Spain: Business Dress
From ExecutivePlanet.com
Guidelines for business dress
Spaniards are extremely dress-conscious and will perceive your appearance as an indication of your professional achievement and relative social standing.
It is important to dress con elegancia, which means top-quality, conservative clothing in relatively subdued colours. Men should wear dark woollen or linen suits and silk ties with white cotton shirts and women should wear well-cut suits [including trouser suits] or business dresses made of high-quality fabrics. Designer clothes and brand names will be noted with approval.
The female business traveller should strive to dress with the utmost modesty, as Spanish women are expected to avoid drawing attention to their physical sexuality and tend to emphasise their femininity through their immaculate clothes and hair.
Obviously the weather can be an important factor in determining what to wear. As the temperature approaches 40ºC in the shade at the height of summer, it becomes increasingly acceptable to wear lightweight suits and, outside an air-conditioned office, to loosen one's tie and throw one's jacket over one's shoulder.
As always, it is best to follow the example of your Spanish counterpart and to remember that it is 'cool' to look smart but also that it is smart to look literally cool.
On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that it can be very cold in January and February in the central meseta and surrounding mountain ranges and that, even in high summer, there can be an uncomfortably marked difference in temperature between, say, the heat of Madrid and the cool air of El Escorial in the adjacent foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama to the northwest of the capital.
When off-duty, you should bear in mind that shorts are not really acceptable in public, that the dress code for entering a church is both strict and strictly enforced [i.e. neither sex should display a disrespectfully excessive amount of bare flesh], and that top restaurants will expect at least 'smart casual' dress even in July-August.
'Smart casual' does not include un-ironed T-shirts, cheap jeans and trainers/sneakers.
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