It has been ingrained in me from a very young age, to always look nice and know the quality of fabric and cutting of your outfit.That’s the advantage when your mum is a part time seamstress and is always “designing” clothes for you from left over scrap cloth. So I have been dabbling in re-designing any piece of dress or pants that I don’t like and modifying them into something I think I would like to wear.

Forward to 21st century and some thirty years later, I am still a stickler for well cut clothes and good fabrication, although a burgeoning waistline due to a slower metabolic rate has made it more challenging of late, sigh. Nonetheless, it should not be a surprise to anyone by now if I tell you why I am an absolute believer in the power of dressing! And I don’t mean wearing Guccis suits or Armani suits as power dressing, price is not the issue here, good taste is. The fact that you wear clothes that define your personality and is well suited to your body is important because the way you carry these clothes will bespeak of your self confidence and give you a certain stature whatever your position may be in a corporation.

I am sure you have all heard this saying …” dress for the position you want and not the position you are in now….” . There is a lot of truth in that saying. I was all for power suits in my corporate days and am still a lover of a well cut suit. I know a lot of girls out there know this too although the number of  unfortunate choices of ill fitted suits or just any old jacket worn over an equally bad fitting trouser or skirt qualifying as power suit is shocking! Through no fault of anyone, but I do hold brands and retailers responsible for all those badly cut grey polyester suits that hang on many a young executives’ shoulders today. Honey, how on earth is anyone to trust that you able you to shoulder great responsibilities in your company if the jacket or shirt you wear is ill-fitted and looks gangly and out of place?

I remember watching Working Girls, the movie starring Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver right after I graduated. It was an education in itself. It showed how the tops guns dressed to distinguished themselves away from the typing pool girls in their short skirts and big dangly earrings and how one underdog out of two hundred in the typing pool made it up the corporate ladder. It changed my life, it motivated me, to go out there and make my stand in the working world. It’s just slightly easier to fight when you are already dressed for the part!

Of course, being well dressed should not be a measurement or even an indication of a person’s capabilities in any way, but mark my words, a well groomed person, note, I said well groomed person is definitely going to elicit more confidence from a client or even your bosses or colleagues. And in the corporate world, unfortunately, despite or maybe because it’s a rat race, appearances do matter maybe because it distinguishes the mice from the men, oops women?! It’s what they call stand out personality, suave and charming and then knock’em dead with your intelligence!

So, ladies, next time you are out shopping, maybe you will shop to dress away from the typing pool, and why not.

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