Unfortunately she's got a point. Image counts more than competence in more things than client/business relationships. If you have one company who looks professional, but does only adequate work versus a company who dresses adequately and looks professional - 9 clients out of 10 will choose the former over the latter because how the company looked is all they will remember. And, if something goes wrong, they'll try to remember anyone else who worked on the problem before who might have looked sloppy and blame it on them.
Ever wonder why those at the top of a company are heartless and brutal? Because you have to be to make the big bucks in the business world.
Side story - my first job at a newspaper (one owned by a very large billion dollar company) I learned from a few higher ups that there was an art to putting all the blame in the company on the lowest rungs of the ladder, and that if I wanted to make it in that company that I'd have to never work overtime - even though I had to to complete the job each week, never say I was sorry for anything, and to be shrewd and callous towards everyone I worked with. I couldn't do this, so I got fired. The big billionaires at the top of the corporate ladder eventually shut down the local paper anyway a few years later. Who knows how many people were fired but I'm sure there were at least several dozen - some who had worked there 20+ years.
I worked at an engineering firm for a few years. They had casual fridays. The closest friendship I developed there was with one of the administration workers, and she loved casual friday because she was poor and didn't have to buy as much clothes that she would only ever wear to work.
I liked it because I could keep pushing the envelope of acceptable clothing in a lame, passive form of protest.
I've worked in engineering but with start-up culture -- you were pretty much expected to wear a hoody and generally be a complete fuckin slob, I Think VC's actually like to see that.
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