Dress For Success
Wowing At Work
In the professional arena, your image can enhance or hinder your goals. The question to ask yourself is this: how much effort are you willing to invest in your career wardrobe?
​
Yes, you can be competent, brilliant, sharp as a tack, indispensable even, but if your image is not up to par with your credentials, you may find yourself being passed up on promotions.
​
This is one of those instances where it doesn’t matter what is fair, but what is reality. Your image matters to those in your professional circle and the sooner you accept this, the quicker you can move on to aligning your visual presentation with your professional expertise.
​
An added bonus you get is self-confidence from knowing you look exactly as you intend. But even better, is the changed perceptions about your professional ability from those around you.
​Workshop Outline
-
Career inspired ensembles through 8 different work looks!
-
Appropriate Vs Inappropriate Dressing
-
Understanding the challenges that impact your choice of business attire to enable you to liberate yourself from being boxed in by out-dated rules or default modes of dressing
-
How to feel fabulous and look fabulous
-
Accessories to add finishing touch to clothing
Your Wardrobe Backbone
There is so much you can learn from a person by looking at his/her closet. When you think about it, the closet is a reflection of the person – his/her lifestyle, preferences, favorite colors, fashion sensibility, and personal style.
​​
A closet is so much more than the clothes in it. It’s not supposed to be a hodgepodge of items, carelessly hung in the same compartment with no rhyme or reason for how those items got there. There is a reason you bought that striking pink suit after all, whether it looks amazing or awful to you. Do you believe you are more fabulous than your wardrobe? Then, ask yourself why your clothes don’t reflect the gem you are. Better yet, consider when you go shopping, who you are shopping for; the woman you are, the woman you wish you are, or the women you used to be?
​
Think of your wardrobe as you would your very own clothing “collection”. Imagine multiple versions of your walking down a runway in your clothes. Are you hiding your eyes or brimming with pride?
​Workshop Outline
-
What is having a wardrobe with a backbone
-
What are the key wardrobe basics
-
How to feel fabulous and look fabulouscloseHow to create a wardrobe you love
Workshop Outline​
-
What define a stylish woman
-
How to create a presence with a purpose
-
Using our 6 styles as foundation to define
-
Which of those styles closely fits you, and then add in any additional elements that also define who you are to create a style that’s yours
-
Look to your fashion icons and women whose style you most admire to help create a signature style that is uniquely yours
From Plain to Polished : Developing Style
You catch sight of a woman in the coffee club who immediately grab your attention. Her hair is perfectly styled and suits the shape of her face. Her makeup is not overdone. She’s outfitted with clothing that fits and flatters her silhouette, and her accessories pull together the entire ensemble for that final touch of élan.Your 6-second ‘first impression’ says she is confident, self-assured, powerful, stylish, and polished right?
​​
On closer inspection, you may notice she is wearing a simple blouse with a black pencil skirt. But what differentiates her from the masses, is how she works that simple outfit. It’s not just any blouse, but a blouse in what must be one of her power colours, because she look radiant and vibrant, and her eyes sparkle. The blouse is simple but not boring. It has flair in the details on the sleeve, waist and collar so it looks pretty and flatters her. The skirt fits to perfection – not too snug to been seen as overtly sexy but hugging her curves artfully, so you have no doubt it’s a woman body.
​
When she walks, she struts. This woman doesn’t have to be traditionally beautiful to pull this off. What she has instead is a keen sense of her personal style. She knows how to flatter her figure, and this gives her confidence to flaunt it. And all of this gives her presence.​
​
One of the keys to having the kind of presence is in knowing, understanding, defining and nailing your signature style.
Dressing The Gentlemen
It is said that the quality of the chef can be judged by his consommé.
Likewise, a man’s dressing skill rests on his ability to wear the simplest clothes to individual perfection. This is essentially a lesson in proportion. The first step in evolving a distinctive yet long-term dressing style is for each man to master the standard scheme of tailored suit, white dress shirt, solid necktie, with dark socks and shoes. This is not to suggest that you adopt such formulaic attire, although it can come in handy for certain occasions.
​
Fortunately, face’s shape, the neck’s height, the shoulder’s width, the arm’s length, the torso’s structure, and the foot’s size remain fairly constant over time, even allowing for some weight fluctuation. Unlike fashion, which is obliged to change seasonally, learning how to dress well does not has to be a case of stalking a constantly moving target. Confining one’s fashion focus to those physical characteristics found between hat and hose will facilitate one’s mastery of scale and proportion.
​
Once these rules of classic form relating to your own unique physiognomy are understood, a man has every reason to feel confident about his arms around his stuff.
​Workshop Outline
-
Appropriate Vs inappropriate dressing
-
Understanding your physique
-
Dressing for your personal proportions
-
Special occasion dressing
-
Accessories to add the finishing touch
-
Hairstyles and grooming
Workshop Outline
-
Embrace the women you are
-
Understand which of the 6 basic body shapes are you
-
How to accentuate your best features and camouflage figures To look your best
-
Hairstyles, glasses and accessories to compliment your face shape
Real Women Have Curves
What is it about women and their bodies? Why is it so challenging for many of us to embrace the body we have right now regardless of our age, size or life stage?
​
As women, we can be so hard on ourselves, and too darn unforgiving. A man will look in his reflection and see the positives. He will think, “Yeah, this gut getting smaller everyday.” But a woman? She will see her reflection and angst about her arms, legs, nose, breasts, bottoms – anything and everything!
​
And while we are on the subject, did you know that studies shown that we get to see our reflection up to at least 55 times everyday in elevator doors, windows, mirrors, store fronts and bathrooms, and so on. That’s a whole lot of times trying to avoid our reflection, or feeling bad about yourself every time you do.
​
Which explains why some woman suddenly find themselves in an image rut. They stopped paying attention, didn’t care of their assets or ceased managing the areas they needed work. They start to hid under their clothes.
​
Instead we should use complements to get compliments. Dressing to flatter your figure isn’t about hiding your flaws in as much as it’s about enhancing your assets. What are your best assets? Is it your strong shoulders? Toned arms? Great shapely legs? Tiny waist?
​​
Getting Creative With Colours
Colour is your most powerful friend in the wardrobe. It can transform you from drab to fab with the flick of a fuchsia fingernail or the swish of a scarlet scarf, as long as the colours you wear are in the right tones and hues for you.
​​​​
Embracing your personal colour palette is so transformative. It energizes your wardrobe, boosts and enhances your appearance, and adds creative flair to your image.One of the first questions we get asked by new clients is: “But how do I know which colours work for me?’
​
We will share with you the strategic use of flattering colours that work with your natural tones to raise you above the sea of familiar beige, back, navy and gray, so you can grab that “WOW” factor and shake it for all it’s worth.
​
Workshop Outline
-
How colour works
-
The science of colour
-
The psychology of coloursHow colour analysis works
-
Gaining colour confidence
-
Achieving maximum viual impact through mixing and co-ordinating colours
The Art of Applying Makeup
Make up trends, like fashions in clothing, undergo constant change. Certain colours periodically gain popularity, as do certain styles. We are each offered a unique opportunity to respond – whether we accept, adapt or reject. Although many women will readily update their wardrobe to include something of the latest season’s colours and styles, they are less likely to adapt their makeup to keep pace with changing trends and the development of new products. Some women only ever learn one way of applying makeup to their faces, and never stop to question what they are doing.
Applied correctly, makeup can enhance a woman’s beauty by accentuating striking features, or creating visual illusions, for example. A woman can use makeup to help her project an image of natural beauty, elegance or power, depending on what is appropriate. Applied incorrectly, however, makeup can actually detract from a woman’s looks. A face may look different after makeup has been applied, but not necessarily better. A ‘plain’ face may merely be turned into a ‘decorated’ face, instead of a fresh-looking, elegant or more youthful face.
​
Workshop Outline
-
Identify skin enemies
-
Understanding the skincare routine
-
How to feel fabulous and look fabulous
-
Develop the abilities to identify and highlight the magic of Make-up