I arrive 20 minutes late. The pre-speech bonding session is in mid-swing, but the crowd is subdued. Calm, almost scared. I look around, but can’t see a waiter. I panic, as one does at 6 pm when there is nothing to drink nearby. There’s only water. I’m not kidding. This is at a ‘networking’ night for company directors. I’m told there’s no drinks until after the session. I’m thinking fundamental mistake numero uno in Melbourne; not to give the stiffs something to relax them.
We are called into the main room. There’s about 200 blokes in drab, dark suits, with a smattering of women to break up the monotony in their grey or burgundy two piece business dress outfits. Everyone is very serious, although trying to be witty, jovial on the surface. Crocodiles cracking wisecracks.
The obviously gay style consultant tries to warm up the crowd with a few jokey comments but within minutes is complaining (as he’s telling us how to behave in boardroom situations, mind you) that we are the quietest, least funny crowd he’s ever spoken to. He’s literally on the edge of tears. I feel a bit sorry for him, then think, fuck it, and join the rest of the staid faces, staring blankly at him while he squirms on stage, like a butterfly on a pin.
People shuffle in their seats, but no-one throws him a lifeline. This is corporate Melbourne, where we pay ourselves double bonuses while we sack 1,000’s of employees – go Pac Dun! Oh, the rag trade, a reflection of corporate Australia. The often unnecessary, pushed upon a public with a promise of sex, coolness, exclusivity, only to be deemed out of date the moment your Credit Card is emptied. Love them or hate them, you have to wear the industry’s product or you’ll look really wrong. Especially when you’re pushing 50, like sorry, saggy old me.
Now the style consultant is here to tell us how to network and how to dress. He’s pretty convinced the two go hand in pocket, so to speak. You are as people perceive you in the first few minutes and you never change from that impression, so you better dress the part.
His premise is that you should break the mould or you won’t be remembered. That those in the room who we will recall weeks later won’t be those in dark grey suits cause that’s like everybody, but those in different outfits.
I’m suddenly getting excited. I think I’m dressed perfectly. I look down at what I’m wearing. I’m in slightly frayed, designer jeans. A Reefer (Navy) Jacket, flashy shirt. I’m the only person in the room not looking corporate. I’m looking adland. I’m memorable, at least here. (If I was at a meeting of Marketing Managers or Ad agency execs in St Kilda Road, I’d be a dime a dozen.) I’m only dressed this way because I’d been at a shoot and hadn’t got back to the office, but I’m still thrilled at ‘having it right’, so it seems.
This wisdom is coming from a guy in a dark grey suit with a white shirt and a blue tie…..He says the more radical you dress the more you’ll be remembered. I’m thinking he’s about to say ‘wear a mini-skirt to a meeting to a bunch of men, but he then says ‘to go really out there, wear a yellow or gold tie!’ I start to realize this guy’s about as radical as the board of the Reserve Bank.
The crowd starts to nod – first movement all day for many of them. There’s a rumble of agreement with his thinking. That the choice of tie is the most radical decision you can make all day. Shoulders relax, heads lean back in chairs. They almost clap. I get depressed, oh, the hopelessness of dealing with accountants.
I’m no longer worrying about being completely sober at 6.45pm on a weekday. I’m stuck on the issue of dressing. Does how you dress make a difference to your career? Does how you dress control what people think of you, of how importantly they take your pearls of wisdom? Does how your company dresses, indicate where in the pecking order your team is? Does it matter by industry, by company, by country?
And does being a marketer mean you need to adopt a particular dress code to further your career? You expect a lawyer to dress a certain way. You expect that of a doctor, a politician….
When does attire matter and what matters to you?
What you are wearing says everything. Even your hair does and whether you’ve brushed the dandruff off your shoulders or clipped the mass of hair between your eyebrows. People judge other people by looks. Pure and simple. It’s the reason the cosmetic, fashion and hair product businesses exist. Frankly, extend that thought a tad and it’s the reason the car business can’t get past big petrol-guzzling status symbols and why some suburbs cost ten times more than others. But let’s just deal with the stuff on your back and earlobes for this article.
People are walking ads
You are your own ad. What you are wearing says whether you fit into this tribe, lead it, follow it or should be shot by it. Your clothes make you look older or younger, thinner or fatter, cooler or dumber in a split second. It is subtle, too. If I wear a teenager’s shirt, I look like I’m trying too hard to look young, which says I’m desperate to fit in, which says I need friends, which says I may have bad breath or a failed marriage…..if someone wears a suit that’s too baggy says he was too fat once (is greedy), hasn’t got enough money to buy one that fits (poor salary or unemployed) possibly is single and has no partner to tell him what to wear etc. etc.
Hints
If you are up and coming in marketing land, there are only so many outfits you can wear. If you’re any good at what you do you’ll know instinctively what they are. If you’re unsure, ’cause say you’re from Tasmania or you’ve just come from HR and this is your big chance to work in Marketing, go to a conference on a subject the hot people are interested in, observe what they are wearing and then copy that style.
Apply the P’s to yourself
Say to yourself Do I look like I have the right personality? Do I look too expensive? Do I look people focused? Do I look like I’m well packaged? Does my brand stand for what I want it to stand for?
Dress for your future
Most of the research we did on this article said it’s critical to reach a fine balance between expectations and the ordinary – to dress just ahead of your position, but only one rung. Dress how your boss should dress, not how the board does. But when you get a chance, shine.
Dress for your industry
The people in the entertainment business dress like rock stars and movie stars. Those in the banks dress like they imagine the board dresses. As most will never meet their board members, they have no idea what slobs those old blokes normally are. I notice the boss of Westpac always wears red, her corporate color. She, in her matching two piece suits and pearls (only half a generation behind the Queen) is the most exciting thing in Australian banking. Think how scary that is for a fashionista working at Westpac. Do I wear the two piece with red spots or the two piece suit with red stripes, decisions, decisions…
Dress for what we expect
There are many in smaller companies even in IT in OZ who think a suit makes them business-like, missing the expectation of their customers completely for the sake of their own expectations of what you wear ‘at work’. The bigger firms, the telco’s, Ciscos etc. dress casually to fit their industry. The little guys often think ‘business’ before they think IT. This often makes the little guys look desperate. It’s like that in my business. If I turned up in a suit they’d think I’m from some dicky little ad agency in suburbia. But If I turn up in a pair of jeans and a polo shirt, they think I’m from the big end of town and have different expectations of service, pricing and quality of work.
Stay ahead of the pack, just
Dress for the job you want, not just the one you have. The line is so delicate I can hardly describe it in words. People will hate you if they become conscious of your ambition to get to the next rung. You are trying to steal their dream. But your bosses won’t put you in a role you obviously don’t fit into, so you have to balance those two opposing needs.
It’s a very fine line between cool and bogan
If it’s casual day, think whether you want to look like you shop at Kmart in Fountain Gate or at Chapel Street? Who would you rather trust the company’s brand with? Someone determined to return to suburbia and mediocrity at a moment’s notice or someone striving towards the future?
You are an ambassador
If you’re on the front door, or you’re out and about, for all intents and purposes you literally ARE the company.
All companies have a dress code
Every company in the world has a dress code, but most of us are blissfully unaware of it unless we think about it. Some are radical, some are just like every other firm in their sphere. It’s one of the hardest things for a prospective employee to get – how to look like one of the people who already work there. If you get it right, your prospective boss will think you’ll fit in with their culture, but if you miss, you won’t get the gig. If you’re going through a personnel agency, ask your consultant exactly what the people she has met are wearing, even down to the color tones, the labels, the shoes.
What’s the brand of your company?
This is something to give real consideration to, that is easily argued to be a marketing issue. The fact that many studies have proven dress changes signal behavioral changes in workplaces and that your branding must be reflected in your business attire, means it’s almost expected that marketing should get involved in workplace dress codes. Go on, I dare ya. This is a great opportunity for you to have the rest of the department/ company know you are here. Get them do what you want. What if you were running the marketing for a bank and said that everyone must wear jeans at branch level? Would that get across to your customers that you were more people-focused? Or that you’d lost all their money? Or spent it on Levi 501’s…
You are not a football team
Nothing goes with Hawthorn’s Brown and Yellow except puke. It’s very hard to look cool wearing the Kangaroos sky blue and white. No-one owns a suit that works with Brisbane’s colours either. The only time you should connect yourself with a football team is at the ground and even then, not with a fat, two-metre long scarf. How do you expect your head to look well defined and intelligent when it’s encased like a half-cut penis in half a kilo of badly dyed polyester?
Jeans & T-Shirts have replaced the suit, in many industries
Business-like now means a t-shirt with Che Gavera or Smashing Pumpkins, The Killers or Sea Shepherd on it. According to a very cool internet article on the subject of power dressing, “A suit has become something you wear if you’re asking for money.”
When is a suit wrong for a Pet Retailer?
There’s an ad for a new Pet Shop chain called something like Pets Land, and the guy speaking on the ad is in a cheap pin-stripe suit, surrounded by normal looking staff in pets store uniforms. It’s memorable only because of the suit. It just looks wrong. A suit to me says ‘corporate rip-you-off’, not ‘trust me, I care about animals’.
Interviews are different
If you get a spot on the Gruen affair or interviewed for the News, go more conservative than you otherwise would. There is something inherently wrong with wild colors on TV. I don’t know why, it just is the case. If the interview is obviously on a Saturday, you can wear a sports jacket (doesn’t match trousers) and you can wear shorts in summer, but only if the scene is at the beach. Who can forget how out of place the Queensland politicians look when they are interviewed? Even though it’s 40 degrees outside and only an idiot would be wearing long sleeves and a tie, we inherently think they are not to be taken seriously if they are interviewed in shorts.
Do people get subtle?
One iconic ‘image of contrast’ was the front page of some newspaper in about 1991. (Long time ago I know, but you’ll get the point in a moment, so stay with me here) The first USA v Iraq war is starting. The yanks have just landed at Kuwait. There’s a photo of Saddam Hussein dressed in all his military gear – gold braid, medals, gun on his hip, being a ‘General’ in charge of a country, and same day, same time, a photo of George Bush senior, polo shirt, jeans, fly fishing on a lake somewhere. Who looked cool and in control? If you have a meeting with a guy/girl and they dress more casually than you, it often says they feel/are more powerful than you. It’s subtle, but you feel it.
Use your attire to send subtle messages
If you wish to ingratiate yourself to someone, (i.e. act like you’ll be a good boy, do what they want etc.,) dress better than they would expect for the circumstances and sit slightly lower in the seat than they are. You are behaving in an obsequious manner that is hard to put your finger on and won’t arouse much suspicion. This is how to dress if you’re asking for a raise. Conversely, if your tactic just before the raise is to threaten you are about to leave, dress very casually for a few days like you don’t give a toss (i.e. I’ve already got a job, and I’m just waiting for the paperwork to come through) they will panic and ask you what’s wrong?
Can you dress like a dude and act like a geek?
Sorry, there is no such thing as successfully living a lie. I don’t care how hard you try to be cool, if you are trying, it shows. You can’t be cool in hot pink. You can’t be radical in a suit. I don’t care how rich you are, you can’t be taken seriously as an erudite sophisticate in a wife-beater and tats.
Points to remember
- The higher up the ladder, the less you should look like you care. Really powerful people dress within certain guidelines but make an effort to upset their work colleagues by out-dressing them. That’s either more casually, more formally or with colors that don’t match. This is a subtle way of putting other people off their guard. Why can she get away with a red top under a purple jacket with that stupid set of chopsticks in her hair, when I’m wearing grey on brown on tan like all the other product managers?
- If you’re going to be ultra-fashionable, you must lead. No-one in the real fashion world (France/London/Tokyo streets) actually cares who’s wearing what, they do their own thing. The rest of us, which is like everyone in the western world, must look at magazines every few weeks and steal their ideas from Hollywood (check Who Weekly), Italian Vogue and Frankie.
- It’s not what you pay, it’s what you team it with
- A good watch or stunning suit beats a bad haircut. Actually, nothing beats a do. Individual hair (good or bad) is critical to good fashion.
- A pair of patent leather Church’s outdoes anything but carpet slippers with black tie. NB. The wrong thing on your feet on a yacht (or court, horse, bike, fishing holiday/ surf tour etc.) means you spend your day washing dishes.
- A worn-out Jermyn street shirt beats anything but a new Haines T-shirt on a Sunday morning.
- If you’re older than 40, you better be ultra thin, uber rich or very funny
Sound like you look
And adjust your speech patterns. Everyone does. Certain words work with a hoodie that sound mad coming out of a guy in a suit, bro. Models should not pronounce things like Truck drivers and truck driving, tight stubbie- wearing blokes don’t always fit in if they speak like the Queen.
Be realistic
If you are the size of a small country, forget trying to look OK in something from Sass & Bide. There is nothing sadder than someone who believed her husband when he said, yes, she looked good in that tight outfit. If it hurts to get it on, get it off. Similarly, the skinnier you are, the more flowing should your outfit be. Don’t go too tight or you’ll look like two chopsticks fighting over a dim sim when you walk.