What if your wardrobe could help you shape your working life?
I recently worked with a woman who was launching her own business.
Like many new founders, she was thinking about the sort of business she wanted to create, the clients she wanted to attract and the impression she wanted to make.
Our conversation headed to clothing - obviously because of my particular profession - but also fascinatingly important for the decision she had to make about her new business.
She wanted to be able to wear her favourite outfit.
And frankly, I thought that was a brilliant place to start.
What does your outfit say about your ambitions?
We tend to think about dressing for work in terms of expectations. What looks professional? What will clients think? What do people in my industry usually wear?
But when you're building a business, you have an opportunity to decide some of those things for yourself.
My client's favourite outfit included pieces from Zadig & Voltaire, Reiss and Vans. She’s a sassy, edgy and fun person and as we explored what she loved about those clothes, we discovered that they offered clues about the culture she wanted to create, how she wanted to feel at work, and who she wanted to be as a founder.
Her previous role had compressed her ability to be entirely herself at work. And now she was imagining a business in which she could bring her entire self into the mix.
Your wardrobe is full of information
Our clothes often tell stories about what we value, admire and aspire to.
Perhaps your favourite jacket makes you feel authoritative without becoming formal. Your trainers communicate a relaxed, creative approach. Or a particularly outrageous pair of boots brings out the bolder, more adventurous side of your personality.
None of these associations is universal. What matters is what those clothes mean to you. And when we understand why certain clothes make us feel a particular way, we can begin to make more intentional decisions about how we dress.
We might even discover that the qualities we want to express through our clothes are the same qualities we want to bring into other parts of our lives.
Try dressing for your first client
If you're starting a business, changing careers or stepping into a new professional role, here's something to try.
Imagine you're about to meet your first client. Or perhaps you're attending your first networking event.
What would you love to wear if there were no expectations about what someone in your position should look like?
Now look at the outfit you've imagined. What does it communicate about you? How would you feel wearing it? Does it reflect the sort of relationships you want to build and the way you want to work? And perhaps most revealingly, what would stop you from wearing it?
Perhaps we believe serious businesspeople should dress conservatively. That bright colours undermine authority. Or that looking creative means looking less capable.
But whose rules are these? And are they helping us create the working lives we want?
Building the outfit first
Psychologists have explored how the clothes we wear can influence the way we think and act, a concept known as enclothed cognition.
A new role or business can require us to behave in ways that don't yet feel entirely familiar. More visible. More decisive. More willing to take up space. Our clothing can become one way of exploring those emerging parts of ourselves.
And yes, ok, just because you wear a great outfit, doesn’t mean you are guaranteed to build a successful business. But I do think that you’ll get closer to the heart of what you want that business to convey, what its values are, the kind of customer you want to attract and how you want to feel when you turn up for meetings.
So here's a thought: what if you built the outfit first, then thought about the business you wanted to wear it in?
