Business dress codes vary sharply between Tokyo, London, Dubai and New York — ties have loosened and casual Fridays have crept into industries that once treated them as unthinkable. Men's formal shoes are the one detail that hasn't followed suit. Shoes stay visible for the length of a seated meeting in a way a loosened tie doesn't, and as other formality markers became optional, they stopped reliably signalling anything — while a well-chosen shoe still takes real effort to get right.
At Zarssen, that consistency across otherwise divergent dress codes is exactly why formal footwear is worth studying market by market, rather than assuming a single global standard applies everywhere business happens.
The One Constant Between Very Different Cities
A banker who has sat across the negotiating table in Tokyo, London, and Dubai in the same week will notice something curious. The tie may come off between meetings. The blazer may stay folded in the back seat of the car. But the shoes almost never change — one of the few details nearly every business culture still quietly agrees on, long after neckties became optional and jackets began living on the backs of chairs.
The Suit Relaxed. The Tie Nearly Disappeared.
Business dress has spent the last decade in retreat. Trading floors that once required a jacket at all times now tolerate open collars, and even the most conservative industries have absorbed a permanently looser standard since 2020. What's notable is what didn't relax alongside everything else: across boardrooms in very different cities, a well-kept pair of shoes still reads as evidence that someone is taking the meeting seriously — even when nothing else about the outfit is particularly formal anymore.
Why Men's Formal Shoes Remain a Global Constant
Part of the answer is physical: shoes stay visible for the length of a meeting in a way a loosened tie or removed jacket doesn't. Part of it is signalling — as other formality markers became optional, they stopped indicating much of anything, while men's formal shoes, precisely because they still take real effort to get right, continue to carry weight as a marker of care and attention, even in industries that have otherwise abandoned the traditional dress code entirely.
Reading the Room Before You Enter It
Where the details genuinely diverge is beneath the surface — in what each business culture actually expects, and how visibly it punishes getting it wrong.
Tokyo's Discipline of Precision
In Japanese business settings, scuffed or poorly maintained shoes are read less as a style lapse and more as a lapse in respect for the meeting itself. Precision matters more than flourish; a simple, immaculately kept pair will outperform a more elaborate style that shows any wear.
London's Weight of Convention
The City of London still carries Savile Row's fingerprints. In its more traditional institutions — banking, law, insurance — oxfords remain the default over derbies, and brown is still treated cautiously in the most formal settings, even as the wider culture has loosened considerably.
The Gulf's Persistence of Formality
Across much of the Gulf, business relationships are still built substantially on personal trust, and formal dress functions as an early signal of seriousness in that relationship. Even as ties have relaxed, a well-made, polished shoe tends to remain non-negotiable in first meetings and formal negotiations.
New York's Practical Formality
New York sits somewhere in between — faster-moving and less rigid than London, but still drawing a sharp line between creative, tech-adjacent industries and the classic finance and law firms that have retained most of their formal expectations, footwear included.
What This Means for the Modern Business Traveller
For anyone moving between these markets regularly, this is a useful shortcut. Trend-driven pieces of a wardrobe rarely translate cleanly from one business culture to another — what reads as sharp in New York can read as try-hard in Tokyo. A well-made, quietly formal shoe is one of the few items flexible enough to read correctly in all four cities, precisely because its logic isn't trend-based at all. It's built on proportion, material, and construction, which travel far better across cultures than anything seasonal does.
It's part of why brands built specifically around that kind of cross-cultural formality have found a genuine audience among professionals who live in this rotation of cities. Zarssen, a Dubai-based house producing Italian-made leather footwear, is one example — its appeal has less to do with logo recognition than with a shoe built to read correctly wherever the meeting happens to be.
Business dress codes will keep evolving, city by city and decade by decade, likely relaxing further before they tighten again. But for now, men's formal shoes remain the one detail almost every market still seems to agree matters — which makes them one of the more reliable investments a travelling professional can make.
FAQs
What makes a shoe count as “formal” in a business setting?
Generally, closed lacing, a leather sole, and a polished, unblemished finish — details that signal deliberate care rather than convenience.
Are brown shoes acceptable in formal business settings?
Increasingly, yes — though the most traditional institutions in cities like London and Tokyo still favour black for the most formal occasions.
Do expectations for men's formal shoes differ significantly between regions?
The core expectation — clean, well-maintained, leather formal shoes — holds nearly everywhere. What differs is how strictly each culture enforces the details, such as lacing style or colour.
- Business dress has relaxed significantly worldwide, but men's formal shoes have remained one of the few constants across nearly every market.
- Footwear stays visible throughout a seated meeting in a way loosened ties and unworn jackets don't, which helps explain why it resisted the broader casualization trend.
- Tokyo, London, the Gulf and New York each enforce formality differently, but all four still treat well-kept formal shoes as close to non-negotiable.
- A well-made, quietly formal shoe travels across these different codes better than any trend-driven wardrobe choice, because its logic isn't seasonal.
The same principle explored here — restraint that reads correctly anywhere — is what Zarssen designs toward.
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ABOUT ZARSSEN
Zarssen is a Dubai-based footwear house producing Italian-made leather shoes for men who dress with intention. Working directly with artisans across Italy, Zarssen builds formal and everyday footwear around a quiet, considered aesthetic — designed to support a look rather than announce itself.