Even amidst the more formal business dress code of the day (until the 1980s, men wore a suit to work in most jobs and industries), the IBM dress code was legendary for being strict and formal. While suits were the norm, IBM's dress code was notorious for being unrelenting. Bob Bemer, a computer scientist at IBM, recalls being horrified that a colleague attended an event in merely a sports jacket. In Denial (R.S. Tedlow, 2010), Sam Albert recalls being confronted in the elevator and scolded for not wearing sock garters.

The reasoning for the strict dress code is hard to pinpoint, but most writers ascribe it to the philosophies of CEOs Thomas J. Watson (until 1956) and his son Thomas J. Watson, Jr. (until 1971): that IBM was a unique place of impeccable standards and service, and every element of customer communication and presentation must reflect that. They rejected the "disheveled salesman" stereotype of the 1920s-30s caricatured by door-to-door vacuum salesmen and the like.

It wasn't until the 1980s-1990s and the emergence of Silicon Valley as a economic force that more casual business dress became the norm, exemplified by Microsoft's famously lax (at the time) dress code. This was partly because the workplace became dramatically younger, and partly because companies like the new Microsoft wanted to distinguish themselves from (in their view) older and stodgier technology companies.

But it was also because of an astute marketing campaign by Levi Strauss to send information about the benefits of "business casual" dress codes to tens of thousands of human resources professionals. The materials featured Dockers (a Levi's product), and the campaign's infiltration of the Silicon Valley culture is credited with the polo-and-khakis look that became the de facto uniform of 1990s dotcom and technology companies.

Incidentally, the IBM dress code was finally abolished by CEO Lou Gerstner in 1995. They have a gallery of IBM attire on their website.

Your question actually touches one of the most interesting questions in economics (At least to me). My answer will only sort of explain this and I'm going to have to zoom out a little bit to get to discuss some big picture questions in economics. Up until the 1980s, economists' considered long run technological change to be a sort of black box that couldn't really explained. During the 1980s , Paul Romer developed endogenous growth theory. I don't want to get too deep into how the model works, but the core idea is that growth is determined by spillover effects of human capital. That is to say, lets say I become an expert computer programmer. These skills will help me make a lot of money. But I won't be able to monetize all the work I do. I might inspire someone to build off my products, or someone might borrow my code to make something better. So, the level of growth is determined by how much human capital there is, and the ability for that information to spread. (There are reasons actual economists will quibble with bits of what I said, but beyond the scope of this subreddit)

This brings me to some really interesting research done by Sociologist AnnaLee Saxenian. Saxenian compared the Route 128 region around Boston, to Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley has become the center of the global tech industry, while Boston remains a relatively minor player. Saxenian argues that while Boston and Silicon Valley saw a massive concentration of human capital, all the brilliant ideas tended to be concentrated within individual companies, whereas good ideas could spread like wildfire in Silicon Valley.

She argues that differences between Silicon Valley and Route 128 lies in the different cultures. Route 128 companies tended to have a very formal, buttoned up culture. Management worked in a highly hierarchical manner. Workers were discouraged from interacting too much with people in other companies out of fear trade secrets would leak out. Companies hired lots of "bean counters" rather than individuals willing taking a lot of risks. The entrepreneurial culture in Silicon valley was very different, and much less formal, hierarchical, and conservative. They high level of constant informal interaction of firms in Silicon Valley created massive knowledge spillovers that helped transform it into the central node of the global technology economy.

So this brings us to your actual question. Saxenian looks at two major companies Sun (which for a while was one of the most important tech companies, and developed some technologies like Java and MySQL that are everywhere) and Apollo, which no one remembers anymore. As Apollo started to grow by leaps and bounds, they decided to bring in a "grown up" CEO who cut his teeth in the very traditional General Electric Corporation. He enforced a strict dress code, and strongly discouraged beards and moustaches. He was hardly alone, and lots of east coast tech startups became much more formal whereas, with suit jackets and ties. IBM is unique. It's not located in a hub, but in a closed off suburban HQ outside NYC. While IBM long had a near monopoly on the tech sector, it saw this sort of informal mingling that drove Silicon Valley as a threat of having it's best ideas and researchers stolen. I think the emphasis on formal dress can be seen as part of a very conservative culture that existed on a spectrum. IBM demanded wingtips and dark suits. Boston companies like Apollo any suit, and maybe cut out the scruffy beard. Sun threw monthly beer parties, and had guys dress up in Gorilla suits at parties.

Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 50525th Edition by AnnaLee Saxenian

https://www.huduser.gov/periodicals/cityscpe/vol2num2/saxenian.pdf

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Are 'wingtips' what Americans call brogues? And are they considered formal? Generally brogues are less formal than say Oxfords.

As a follow up question, can anyone tell more about the specifics of the dress code? A comment in here mentioned sock garters which I had never even heard of. What other fashions were 'mandatory' that may have subsequently gone out of vogue?