Cover Your Basics
At one time or another, most of us encounter a wardrobe crisis: a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear. Perhaps you’ve changed sizes or lifestyles. Or perhaps you haven’t; perhaps you have simply stayed the same size and worn the same things until your everyday clothes have all worn out, leaving you with a closet full of decades-old L.B.D.s and nothing to wear. No matter how we get there, with a day dedicated to shopping and $100, most of us can be on the road to Wardrobe Recovery.
Your wardrobe needs variety; you can add that later. Your first priority is to be able to get dressed.
First decide what you want to wear every day: a business suit? shorts and tee shirt? khakis and a button-down? Think next about where you are most likely to find those needed items for a reasonable price. Then go buy some. Do not allow yourself to be distracted by whatever is easy for you; buy what you need.
If your lifestyle is mostly leisure, try to get two pairs of jeans and three of your favorite tee shirts (nice-fitting solid or print tees, not sloppy message tees). Starting with $100, if you go to Old Navy or JCPenney or somewhere similar, you should have money left over for something fun. Pictured pieces available today at Old Navy’s online store for a total of less than $50, click on picture to go to the website.
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Polos Are NOT Business Casual for Women
The quintessential business casual uniform template for men:
khakis + leather shoes + polo shirt
If only it were so easy for women! Consider the following insightful comment made (several years ago) by Mella DP:
My job: engineering consulting. That often means having to demonstrate credibility in the executive conference room and on the plant floor on the same day. Dressing in a way that works for both situations is tricky. It’s easier for the guys - most men can wear chinos and a polo shirt and and sturdy shoes and look decent and functional (if a little dull). Most women in a similar outfit would look like an Applebees hostess. (Emphasis added.)
Indeed!
The other primary reason, IMO, polos don’t work for women’s business casual is this: historically the polo is athletic wear, making it fall into the leisure category. Although I’m not entirely certain why it is otherwise for men.
My advice? When you hear the word “polo” substitute “sweater”.
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Back to School as Student
Along with what seems like record numbers of my peers (and children!), I am formally a college student. Classes begin next week.
This past spring, in my single quarter as student at a local community college, I studiously dressed as myself-as-student. My goal was social. For the first three to four weeks of classes, I carefully put together outfits from the leisure lifestyle segment which reflected my personality. After that, I eased up only a little, occasionally throwing in a blazer or a heel with trouser jeans. Ultimately, I found this strategy to be very effective: I was received as well as I have ever been. Somehow the other students picked up quickly and accurately what kind of a person I was and interacted with me accordingly.
My uniform template for Fall 2010, at least in theory:
dark skinny jeans + cotton tee + structured sweatshirt or leather jacket + 3 mile shoes
A word about book bags: most people my age use a rolling backpack; my daughter has forbidden me from doing so. No worries. I picked up a decent-looking, light gray backpack (for $19.99 at the Eddie Outlet). I will not be hauling a computer in it.
Happy Back to School!
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Winter Wear to Work
When Duchesse mentioned cashmere sweaters + wool trousers as her winter go-to formula (a formula I love!), the concept lodged in my mind, in the vicinity of a collection of thoughts about architects, engineers, and other technical professionals. Professions Mella DP describes as follows:
That often means having to demonstrate credibility in the executive conference room and on the plant floor on the same day. Dressing in a way that works for both situations is tricky. It’s easier for the guys - most men can wear chinos and a polo shirt and and sturdy shoes and look decent and functional (if a little dull). Most women in a similar outfit would look like an Applebees hostess.
But most women dressed in a cashmere sweater and wool trousers would look conventional and context-appropriate, Mella DP’s words, my opinion. (Hey, I realize not everyone can wear wool. I figure if you’re reading this, you’re smart enough to figure out a wool alternative that works for you. If that’s something you’d like to discuss, we certainly can.) Perhaps it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, any ensemble worn in a business context should be decipherable by both men and women. Much of what is popular for women is simply not understood by the men they work with.
Since we haven’t had any illustrations around here for a long time:
(Ugh! Now I remember why we haven’t had illustrations for so long! This took me all afternoon!)
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The Dress as Winter Uniform
Undoubtedly many of you, like me, grew up in the era of “mix and match”, subject to the ubiquitous idea that the more combinations possible with a few components, the better.
But it’s not the only way to go. Throughout most of history, women wore dresses. No mixing and matching there. A person able to make dresses work for them on an everyday basis has a very simple uniform template indeed. (Alternatively, an outfit which always stays together works much the same, albeit in the building stage is much more complicated.)
In the summer, nothing could be easier than a dress! To be practical in the winter, however, additional thought needs to be given to the “prepositional pieces”; that is, what goes under, over and with. Both casual and career looks can be built on dresses. Here are some random thoughts I’ve been having:
- Tights, for casual. Recently I was given a pair of brown bamboo tights and a pair of charcoal heather Australian wool footless tights. I’m rich!
- Warm socks under boots. Personally I like the look of the sock cuff showing at the top.
- Leg-warmers are fun for casual and can be practical for commuting career ladies, like a muffler for the leg. Obviously, when wearing formal business attire, the mufflers come off when you arrive at work.
- Speaking of mufflers, scarves of various styles can add warmth to a dress without complicating the silhouette like a blazer would.
- Somewhere recently I read about layering stockings for color, and then I tried it for warmth. Actually, what I did (with boots and a skirt) was wear my silk long underwear pants underneath a pair of tights. Yes, it worked.
I’m going to stop there and leave room for input. How do you wear the day dress in winter?
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Establishing Credibility Visually
Lately I’ve been reading, researching, and meditating on alot of detail concerning appearance and perception. I admit it, alot of these thoughts initiate from comments to me; comments that show that they are unable to see my interior reality. (Perhaps this feeling that nobody gets me is indicative of a mid-life crisis? lol)
At any rate, while there is alot of information here on the blog already, there is still TONS I haven’t figured out. But I’m feeling ambitious, so I’m delving into researching the connection between certain visual elements and specific perceptions. Leave a comment if you have a clue. And I thought I’d begin with something relevant to career women, because I love them too!
Credibility: attitude toward a source of communication held at a particular time by a message receiver. It consists primarily of expertise, trustworthiness, and good will. (Dynamics of Persuasion)
Another source put it slightly differently: Expertise, Trustworthiness, Similarity, and Physical Attractiveness (I suppose the author of a textbook may find physical attractiveness to be too loaded a topic to address it).
Bernie Burson, Image Consultant, in her sidebar on Psychological Dressing, says:
When you receive your personal color palette, you learn that wearing your eye-related color makes you appear sincere and honest and wearing skin tones makes you seem friendly and approachable.
So, if credibility is a three-legged stool consisting of expertise, trustworthiness, and good will; wearing my recommended simple color palette (based on your own coloring) will get you two legs (and physical attractiveness as a bonus). Not enough. Establishing expertise, I suspect, is done through visual cues specific to the industry. Even if the industry is raising children.
What are the visual cues to expertise in your field?
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What to Wear to a Casual Christmas Party
Well, I’ll tell you right off the top what not to wear: American traditional holiday knitwear. 24 comments and the most commonly repeated word was “hideous”. Tiffany suggests the following reasons people wear them:
- love of that cutesy, “country” Americana,
- love of crafts and decoration (I’ve run out of things to make and decorate for the holiday, so I’ll decorate myself!), and
- “thriftiness”/pack rat tendencies (it only gets worn once a year, so it’s too nice to toss).
Do you see yourself in any of those?
I’ll be honest; if I were ever tempted to wear that kind of thing, it would be because that’s what my host(ess) was wearing and I wasn’t sure how to translate “casual” + “festive” into my own idiom. But I’m thinking, this year, that my new dark brown trouser-style cords will come in handy.
What’s your Christmas casual formula?
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Regional Casual Uniform
Originally posed by Jody, this question is so much fun:
Suppose you stepped off a plane in your neighborhood, city, or country. Could you tell you were home by how people were dressed? Is there a Regional Casual Uniform? What do people (and you may narrow down to a specific segment of the population if you like) wear when they are going out, during the day, going to be seen, but not needing to dress up?
Bottoms Up.
- Here in the Great Northwest, while the bottom may be a skirt, shorts, or pants, there will be something “outdoorsy” about it. If it isn’t denim and/or it doesn’t have cargo pockets, no doubt it is tree-colored.
- No such variety in tops, though. One MOPS meeting, when I was trying to point out a particular mom, it went something like this: “See the lady in the black shirt? Well, behind her is another lady in a black shirt. Then there’s so-and-so, wearing a black shirt. Well, the lady you’re looking for is the next one. Wearing a black shirt”.
So there you have it, the Great Northwest Casual Uniform. What do the streets look like in your neck of the woods?
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Building a Personal Color Scheme
I’ve been asked a number of times for more detail on building a color strategy based on one’s own personal coloring. Currently my best thoughts are these.
Step 1: choose a frame neutral or two
If you were a man and building a simple, formal business wardrobe from scratch, I’d first advise you to buy a suit in a color which blends with your hair color (Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion
- if you have dark hair, look good in black, and need a business wardrobe - by all means, choose black!
- for me, it’s not quite that simple. The main thing is to choose a flattering color in the right value (light vs dark).
- It’s not necessary to choose a neutral. One young lady I know, with auburn hair and green eyes, uses purple as a wardrobe staple.
Step 2: identify the color range you can choose more freely from
- For many this will be the eye color.
- Alternatively, hemoglobin color is an especially good option for those with brown eyes. This is what I do, using a range from peach to coral pink on the light end to coral as my bright to a burgundy as dark as my eyes.
- With gray eyes and hair, and lips so cool in tone as to be almost purple, I have another friend who could choose a range from lavendar to deeper purple.
Step 3: choose your accent color or neutral
- This could be black or white
- It could be your eye color, if you haven’t already used it.
- Do you have something specific to your idiom that you want to use as an accent, such as a collection of turquoise jewelry?
Beyond these basics, everything is chosen for its ability to blend with your basic skeleton of colors. For additional variety, you could use a different color scheme for each season.
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Another Option for Fall Template
In the past, it’s made sense to me to employ the following transitional template:
new jeans + summer top + winter layering piece
“Winter layering piece”= jacket, sweater or sweatshirt.
I’m only tweaking it. For sure, this is a timeless formula. But I am also warming up to the scarf as layering piece for warmth. Since I have a half-sleeve (short, three-quarter, or roll-up) cotton top in almost every dark color I like to wear, I plan to use the following template for Fall 2009, at least in the leisure lifestyle segment:
dark jeans + dark half-sleeve cotton top + scarf
Thinking through the top colors I have and determining what color scarves I still need is my next step, along with switching over the closet and some biffing.
Which of the four lifestyle segments (leisure, casual, business or social) are you currently working on and what will you be wearing this fall? Assuming, of course, that you’re like me and the wardrobe is a constant work in progress. 
