Monica Lewinsky, the Office Siren Trend and the Salience of Women's Workwear

Words: Arabella Peterson

Make it stand out

In 1998, a navy blue dress from Middle America’s khaki-slinging retailer of choice, The Gap, entered the public consciousness. Collared, knee-length and button-down, the garment was distinctly corporate and completely unremarkable. Still, in a matter of weeks, this unassuming frock became a lightning rod for misogyny, vilification, and unchecked voyeurism. These days, the dress, and the woman who wore it, have come to represent the media’s mistreatment of women as well as her personal reclamation of agency. 

The woman: Monica Lewinsky – feminist activist and motivational speaker. The scandal: a tryst between the then-22-year-old unpaid intern and 49-year-old married President of the United States, Bill Clinton. The dress: physical evidence providing proof of the affair vehemently denied by Clinton. The decade-defining scandal ignited a global debate on sexism, power imbalances, privacy, and the consequences of public scrutiny.

Fast-forward 25 years, and the now-50-year-old Monica Lewinsky is the face of LA cool-girl brand Reformation’s new “workwear” campaign. It’s both an interesting cultural moment and a stroke of marketing genius from the purveyor of slinky floral dresses. Alongside promoting £250 blazers, the campaign advocates for voter registration ahead of the 2024 US election—an unsurprising move as consumers now expect brands to align themselves with social and political causes. 
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In the years since the scandal, we’ve learnt no lessons from the public shame that Lewinsky suffered. Think Britney Spears, Janet Jackson and Pamela Anderson. We scrutinise, apologise, lionise, repeat. As such, many Gen X, millennial, and Gen Z women see Lewinsky as an icon. Just count the number of times she’s called “mother” in the Reformation comment section to confirm she’s reaching a new, younger generation of admirers. I’d wager that her popularity spans generations in part because almost every woman can relate to being slut-shamed or treated poorly by a sexual partner.

In 1999, a CNN poll revealed that only 25% of respondents felt sympathy towards Lewinsky, whereas 28% sympathised with Bill Clinton. 58% said they believed she was shameless, 56% a seductress and 42% labelled her a bimbo. Ironically, 25 years later, these words, once used to deride, now describe “aspirational” trends such as the Slavic Bimbo, Coquette Seductress and Femme Fatale. But are these names a bold reclamation of derogatory language or simply cultural regression concealed as innocuous aesthetic trends and empowering fashion movements? 

One style spawned by TikTok in 2024 with a particular resonance is the Office Siren trend, underscored by Y2K-inspired Miu Miu blouses, pencil skirts, and narrow Bayonetta glasses. Like the vixen in which Lewinsky was painted, a siren is an irresistible, captivating woman who uses her beauty and charm to enthral men vulnerable to her allure. It is, at its core, an erotic extension of the middle-class fantasy, describing a woman who effortlessly embodies the intellect and ambition of a “respectable” modern woman with the seductive appeal of a male ideal. 

“In the years since the scandal, we’ve learnt no lessons from the public shame that Lewinsky suffered. Think Britney Spears, Janet Jackson and Pamela Anderson.”

Granted, overt sexuality rebels against the same moralistic trappings that branded Lewinsky with a scarlet letter, and there’s undeniable power in determining what is “appropriate attire” when men have traditionally prescribed that choice, however the dilemma comes when self-expression and subversion veer into the murky waters of choice feminism. The system (hint: it’s capitalism) that churns out fleeting microtrends encourages you to buy into a consumerist ideology along with a new wardrobe. We can’t separate the fact that Reformation’s campaign spotlights an embodied woman while peddling £400 dresses, much like we can’t ignore the potential for trends like the Office Siren to commodify and fetishise professional empowerment in the post #MeToo era.

To understand how we got to the point of cosplaying early 2000s office workers and Lewinsky-Ref collabs, we need to look at the evolution of women’s workwear. “Office wear” and “workwear” aren’t synonymous, and the latter means something very different to working-class women. Historically, workwear was pragmatic and durable, necessary for manual labour or factory work. It differed from the office clothing styles that emerged for primarily white, middle-class women as they entered clerical, educational, and, later, corporate professions. 

The shift from the functional, modest attire of early 20th-century working women to the assertive power suits of the 1980s and beyond reflect significant societal changes deeply intertwined with gender politics. It highlights class nuances, where the ability to choose one's professional clothing becomes a marker of middle-class identity and upward mobility within capitalist structures. As this history culminates in a TikTok trend like the Office Siren, we can disregard them as frivolous fads for the chronically online, and in some ways, they are. But to discount them entirely is to wash over the complex history of fashion as a means of autonomy, identity and resistance when women have historically had control of so little. 

The tagline for Reformation’s workwear line is “You’ve got the power” and power is undeniably what Monica Lewinsky has fought tooth and nail to regain after being condemned, objectified, and used as tabloid fodder. The campaign and the Office Siren trend are a continuation of fashion’s place as a battleground for broader cultural debates. They reflect women's roles in capitalist frameworks as well as the potential of clothing as a tool for expression and identity. So whether we’re wearing a navy blue dress from The Gap, Miu Miu kitten heels or a £700 Reformation trench coat – we’re implicitly taking our own place in a dialogue about power, gender, class and autonomy.