{"id":1626,"date":"2013-03-12T23:12:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T23:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/?p=1626"},"modified":"2018-06-21T14:12:31","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T14:12:31","slug":"dress-for-success-is-bs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/dress-for-success-is-bs\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Dress For Success&#8221; is BS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>People try to get me to tell their staff what is appropriate and inappropriate to wear in the workplace all the time. How many times have they been told what to wear to the office? I&#8217;d guess it&#8217;s lots. If employees still aren\u2019t \u201cgetting it,\u201d it\u2019s not them. It\u2019s the way they are being told.<\/p>\n<p>Most presentations and discussions about professional dress focus on \u201cdress code\u201d and \u201cdress for success\u201d advice.\u00a0 While this information can be useful, it is usually delivered in a way that discounts the employees\u2019 dressing preferences, personal style and self-expression. The dressing options offered are usually traditional, classic and&#8230;dare I say it\u2026.out-dated and boring! What\u2019s worse, the employees often feel humiliated and unappreciated for their talents and brainpower.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/anntaylor.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1627\" title=\"anntaylor\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/anntaylor.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"144\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1628\" title=\"clown\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/clown-e1363127750392.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"143\" height=\"180\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/french-maid-e1363127818420.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1630\" title=\"french-maid\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/french-maid-e1363127818420.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"180\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/elvis-e1363127786289.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1629\" title=\"elvis\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/elvis-e1363127786289.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"154\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0professional wardrobe can (and must) include more than navy blue suits, white button-down shirts and sensible shoes. Telling people they have to dress like this is the same thing as telling them that they have to wear a costume and hide who they are to keep their jobs. No one is going to do or be their best under those circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the real issue &#8211; employees can\u2019t figure out how to express themselves authentically within the confines of the dress code. If they knew how to do that, they would be dressing \u201cappropriately.\u201d Self-expression is so important that employees would rather suffer the consequences of dressing inappropriately than suffer dressing inauthentically.<\/p>\n<p>So you&#8217;ve probably figured out that I don&#8217;t do &#8220;Dress For Success.&#8221; I do, however, show employees how to shed their corporate costume and make the clothes they like to wear, appropriate for the workplace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How many times have your employees been told what to wear to the office? I&#8217;d guess it&#8217;s a lot. If employees still aren\u2019t \u201cgetting it,\u201d it\u2019s not them. It\u2019s the way they are being told. <\/p>\n<p>Most presentations and discussions about professional dress focus on \u201cdress code\u201d and \u201cdress for success\u201d advice.  This advice is seldom useful and rarely leads to lasting change in employee attire. Here&#8217;s why &#8220;Dress For Success&#8221; doesn&#8217;t work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,1192,223,1160,1190],"tags":[167,68,10,802,7,528,791,712,713,801],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1626"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1626"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2440,"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1626\/revisions\/2440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sarahshah.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}