#6 – Power Women

Sheryl Sandberg.

• COO of Facebook Inc

For the next week or so, we’ll be taking a look at what some of the most influential women of our age are wearing. It may not be the suit as you know it, (often times it isn’t!) but maybe it’ll teach us all a lesson about what it means to look professional and how we can alter the suit to fit us better.

If you’ve got the physique, this sort of sleek one piece is the way to go! And a pop of color doesn’t hurt either.

A good-fitting suit with bold color looks better than the ordinary any day!

These 6 pictures are what I felt most captured Sheryl’s “look” and professional image. As we can see, there’s a sharp contrast between the essence she gives off in a suit versus when she’s in a dress. In both, she’s portrayed as powerful and successful. But in a dress, there is an unapologetically feminine aurora that surrounds her. Now, she has a great body and it takes a lot of confidence about one’s shape and contours to wear the dresses that she does. You also have to be aware of your body type because if you have a larger bust or waist, it may no longer look as flattering or professional as it does on her. But I think what we can take away from Sheryl is that colors are fantastic and that dresses are fantastic. She looks her best when she combines those two and doesn’t feel a need to sacrifice those elements in order to look “suited up.”

So our future line would have to include true color beyond whites, blacks and blues and it’d definitely have to include versatile, sleek dresses.

The Beauty of Suiting Up

With some of the guidelines that are laid out for how a suit should be worn and what are the proper ways to care for and maintain a suit, not to mention the mere price of a high end suit, some may feel like suits are a man-made creation that limits creativity and constrains professionals to the money-making industry of suit purchases and upkeep for the rest of their lives. That’s one way to look at it.

 

Another view, however, is as a liberating piece. For those who don’t want to wake up in the morning and figure out what they can wear for work that would both be appealing and professional, it’s a “uniform” for adults that frees your mind to thinking about other concerns besides what you’re going to wear on Monday morning.

Without the guiding principle of a “uniform” I was spending more and more time worrying if I was wearing the right clothes for the people I was meeting. This led to keeping a suit and tie on the back of the door, many hours (and dollars) spent shopping, and time every morning puzzling over what goes with what…Is the suit a sign of freedom or oppression? Is it a complete anachronism of Mad Men machismo and discrimination? Or is a suit a uniform men and women should both wear?

– David Silverman, Article

David Silverman, entrepreneur and business writing professor had both experiences. As a young man, he felt forced to wear suits at all the jobs he first took on and wasted no time in adopting the ‘jeans and a t-shirt’ attire once he started his own business. However, when it came to his client meetings and other B2B meetings, he quickly realized the grave impact dressing casually all the time had on his first impressions and consequently his ability to be taken seriously and close deals.

Wearing a suit is not just to make you feel important; it tells others that what you have to say is important, too!

This, I think, just grants women one more reason to consider reclaiming the suit as a customizable feminine article of clothing. The better we can design the suit to meet our body’s needs, the better we can look, the easier dressing up becomes and the more likely our counterparts of both genders are to take us seriously. So to answer David’s question, women should absolutely wear suits as well, if they decide it’s what works best for them.

Money or Passion?

Is it possible to do both? Well, of course, anyone would quickly say. There’s always a way to turn your passion into income, right? Right?

Well, eventually, yes. But what about the beginning? If you’re graduating from an undergraduate business school and you consciously have to work your way towards working at a major consulting or banking company such as Pricewaterhouse or JP Morgan, would it be silly to pass that up? Especially considering the salary? I mean, no one out of college sees money like that so quickly in almost any other position unless they start a tech company and hit it big, which happens. But that’s not one of my options.

Part of the issue is that I don’t exactly know what I want to do. All I know is that as long as there’s positive social impact, it’s better than anything else I could be doing at JPM or PWC but….probably pays half as much.

It’s a nice thought to imagine that when you graduate you’ll have no financial burdens or struggles and can live on your own independently, maybe even be able to help your parents out. At the same time, you will regret your decisions to go after money if you’re doing things that you dislike and don’t help or impact anyone positively except the company you’re working for.

It’s a battle, an internal struggle that at the end of the thought process, you choose passion and social impact. Why? Because money won’t make life worth living. And if passion won’t help you generate income, maybe you just need a clever financial investor on your side so the little money you do get goes to the right place at the right time.

30% Ann Taylor Sale on Work Dresses!

30% off on a $130 dress? Really? Really? C’mon Ann, ain’t nobody got money for that

The only thing …

The only thing better than a salary is knowing you won’t have to spend any of it on a suit you’ll hate