Corporate clothing as post-war remedy and culture bonding artifact

"On a trip to Japan in the early 1980s, Steve Jobs asked Sony's chairman Akio Morita why everyone in the company's factories wore uniforms. 


He told Jobs that after the war, no one had any clothes, and companies like Sony had to give their workers something to wear each day. Over the years, the uniforms developed their own signatures styles, especially at companies such as Sony, and it became a way of bonding workers to the company. 


Sony, with its appreciation for style, had gotten the famous designer Issey Miyake to create its uniform. It was a jacket made of rip-stop nylon with sleeves that could unzip to make it a vest."


Excerpt from Steve Jobs' upcoming biography




Photo: Devo circa 1979