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It used to be so simple for men. Come rain or shine, hail or heatwave, for work, you were expected to wear pretty much the same uniform of suit and tie. But things are changing. Now polo shirts are as common as pinstripes in the City and Canary Wharf, and even civil servants and the Japanese salaryman are throwing their ties, if not their caution, to the wind.

Neither has the world of construction and property escaped the changes. Though it is typically conservative-with-a-small-c, even staunch tie-wearers such as CITB-ConstructionSkills chairman Sir Michael Latham concede that exceptions can be made 鈥渋f your office is 31掳C and there鈥檚 no air-conditioning鈥�. Where once men would sweat it out, the modern man now finds himself navigating a maze of unspoken rules and expectations governing whether or not he can get away with an open-neck shirt. What is clear is that for such a small and frankly peculiar piece of fabric, ties, or their absence, carry enormous weight in our dealings with other people.

Rebels vs conformists

As a statement of the obvious, whether or not you can get away with deviating from the accepted uniform depends on who you are and where you鈥檙e going. For dedicated tie-wearer and architect Robert Adam, it鈥檚 not about what you want to wear, it鈥檚 all about playing it safe. 鈥淵ou never know who you鈥檙e going to meet. It might be someone who is going to be concerned if I don鈥檛 wear a tie, but I don鈥檛 think anyone will think less of me for wearing one.鈥�

Rob Smith, senior partner at quantity surveyor Davis Langdon, chooses his neck gear depending on who he鈥檚 meeting. 鈥淭here are clients who even the bravest of my colleagues will put a tie on for,鈥� he says. 鈥淧eople are taken on face value - you鈥檝e got to respect people鈥檚 standards and if you don鈥檛, they won鈥檛 respect you.鈥�

But this is where it gets more complicated. RIBA president-elect Jack Pringle says he鈥檚 worn ties for meetings with his more staid clients only to find them disappointed. 鈥淣ot all clients want architects to turn up looking like accountants. They鈥檙e hiring you as a designer - they find it quite reassuring if you don鈥檛 turn up looking like a lawyer.鈥� Architects, of course, are a special case in the construction industry - it can be in their interests to break with convention and present an aura of originality. It is probably fair to say that fewer people look for originality in a quantity surveyor.

On the other hand, Steve McGuckin, development director at Land Securities Development, says he鈥檚 not bothered. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 judge people by a tie. The world is multinational and cultures are becoming integrated. I鈥檇 rather people felt comfortable than dressed up for me. What matters is what they contribute and that they deliver.鈥� He also offers the advice: 鈥淣o tie is better than a bad tie. Careful in the wardrobe on a dark winter morning 鈥︹��

厂迟补苍丑辞辫别鈥檚 Peter Rogers, probably the construction鈥檚 most famous no-tie rebel, believes that turning up suited and booted can be a barrier in some situations. 鈥淢anagement on sites are often dubbed 鈥榯he suits鈥�,鈥� he points out. 鈥淚t鈥檚 easier to communicate with the broad breadth of the industry if you鈥檙e not wearing a tie.鈥�

Unfortunately, the decision not to wear a tie can be just the beginning of further wardrobe anxiety. As Adam observes, 鈥渘ot wearing a tie is just another uniform鈥�. And where there鈥檚 the expectation of dressing down at work, it can be hard to dress right for a meeting you don鈥檛 want your colleagues to know about.

No matter how accepted standards are changing in the office, when you鈥檝e got a job interview, you should still wear a tie, says Lesley Fletcher, a partner at headhunter Thomas Cole Kinder. 鈥淚鈥檝e had people come for an interview dressed down, apologising because they have just come from the office.鈥� This isn鈥檛 necessarily a problem when you鈥檙e meeting a recruitment consultant, she says, but 鈥淚鈥檓 the gatekeeper. When they鈥檙e meeting the prospective employer, I鈥檒l suggest they find some way round it鈥�.

Power dressing

Perhaps, though, this is more indicative of another, and perhaps the greatest, factor in the tie debate: status. As Lesley Fletcher points out, 鈥淚t鈥檚 all about power. In some senior positions, you can dress how you like.鈥� Once you鈥檝e reached a certain pinnacle, your reputation is assured and you don鈥檛 have to care what anyone thinks. You can strut around in your dressing-gown if you feel like it. And you don鈥檛 have to go for job interviews.

Then again, even the big cats of construction still have to dress up sometimes. Investors, for example, are by definition risk-averse and this doesn鈥檛 stop at sartorial preferences. Stephen Rawlinson, of City analyst Arbuthnot, says: 鈥淚f someone came to a formal business meeting without a tie, I would wonder what message they were trying to give me. The point of a tie is that it鈥檚 safe. Clothes send out a message. If you don鈥檛 want your clothes to give a message 鈥� if you want your words to do that 鈥� wear conventional clothes.鈥� It seems that however far standards 鈥� and collars 鈥� loosen, some rules will always apply.