’s!

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