What is ‘dressing for success’?

It’s that time of year: some businesses are gearing up and others are laying off staff – employers are looking around for new talent and employees are looking around for a job that will satisfy them now their summer holiday is over and they are realising that it’s another whole long year before they can escape the workplace for another few weeks of sunshine. And if affects the way we dress.

When somebody shows up for work dressed differently to usual, there are two things that go through the heads of their colleagues and three things that go through the heads of their bosses. Colleagues think:

1. She’s got a date with a man she wants to impress or
2. He’s got an interview in his lunch break

Bosses think

1. She’s got an interview
2. He’s after my job and trying to look like he deserves my desk
3. She’s on her way to see her bank manager for a loan

In other words, when you upgrade your work style co-workers and bosses tend to view your behaviour with suspicion rather than respect. Overdressing is tolerated in bosses, new employees and very young people but mocked as pretentious in our contemporaries or colleagues who suddenly seem to think they are better than the rest of us. A day spent perusing the advice of Trinny and Susannah or Gok Wan might make you feel great but it will demoralise your workmates if you suddenly turn up dressed differently – in fact they will think you look like a dog’s dinner!

If you want to upgrade your work clothing, do it piece by piece over a period of weeks, and never ignore the unwritten guidelines for your workplace. Take your cue from the people around you who and don’t great an unbridgeable gap between you and other people in the organization. If the boss wears a polo-shirt and chinos, your Armani suit won’t have the effect you expect it to – in fact, it could lead to you being shown the door!

Suit and tie courtesy of Janiebell

Add comment August 25th, 2008

Beijing polo-shirt ‘police’

The hutongs (alleys to you and me) of Beijing have a new police force – of sorts.  They are called ‘Public Security Volunteers’ and there are more than 400,000 of them – arranged into neighbourhood groups that are serving the Olympic security forces which include a mixture of police, over 100,000 ‘counter-terror troops’ and more than 300,000 CCTV cameras. The PSVs patrol litter-dropping, inappropriate clothing and spitting in the street – but by the locals, not the expected foreign visitors!  Despite the attempt to distinguish the new PSVs from the old ‘neighbourhood committee’ by giving the new volunteers a snazzy red and white striped polo-shirt to wear when ‘on duty’, there’s a lot of concern in the populace – the former committees were a mixture of spies and party members who reported on the irregular activities of their neighbours, and caused many a midnight arrest or disappearance for ‘re-education’.    

The PSV polo-shirts are a big sign of changing China – they are sponsored by the Yanjing beer company, which would have been unthinkable a decade ago, and while every volunteer has been given one, less than half actually wear them. The other half have been put on the black market, still in their original wrappings, as part of the

Beijing Olympic memorabilia business. That too, would have been impossible (or an arrestable offence!) a few years ago.  The concern that the new volunteers have caused can be directly related to their entrepreneurial flair. Those who have flogged their polo-shirts still need to distinguish themselves from ordinary citizens … so they’ve dug out Cultural Revolution-era red armbands to wear, and those armbands remind nervous Beijingers of the knock on the door in the middle of the night …

Beijing street cleaners in new uniforms

Add comment July 29th, 2008

Keeping your shirt on …

It’s an important thing to do if you’re a Mormon!  A practicing Mormon who created a calendar with pictures of shirtless (male) Mormon missionaries has been excommunicated after a disciplinary meeting with his local church leaders in Las Vegas.  

The man with a calendar mission - Chad Hardy - bears no ill will towards the council of elders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He’s an entrepreneur and he says ‘I spoke my truth …they still felt the calendar is inappropriate and not the image that the church wants to have.’ The calendar, called Men on a Mission had already sold over 10,000 copies and has now sold out as a result of the publicity, although Chad says there won’t be any more printed to meet the new demand.  The dozen missionaries are all wearing their uniform of black trousers but lacked the Mormon trademark white shirts.  In smaller supplementary pictures they were shown in their full missionary wear and talking about their religious beliefs.

It isn’t yet clear if action will be taken against the 12 modelling Mormons by their church elders.

Add comment July 17th, 2008

Yogi Berra says uniforms matter

Yogi Berra, the superstar player and manager of baseball, has been sharing his views on teams and their appearance, but his views go further than sporting achievements.  Here’s what he had to say: 

• …you have a responsibility to those wearing the same uniform. Break a rule or do something foolhardy, you embarrass the uniform. You embarrass yourself and your team. Wearing a uniform — whether you’re a cop or a coffee shop waitress — carries a responsibility and dependability. To those one serves and those wearing the same uniform.

• When I played in the minors, we wore hand-me-down Yankee uniforms. I don’t know whose old woollen jersey I wore, but Charlie Silvera was always thrilled that he wore Lou Gehrig’s old trousers.  Nowadays, nobody wears baggy flannels anymore; there’s no more hand-me-downs. But anyone who puts on a Yankee uniform can’t ignore the history of it all.

• Uniforms are more than a fashion statement. They’re a team’s identity. It’s like what Jerry Seinfeld said about fans: They don’t really root for players, they root for a team’s laundry. I still like that the Yankees still don’t put players’ names on their backs. The team’s identity is more important.

And if Yogi Berra says it, it must be true! I don’t think he’d approve of this T-shirt though …

Anti-yankee T-shirt courtesy of ewan and donabel

Add comment June 30th, 2008

School uniforms around the world

There’s been a public statement about schoolwear … in the Philippines. Students in elementary and high school there no longer have to wear uniforms, but after this relaxation of the dress code, the Education Department has found it necessary spell out what ‘proper attire’ actually is.   

In a circular letter distributed to all schools, the Education Secretary has spelt out and appropriate dress code. For boys, that’s a polo-shirt or T-shirt with sleeves in a plain colour and either long trousers or shorts. For girls, a dress, skirt or trousers, and blouse in any colour will do. No footwear is prescribed: slip-ons and shoes are both allowed as long as the student doesn’t go barefoot to class. The students’ attire ‘should reflect respect for the school’, the letter says.  Why has this statement of clothing been necessary? Because there has been an outbreak of:  ‘flashy outfits’ including tight-fitting trousers, mini-skirts, and tops with plunging necklines for girls and the boys have apparently been coming to school in hip-hop pants and, believe it or not, their pyjamas!

Schoolchildren courtesy of Tajai

Add comment June 19th, 2008

Does my bust look big in this, Ma’am?

Kent women police officers have complained that their new uniform is too tight and encourages unwanted attention. They say the black zip-up tops, made of lightweight wicking fabric are too revealing and accentuate their cleavages, making life difficult while on the beat. The polo-shirts are being tested as a replacement for the traditional white shirt and tie.A police source in Medway said, ‘It is understandable for female officers to be worried about their appearance - they have to present a professional appearance to the public. If they are being leered at by men it can only undermine them, especially when they are working at night trying to control groups of drink-fuelled young men.’

The British Association for Women in Policing said yesterday that the problems came as no surprise, the national co-ordinator, said, ‘… the problem with these particular tops stems from the material used. They are quite cheap, which is why they have a tendency to stick.’ Kent Police has asked suppliers for more polo-shirts in larger sizes.

In January women police officers complained that their uniform trousers made their bottoms look big.

WPC courtesy of KingofHiking

Add comment June 2nd, 2008

USA Olympic kit – Brideshead revisited?

There can be few designers who are more American than Ralph Lauren. Now celebrating forty years in the couture business, Lauren, who has built the foundations of his brand on traditional American style, has, unsurprisingly, been chosen as an official outfitter for the 2008 US Olympic team. He will design outfits for the opening ceremony parade in Beijing. The clothing, it is said, will ‘reflect the heritage and sensibility of the 1920s and 1930s, with a tailored and modern silhouette’ which is interesting in itself, as the temperature in China in August is likely to be at a level that would make the briefest, lightest possible formal wear an absolute must.

Norman Bellingham who heads the US Olympic Committee was to say, ‘Polo Ralph Lauren is a quintessential American brand that represents a timeless and classic look’. Which is fascinating too, as the designs, unveiled this week, largely suggest a cross between the nostalgic style of Brideshead Revisited with more than a touch of Chariots of Fire. Timeless and classic, certainly but surely much more reminiscent of the quintessential Britishness portrayed in the tennis parties of John Betjeman and the golf of P G Wodehouse? It’s lovely to see well cut polo-shirts so much to the fore though.