For some people, Friday means it’s time for Casual Friday. But what is the origin of Casual Friday, and why did companies start allowing casual clothing at work? In this article, I’ll explain how this workplace trend started in Hawaii and eventually spread around the world.

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 The origin of Casual Friday in Hawaii

I always thought that Casual Friday was invented because relatively many people take Fridays off. When I started working for the government, that idea only seemed more believable. Most people worked four days a week, and many of them chose Friday as their day off. When only a few people are in the office, dressing formally suddenly feels unnecessary. Personally, it never made much difference to me, but at the time I genuinely believed that this explained the origin of Casual Friday.

But that assumption turned out to be wrong. Casual Friday did not originate in the Netherlands at all. The concept actually came from Hawaii. Because of the tropical climate, people disliked dressing formally in heavy business clothing. As a result, employers started allowing staff to wear Aloha shirts on Fridays. You know, those colorful short-sleeved shirts with exotic prints. They even gave it a name: Aloha Friday. In this way, employees could welcome the weekend in a more relaxed atmosphere.

 

 

 

 

 

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Een bericht gedeeld door Aloha Café Surf Co. (@alohacafesurfco) op 4 Dec 2019 om 6:02 (PST)

Soon after that, Californian companies also started loosening up their office dress codes. Slowly more and more American companies took over this habit and eventually the trend spread to Europe.

Why companies embraced it

Chances are that most people cannot imagine a business culture without Casual Friday. It has become completely normal. Even though it hasn’t existed for very long in the Netherlands. In 1960, people got used to wearing casual clothes on Fridays (particularly the Aloha shirt), but this trend only started here in the Netherlands in the mid 1990’s.

But is it really still a trend? At this point, Casual Friday almost seems to have become the standard. And, as always happens with clothing, commercial companies quickly saw opportunities. In 1996, clothing brand Levi’s recognized the potential of Casual Friday in the Netherlands and decided to capitalize on it. The company sent booklets to countless businesses explaining the concept and showing how employers could implement it. Naturally, Levi’s also positioned itself as the perfect company to help with this transition. According to the brand, introducing Casual Friday would improve the working atmosphere, creativity, and productivity.

You might wonder who would actually fall for such a strategy, but Levi’s had already proven its success in the United States. In 1992, the company launched the same approach there, and within four years it had advised 20,000 companies on introducing casual clothing in the workplace. By the time Casual Friday became popular in the Netherlands, 7 out of 10 companies in the U.S. had already developed policies for casual office wear. I have not been able to discover what Levi’s’ campaign achieved in the Netherlands specifically. Still, one thing is clear: Casual Friday has grown into a well-known concept that many companies continue to apply today.

I’m curious to hear your experiences with Casual Friday. Is it applied where you work, and if so, do you participate?

Want to read more about Casual Friday and workplace dress codes?

Also check:

• Does Formal Friday beat Casual Friday?

Greetings,

Aileen

Last update: 14/05/2026