How to Dress to Impress on Wall Street

“When Lloyd Blankfein got his first suit-and-tie job, his boss took him aside to share some veteran advice: He should invest in a set of collar stays.

 

The future Goldman Sachs CEO's shirt collars were popping out -- a no-no in his buttoned-up white-shoe law office. That boss later advised him to stop wearing polyester ties and trade them for Hermes.

 

"I wasn't brand-conscious, and, you know, I missed some things," Blankfein said in an interview. "None of these things are written down." He chronicled some of his and others' missteps in his memoir "Streetwise: Getting to and Through Goldman Sachs," published earlier this year.

 

Unwritten rules govern all kinds of white-collar offices, but nowhere do they carry more weight than on Wall Street. Bankers must look the part without standing out, adhering to codes for everything from their suits and watches to their shoes. Most of them learn where the line is by crossing it.

 

One of the most public examples of rule-breaking was on display this year in a photo shoot for Interview magazine, where four junior bankers modeled designer duds. A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs said its media relations team didn't approve the interviews. The magazine declined to comment.

 

By posing for the magazine spread, the bankers had broken the golden rule of finance fashion: Never dress above your station -- and certainly never better than the boss.

 

According to several former and current Wall Streeters, that rule is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

No peacocking

 

You risk breaking the finance-bro code by flashing signs of conspicuous consumption or daring to deviate from the norm.

 

Even as he ascended to Goldman's C-suite, Blankfein said he styled himself conservatively.

 

"I think I had half a dozen blue suits and a half a dozen gray suits," he said. "Every once in a while I went crazy and I got a pinstripe in one of my suits. My goal was to not dress in any way that would warrant a comment, either good or bad."

 

When entry-level finance guys hire Julie Rath, president of Rath & Co. Men's Style Consulting, she is mindful of that mandate.

 

"I'm always ultracareful not to be too aggressive with their styling," she said. "That means no obvious brand names and nothing flashy."

 

She recommends quiet, understated tailoring. "That means notch lapels, button cuffs and pants with belt loops, as opposed to peak lapels, French cuffs and side adjusters."

 

As bankers move up the corporate ladder, their wardrobe should stay discreet and be even better tailored: No bunching at the back shoulder of a jacket is one tell that you have a good tailor or get your clothes custom-made, the ultimate subtle flex.

 

Watch accessories

 

Though financiers are known for their obsession with high-end mechanical watches, current and former Wall Streeters said they rarely wore their Patek Philippes to work, opting for affordable timepieces by brands such as Timex.

 

"I always wear nothing or a Swatch," Blankfein said.

 

Other accessories also require reading the room. Once, when Kyle Okimoto served as a sales initiative head in Merrill Lynch's global wealth management division, he caught flak from colleagues for bringing a bright-red vinyl rolling suitcase to a sales meeting.

 

"As the meeting was unfolding, someone said, 'Check Kyle's suitcase out' and then they passed the mic around," he said. "They went on for like 15 minutes. Each person had their own joke about the suitcase."

 

Okimoto acquired a gray wheelie bag shortly after that "because I didn't want to get the grief," he said.

 

Follow the leader

 

Bankers generally know that their belts should match their shoes. They should also match their surroundings, blending in with colleagues.

 

As Russell Raath was getting settled into his new senior consultant in banking and financial services role at Deloitte in the late '90s, he overheard a partner turn to somebody and say, "You're not going to wear those shoes into the meeting."

 

"I just thought, well, there we go. I'm just never going to wear brown shoes," said Raath, who now runs his own consulting firm, the Ambition Company.

 

When Okimoto started out at Merrill Lynch as a contractor, a senior managing director discreetly slid into his office to discuss promoting him to a full-time position and notified him that the promotion was contingent on one condition: He needed to cut his shoulder-length hair. Okimoto obliged.

 

"There was no way I could go in there and work with bankers and be credible with the way I was looking," said Okimoto, who heads the business consulting firm Market Junctions.

 

There can be exceptions to some rules. If the CEO sports a beard, employees feel it is then OK for them to do so too. They might even want to emulate the boss to curry favor. In his book, Blankfein noted that facial hair was "very popular" at Goldman Sachs during famously bearded Jon Corzine's reign as CEO from 1994 to 1999.

 

Don't brag

 

Boasting about one's status is generally frowned upon in finance. It is especially true the more junior one is.

 

In his memoir, Blankfein tells the story of a junior wealth adviser leaving the firm shortly after giving a quote to the New York Times, bragging about how much money he was making.

 

"There isn't anything I see in a store that I can't buy," James Cramer, a 31-year-old Goldman broker, told the paper in the 1986 article. That young adviser would go on to become Jim Cramer of "Mad Money" fame.

 

Cramer said that the quote had been taken out of context and that he requested a correction. A spokeswoman for the Times said that no one currently working at the company had knowledge of Cramer's request.

 

When asked if, as a CEO, he would have fired the two Goldman Sachs employees who modeled in the infamous Interview shoot, Blankfein didn't want to jump to conclusions.

 

"The impression I came away with was, that was a big mistake to do, and ridiculous and stupid," he said.

 

Which brings us to a faux pas in just about any workplace: Getting the boss' attention for the wrong reasons.

 

"I don't know what was behind it, or what they thought they were doing," Blankfein said.” [1]

 

1. How to Dress to Impress on Wall Street. Smith, Ray A.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 09 June 2026: A1.