Will brown shoes kill your chances of getting ahead in investment banking?
One of the more bizarre things to come out of the news of Cazenove's sale to JPMorgan is the revelation that the Queen's banker didn't favour anyone wearing brown shoes on its premises.
According to The Times, wearing brown shoes to work at Cazenove has been a barrier to promotion in the past.
A quick scan of the Church's website reveals that most of their men's shoes do, in fact, still seem to come in black as a default. However, an employee at the Canary Wharf branch assures us they do sell each style in brown too: "Sales are a 60:40 split between black and brown," he claims.
So are brown shoes acceptable in the City these days? Apparently so. Barney Tremblay, an image consultant with investment banking clients, says youthful European bankers are bringing a more relaxed dress code to the City: not only are brown shoes now fine, so are pastel shirts.
"The younger guys are doing what they want and bringing more style, flair and colour to banking," Tremblay says. "The only thing they need to be careful of is not buying all their shirts and ties from the same shop."
