Do baristas wear uniforms just to make it easier to work? There may be more meaning behind it than you think.

"there's no change in our dress code," Joe said, glancing down at the cashier's mark on the paper cup with a marker, busy preparing the next cup of coffee. "you're probably just talking about Starbucks.

Just a week ago, Starbucks relaxed the dress code for US and Canadian employees: they can now wear soft-toned shirts under green aprons instead of black and white. However, low-cut suits, hats, overly bright plaid shirts and T-shirts with large Logo are still not allowed. If you like to have a hairstyle, employees can dye it in the future, and even wear brown, gray, black unbrimmed urinals, curled fedoras or other low-key "suitable hats".

This is the second change to Starbucks' dress code since 2014. Two years ago, the Seattle-based coffee chain first allowed baristas to show tattoos, but did not include overly ambiguous and uncivilized patterns or words.

In 1987, Howard Schultze bought a small company that owns six Starbucks coffees. As of June 26 this year, Starbucks had 24395 stores worldwide. In the process of rapid expansion, it uses a number of ways to ensure that coffee tastes are standardized, such as using green-scaled coffee cups and standardizing the design of stores. Even the dress of shop assistants is one of the "standards". In foreign media, they are often nicknamed "green aprons" because of their apron uniforms of the same color as the brand logo. The standards add up to the quality service that Starbucks is trying to achieve, and the company believes it can make customers willing to pay $4 for what would have cost 60 cents.

The two relaxations in recent years can be seen as some kind of "de-standardisation", with the goal of making employees, Starbucks likes to call them "partners", happier and more relaxed. "We invite people to come to work with personalized clothes," the new dress code for 150000 Starbucks employees across the United States reads. "as a brand ambassador, you should be proud of the private clothes under the green apron."

On the other side of the Atlantic, its British rival Costa has adopted another kind of incentive on employee clothing, which is also a lot of news. Two years ago. It partnered with clothing supplier Incorporatewear to customize personalized T-shirts and aprons for employees in 2000 stores in Europe at the time. About 16000 employees wear uniforms in five different colors according to the type of work, such as the cashier's uniform is milk curry and the barista wears dark coffee.

"A coffee shop should be a relaxing and enjoyable place." Karen Harper, an account manager at Incorporatewear, explains that people can temporarily leave the two "frontlines" of work and family to kill time. Shop assistant costume infects itself at the same time, it imperceptibly affects the mood of customers.

Not long ago, Costa announced a partnership with US fashion site Refinery 29 this summer to design a color co-branded T-shirt for baristas in UK stores.

The little ideas spent on uniforms send a message to the brand: we need to be younger and more in line with the aesthetic of millennials. According to a recent survey of American companies conducted by research firm OfficeTeam, employees' formal clothes are much lower than they were five years ago. Fifty-eight percent of the respondents wanted to wear a business and leisure style to work, or a pure leisure style, which not only saves money on clothing, but also makes it easier to stay relaxed.

James Freeman, who wrote the book "Blue bottle Coffee maker's Spectrum" ("the Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee"), started working as a hand-made coffee shop Blue Bottle in San Francisco in 2002. In recent years, with the investment of Silicon Valley bosses, the coffee brand has opened stores from the west coast to the east coast, even in Tokyo.

People see it as the apple of the coffee world and think it has the potential to shake up Starbucks. Michael V. Copeland, a contributor to Fortune magazine, once made this analogy: "if Starbucks is the latest Honda Honda Accord with a full set of flashy decorations, the blue bottle is a 1955 Alfa Romeo Giulietta. Of course, Alpha may be more expensive, and more attention needs to be paid to conservation, but its aesthetic level is beyond Accord's reach. "

But if you have ever visited its stores, employees do not have the same uniform-although Blue bottle once revealed on the official Twitter that employees love to wear Everlane clothes. Sometimes you see baristas with caps, wool hats and no hats in the same store.

Devon Zhang's TC boutique cafe is hidden in an office building in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai. "We require baristas to wear aprons to enter the bar. First of all, it is for health reasons, and secondly, it allows them to show their professionalism with maximum freedom of dress. " For him, the most essential task of baristas is not to make coffee, but to convey coffee culture.

"Commercial FMCG coffee may need to be uniformly dressed, such as Starbucks. But the boutique cafe can unify the apron. " Devon Zhang does not forget to look for a good-looking apron when he is on a business trip in Australia. "you can understand it as casual Friday, but employees need to wear a badge." Of course, for hygiene and image reasons, long-haired staff in the store can not wear their hair to avoid affecting the production. Similarly, shorts and miniskirts are not encouraged.

"European cafes are too formal, such as Cova, we are not so formal." Devon Zhang said. Cova, a cafe owned by LVMH, has been in Shanghai for some years, and regular customers are used to baristas in white shirts, black vests and black trousers. There have been musicians like Puccini and Verdi in this Italian coffee shop that originated in Milan.

The same costume appears in the streets of Europe, and there is no lack of classic images in movies and novels. Compared with chain coffee shops, baristas and waiters in larger cafes in Europe have their own duties, but small neighborhood shops usually have one person responsible for the production and service of drinks. Baristas are talkative, sarcastic, or arrogant, but their costumes are pretty much the same: shirts, trousers, some with ironed aprons around their waists, and perhaps the name of a cafe embroidered in the corner.

This iron dress code comes from the cafes on Les Grands Boulevard in Paris in the 19th century. The reason is very simple: distinguish the clerk from the customer. Sometimes their vests have a lot of pockets for easy change. Founded in 1897, Caff è Giubbe Rosse, a coffee shop in Florence, was influenced by the fashion of Vienna at that time, and baristas wore red vests over their white shirts.

During the Meiji Restoration in Japan, coffee was gradually accepted by the local people with the trend of "western learning". In the early 20th century, coffee shops in Ginza in Tokyo began to try to get waiters to wear uniform uniforms, such as traditional Japanese kimonos and western navy-style white clothes. After repeated attempts, the shopkeeper found that the shape of the light-colored shirt with a dark vest is solemn and low-key, which is neither noisy nor professional.

"uniforms are not really a consideration for baristas." Joe stood behind the Starbucks bar and said, "it's like going through all the coffee books that teach you how to mix, foam and brew coffee. What to wear is what the brand needs to consider." Of course, if your uniform is prettier than others, you should be proud of it. "

So far, Starbucks has not adjusted the dress code of its Chinese partners. If you pay a little attention, you will find that in some Starbucks stores, the dress of the clerk reveals the characteristics and personality in many details. For example, at the Chengdu Taiguli flagship store, white shirts are embroidered with the word "Chengdu Taikooli", and black necklines and cuffs are printed with coffee grounds. Starbucks, the newly opened "black standard" in Beijing and Shanghai, abandoned the green apron and replaced it with a black apron.