When Derek Johnson was interviewing candidates for a marketing job at his tech company, one applicant arrived in a business suit. 'It put us on edge,' says Mr. Johnson, founder and CEO of Tatango.com. Mr. Johnson believed the job candidate was presenting a false image of himself. The suit, he felt, was tantamount to a lie.

Mr. Johnson is 22 -- an entrepreneur who dropped out of college when it got in the way of running Tatango, which enables groups to blast text and voice messages to their members. Like many of his generation, he sees traditional business attire as a form of cover-up. In his workplace, he says, 'we're not trying to hide anything with our clothes.'

Established companies have long hired employees whose clothing suggested they would toe the corporate line. Today, many young managers believe office attire should do pretty much the opposite: express a person's inner soul.

To older people, young people's style can be difficult to understand. Going far beyond business casual, the clothes seem either highly informal or provocatively young -- jeans, athletic shoes, tight T-shirts and miniskirts, for instance.

But young workers are replacing traditional business dress with their own complex sets of rules and subliminal messages. Their choices among brand-name items are meant to communicate substance. Rather than Gucci versus Allen Edmonds, for instance, the choice may involve Nike Air Force versus Chuck Taylors. (Read: urban vs. surfer.)

In a way, their aesthetic represents a new kind of uniform -- one heavily dependent on corporate labels. But young people say their mix-and-match style offers them more versatility and creativity than the old uniform did.

'You know when someone's real and when someone's corporate,' says Roman Tsunder, 34. As chief executive of Access 360 Media Inc., a youth-market consultant based in New York and Los Angeles, his clients include MTV and AT&T.

Mr. Tsunder says he saves a suit for some occasions, such as meeting with investors who might lose confidence if he appears too edgy. But he's careful to note that his isn't a businessman's status suit: He bought it at Zara, the fast-fashion chain. He has on more expensive clothes on the days when he wears Diesel blue jeans, a white J. Lindeberg belt and Prada shoes.

For a recent meeting with MTV, Mr. Tsunder wore silver Nike Air Force athletic shoes and a white collared shirt under a mint green V-necked sweater 'because it's youthful.' With a more conservative client, he says, he'll wear something more 'aggressive,' such as 'a collared shirt that I found in the south of France.'

Tina Wells, the 28-year-old founder and CEO of Buzz Marketing Group in Voorhees, N.J., wears a similarly broad high-to-low mix of brands to work. This includes mini dresses from Target, Chanel ballerina flats, and a lot of luxury denim. Like many of her generation, she defines her clothing by label: True Religion, Raven and Citizens of Humanity.

She founded her company, which serves clients that include Swarovski Group, at 16. 'I'm not a Harvard M.B.A.-type person,' Ms. Wells says. 'If I were just a girl in a suit, I think it wouldn't clearly demonstrate' the degree of sophistication her company has to offer, she says.

She hasn't thrown out all the traditional rules. Ms. Wells has banned certain lace tops and asked one intern to remove her chin-piercing for work, saying, 'I think we shouldn't scare the clients.'

Yet Ms. Wells has also rejected the below-the-knee skirts and neat matching sweaters suggested by her mother. 'The boomer generation -- they love those twin sets,' she says. 'I like cardigans, but not the set -- oh gosh, not the set.'

Avoiding an overly matchy-matchy look has become a generation-defining choice. It's as though matching jackets and skirts suggest an overreliance on parents' stiff fashion conventions. Cynthia Johnson, Derek Johnson's 52-year-old mother, notes, 'I was born in the '50s -- we had rules that you don't wear white after Sept. 30.'

When Mr. Johnson got his first professional job -- an internship in midtown New York City -- his parents bought him two $900 suits at Nordstrom. But Mr. Johnson declines to wear those suits, even as he meets with venture capitalists to raise money for Tatango. He says he wore one once to make a presentation, but he adds ruefully, 'I think I wasn't really myself.'

德里克·约翰逊(Derek Johnson)一手创办的科技公司Tatango.com要招一个营销人员，他在面试应聘者时，一位求职者西装革履地出现在他面前。身为公司首席执行长的约翰逊说，这样让我们挺紧张的。他认为这位应聘者并没有展现自己真实的一面，觉得那套西装简直等于一个谎言。

约翰逊大学时因学业妨碍了Tatango的经营而退学，Tatango可以让组群向成员群发文本和语音信息。22岁的约翰逊与许多同龄人一样，认为传统的正装是一种掩饰。他说，在他的公司里，人们不会试图用穿衣打扮去掩盖任何东西。

知名的大公司长久以来雇用的都是穿衣风格表明自己会遵守公司规定的员工。如今，许多年轻管理人员却认为办公室着装的用途刚好相反：应该表现出一个人的内在精神世界。

对年长的人来说，年轻人的风格可能很难理解。他们的着装已经远远超出了“商务休闲”的范畴，看上去要么极其不正式，要么太不成熟－－比如说牛仔裤、运动鞋、紧身T恤和超短裙。

但年轻员工正以自己的一套复杂着装规则和其中传达的潜在信息来取代传统的职业装。他们对品牌的选择都是有实质意义的。举例来说，他们可能不会在Gucci和Allen Edmonds之间选择，但会考虑是穿耐克的Air Force运动鞋还是Chuck Taylors帆布鞋。（其中含义是：选择都市风格还是运动休闲。）

在某种程度上，他们的审美观代表了一种新的标准－－严重依赖公司品牌。但年轻人认为，混搭风格比老式制服给了他们更多功能和创意。

34岁的Roman Tsunder说，你能感觉到别人是展现真实自我还是公事公办。他是位于纽约和洛杉矶的青年市场咨询公司Access 360 Media Inc.的首席执行长，MTV和美国电话电报公司(AT&T)都是他的客户。

Tsunder说，他备了一套西装用于某些场合，比如与投资者开会时，如果他显得太过尖锐，投资者可能会对他没信心。但他特地强调自己那套西装并不是标榜商人地位的正装：他是在快速时尚连锁店Zara买的。其实他那套Diesel蓝色牛仔裤、白色J. Lindeberg皮带和Prada鞋的行头更贵。

最近跟MTV开会时，Tsunder身穿银色耐克Air Force运动鞋、白衬衫，外面配薄荷绿V领毛衫，因为“这样显得年轻”。他说，跟更保守的客户开会时，他会穿得更“积极”，比如说在法国南部买的有领衬衫。

创建了Buzz Marketing Group并任首席执行长的蒂娜·韦尔斯(Tina Wells)也同样会在上班时将不同档次的品牌搭配起来穿。她的行头包括Target的小洋装、香奈尔(Chanel)的平底芭蕾鞋，还有一大堆高档牛仔裤。跟许多同龄人一样，28岁的韦尔斯也用品牌来区分自己的衣服：True Religion、Raven和Citizens of Humanity。

她16岁创建自己的公司，客户包括施华洛世奇集团(Swarovski Group)。韦尔斯说，我不是哈佛MBA那种类型的人。她说，如果她只是个穿套装的女孩子，那就无法清楚地展示出她的公司所提供的服务的复杂完善。

韦尔斯并非全盘抛弃传统规则。她禁止某些蕾丝上衣，还让一位实习生去掉下巴上的穿环再来上班，她说，我觉得我们不应该吓到客户。

但韦尔斯也拒绝母亲提议的及膝裙和配套的毛衫。她说，上一代人喜欢这种两件套式的羊毛衫，她自己也喜欢羊毛衫，但不是成套的－－那绝对不行。

避免中规中矩的搭配已经成了这一代人特有的选择。感觉好像相配的外套和裙子就说明是过度依赖父母那种呆板的时尚观念。德里克·约翰逊52岁的母亲辛西娅·约翰逊(Cynthia Johnson)说，她生于50年代，她们那代人的惯例是在9月30号以后就不穿白色衣服了。

当约翰逊得到第一份专职工作（在纽约中城实习）时，他的父母在Nordstrom给他买了两套900美元的西装。但他不愿意穿那些西装，即便是与风险资本家开会为Tatango筹资时也没穿过。他说，他有一次穿着其中一套做演示，但随即十分后悔地补充道，他觉得那不是自己的本来面目。