I still haven’t made anything because I still haven’t figured out what I want to wear. But last week I wore a sweater that I’d managed to shrink and was uncomfortable in it all day. The next day, I found this article on NPR about “power dressing” and it made some good points about too-small sweaters (and maybe part of why I’m having such a hard time with clothes lately):
The big challenge to power dressing came in the new millennium, when the dot-com world began to roar back and the very casual workplace became standard. How do you telegraph power in an office where everyone, even the CEO, wears jeans and T-shirts? What sets the power players apart: good tailoring.
“Alterations are a great way to make you look great. Because even if you’re wearing something very casual, if it fits well, your posture is going to be better, you’re going to stand taller, and you’re just going to look more authoritative.”
…Want to project power? “Your clothes have to fit you,” Lawson says. Period. To be a power dresser, he continues, “it has to look like you command the clothes, not that the clothes are commanding or wearing you.”
Duly noted. Now to find clothes that both fit and that I want to wear.
I can’t believe the story didn’t start with Marlene Dietrich and Lauren Bacall! Long before Joan Crawford, Dietrich defined the woman’s power suit — a tuxedo, no less — and projected the kind of power that could shrivel most CEOs in their BVDs!
But soooo true. If our clothes are too big, or too tight, we’re uncomfortable and don’t project the same confidence. I think it also takes some native confidence to choose clothes that fit, not hide in a tent or squeeze into a casing. I definitely had to find my inner power-woman before I could wear my blue jeans with confidence. And then it just snowballed out of control from there. Now my clothes fit AND I project my power like traffic cone. “LOOK OUT!”
My grandmother used to say that it doesn’t matter how expensive your clothes are, it’s all about your bag, belt, and shoes. Lately I say, “you’re never too fat or too thin for great shoes and a bag.” So don’t just hem your trousers — buy more Dooneys.
And then there’s a line from the movie “The Big Blue.” The well-dressed, but less talented Italian man observes his less confident, but more talented rival in a too-big tuxedo and Chuck Taylors. He shrugs and says, “It’s what you have. So it is chic. Very chic.”
Throw your shoulders back cuz you’re too sexy!