After bouts of the blues, blacks and greys through the working week, it is finally time to add some colour to your life with the approach of the weekend. After a long stressful week (when was the last time you managed to stick to your nine-to-five working schedule?), Friday for some, Saturday for others is the light at the end of the tunnel of drudgery. And clothes are, after all, a reflection of spirit.

?My office is like a fish market. People screaming and shouting with no sense of place or proportion. The stress factor, which is always on the upward curve, starts dropping only on Fridays, which is everybody?s pay day,? explains fashion designer Kiran Uttam Ghosh.

?While I wear more formal trousers and shirts during the week, on Fridays I don colourful cut-offs and a bright blouse, casual and yet not as casual as Saturday. I even change my accessories to suit the Friday culture. I insist on taking out this mock crocodile handbag and different shoes. Even my husband tends to wear a brighter shirt or tie to work on Fridays.?

The idea of Friday dressing was born mainly due to two factors: to bring the excitement of the weekend to the workplace and to make life a little easier for those ready to hit the town after office hours. ?Sometimes there just isn?t time to go home and change after work, before going out for dinner. Wearing something that looks chic, trendy and colourful as opposed to the usual uniforms of the week is just what you need and Friday?s the only day such things are actually possible,? adds Kiran.

That?s IT

Firms like PriceWaterhouseCoopers have no such concept of dressing down, even over the weekend. ?We wear business casuals the whole week through, with the exception of when we go to our practice offices. At such time, business formals have to be worn,? says Joydeep DattaGupta, partner, PWC.

Business casuals for men usually implies a shirt and trousers, while formals means a suit. In companies like NIIT, however, employees do have a policy of wearing casuals over the weekend.

Talking trendy

Those who work with cell phone service providers tend to be in casuals most of the time. ?Our organisation is made up of very young people, the average age being less than 30 years. So the environment is always lively and colourful. Our employees can come to work wearing jeans,? says Deepak Gulati, CEO, eastern region, Bharti Cellular Ltd.

?Despite the competitive edge of the industry and the pace of our activities, we try to do extra-curricular activities within office to keep our employees engaged and constantly rejuvenated. We encourage special dressing themes on Fridays for our call centre executives,? he explains.

Ad colour

Fun, creative, risk-taker is the usual image of an ad executive. Advertising agencies have always been distinguished by their casual work ethos. Dressing down and funky fits right in with their flexi-hours and the less-rules-more-deadlines mode. As Tapan Sen, director, client servicing, JWT, points out: ?We do expect those going to meet clients to be in formal attire, but there is no written code as in many companies. On Saturdays, I sometimes come to office in shorts and a T-shirt.?

The very idea of Friday dressing in India came straight out of the Allen Solly advertisement, he feels. ?But surprisingly, if you look carefully, practically every ad shows a man rather formally dressed. I can?t see anything casual about it.?

Ram Ray, CEO, Response, also dismisses the idea of formal garb. ?It doesn?t matter one bit what people in my organisation wear as long as they can carry it off. People should be comfortable with themselves and the total package. Whether they are meeting clients or not, it should be acceptable.?

BPO basics

In a finance business-process outsourcing (BPO) unit, however, the work culture and dressing is more formal. Call centres, on the other hand, have no fixed dress code as the business takes place over the phone and employees can wear casuals throughout the week.

While those corporate houses with five-day weeks have the Friday dressing ethos, those like ABN-Amro with a six-day working schedule have revised the concept for Saturdays.

?It is basically the last day of the working week that people are allowed to wear jeans to bring in the feeling of calm and relaxation. While on most days we wear trousers and formal shirts or formal Indian wear, on Saturdays we wear whatever makes us comfortable (not shabby of course),? says Moumita Dattagupta, assistant manager, HR.