Dress for success?

My first year university in Psychology 101, Dr. Stanley Coren showed a black and white photo of British school boys from bygone years looking starched in their uniform. He asked the class: "how many of you feel glad that you are living in an age in which you are no longer bound by dress codes?" A majority of the lecture hall put up their hands. "Oh, but you are wrong," said he, looking amused. "Even this room is very much bound by it. If one of you showed up to class in a tuxedo everyday, do you think you'd still remain socially acceptable?"

That was a long time ago. Things didn't change all that much since then, however. Dress code, written or unwritten, still very much has a firm grip on the so-called social norms. Fashion magazines may praise the way Kate Moss shows up to red carpets in black leather pants amongst a sea of ball gowns, it isn't always acceptable to freely express one's sartorial individualism anytime, anywhere. I would personally love to banish all dress codes at workplace except for the ones pertaining to the amount of exposed skin. Even with my industry's (high tech) apparent lack of dress code, many conform to the standard blue jeans and t-shirt uniform without much variation. So you can imagine, how it brightened up my day when a colleague came into the office in this delightful concoction: