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When millennials were children, back in the 1980s and 1990s, their parents wore suits to work if they had corporate or professional jobs: their fathers donned dress shirts and ties, and the padded shoulders on their mothers’ jackets made them look like fullbacks. It was the uniform of the day.

As corporate formality waned and dress codes grew less constraining, terms like business casual, smart casual and business chic entered the lexicon. Then millennials came of age and, against a backdrop of Silicon Valley startups and casually clad tech entrepreneurs and engineers, many started going to work in T-shirts and running shoes. Dressing down became the new dressing up.

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“I think people are dressing far more casually than they did even 10 or 15 years ago — and that, among millennials, most never had to dress up,” said Caroline Alexander, co-owner of Montreal-based Ludique, a company of image consultants and wardrobe stylists. Call it a cultural shift.