Can you remember the first time you saw a woman and thought that is what a “career woman” looks like?
I can’t remember the first time but as a girl “coming of age” in the 80s, I’m sure that the first impression I got was a woman wearing a blazer with shoulder pads, a white button down, a pair of black heels and a matching pencil skirt.
I get it, it was a time when as a woman wanting to be taken seriously in the work place, she needed to fit into the “Old Boys Club”. And the impressionable minds of the time took the cue that to dress professionally meant wearing a blazer and heels.
You would not be surprised to learn that many of the inspiring and original personal branding photography clients I work with are running thriving businesses of their own making and still hold an unconscious belief that if they want to come off as professional, the best way to do that is in a blazer.
We are living in this time when we get to write our own rules for what it means to be a woman in business and one of those doctrines is what does dressing professionally look like.
There are a handful of bad a** business babes I work w who rock the blazer + it Is there rule defining look.
This post is for all the ones who never would wear a blazer but still think when it comes to looking like a pro, they HAVE to. Well, my dear, the good news is you do not!
Want to discover what dressing professionally means to you, try this;
Imagine being given an incredible opportunity to share your work publicly with the World – an opportunity to appear on stage with Gwyneth Paltrow at her Goop Conference (thinking of you, a sit down with a very enthusiastic book publisher who is ready to get your baby into the World, a main stage Ted Talk in New York, San Fran, London, an appearance on Super Soul Sunday with Oprah – and then ask yourself “Would I rock a blazer to that? If not, what would I wear?”
And just like that you get to define what it means to look like a woman with business to do, money to make and lives to impact.
How about those of us who are not rocking the blazer because we ❤️ it, schedule a blazer burn. I’ll bring mine!
