Taking “Dress For Success” One Step Further

By Bridgette Raes

Many of you are probably familiar with the term ‘Dress for Success.’ What has become a household phrase for many actually came from the very famous book Dress For Success by John T. Molloy. This book (which was originally published in 1977) was updated and re-released in the nineties. When this book was first released it quickly became the cornerstone book for the image industry, but while it is a good book with some good tips, I strongly disagree with a lot of the points in the book.

I have always been a bit of a maverick in the image industry around some of the issues that Mr. Molloy points out in the book, and around dressing for success in general. If you have heard me speak you may have heard me go up against some of these points. It may be nervy of me to challenge such a foundational book and concepts about dressing for success, but heck - if anyone is going to do it, it might as well be me.

So here are some of my thoughts on dressing for success that challenge some of the core beliefs that Mr. Molloy writes in his book.

#1 - If you don’t get it nobody else will

What bothers me about dressing for success in general, as well as the position that Mr. Molloy takes in his book, is that there is this one standard for dressing for success that ALL women should follow. While I wholeheartedly agree with some of the points that Mr. Molloy addresses in his book (for example: that you are dressing to represent the job you are doing, and that dressing in the workplace is not for solely yourself, and that one should always follow the proposed dress code in the workplace) it bothers me greatly that Mr. Molloy seems to want to create automatons, and that one’s personal style and feeling great about one’s clothing shouldn’t be considered.

In ‘Dress For Success’ Mr. Molloy seems to consider getting dressed for the workplace all about the job, neglecting the actual person wearing the clothing. He gives very hard guidelines that are too universal for all women to follow with little to no delineation. This bothers me greatly because, in my opinion, if you don’t feel powerful in what you choose to put on your body, nobody else will get it either. Forcing a certain way of dressing on someone that doesn’t leave them feeling empowered leads us to ask - what then is the energy that the wearer will be giving off?

I told this story a few weeks ago, but I remember when I started working at a job that required me to get more “dressed up.” I was very young and used other women around me to understand what dressing professionally meant. I looked at other women and saw them in skirt suits looking quite nice. So I went out and bought a skirt suit. I wore that suit a handful of times and never wore it again. Years later I pulled the skirt suit out of my closet realizing that it was hardly ever worn. Literally there was dust on the shoulders from the amount of time it had spent in my closet unworn. As I threw it into the donation bag I thought about why I never wore it. I realized that when I did wear the suit I didn’t feel very powerful, and being someone who was looking for growth in my job as well as someone who wanted to feel powerful in what I was wearing, I knew that feeling disempowered was not a feeling that I wanted to experience. It isn’t that I thought other women didn’t look powerful wearing a skirt suit, what I realized is that the reason why the women who did wear a skirt suit and looked powerful appeared that way was because they felt powerful.

After this realization I decided that skirt suits just aren’t for me and I vowed never to buy one again until my feelings changed. Skirt suits just weren’t for me and since that time when I do need to wear a suit I always choose a pant suit, as I just feel better about my message because I get it.

In Dress For Success Mr. Molloy feels very strongly against pant suits or pants in general in the workplace. I couldn’t disagree with him more. Firstly, even though I have the re-released copy of his book that was written in the nineties, I still feel that his views are very antiquated on this issue and that he never takes the wearer’s feelings into consideration. I don’t care how much research and how many studies he has done to back up his findings, if one doesn’t feel powerful in what they are wearing, nobody else will get it either.

So, the next time you get dressed and you find yourself choosing clothing based on what you think you should wear to look successful, don’t forget to check in with yourself and think about how you feel in what you choose to wear.


#2 - It may still be considered a man’s world, but...

The next bothersome thing I found about this book was that much of Mr. Molloy’s findings in Dress For Success were based on extensive research with men and how they perceived and reacted to the different ways that women dress in the workplace. While it is important to get a man’s perspective about how we as women are perceived in the workplace, is a man’s perspective what it’s all about? It’s hard enough for women to get ahead in corporate America, and even though we are in the twenty-first century women are still earning less than men.

While we have made tremendous strides, women still struggle in what is still looked upon as a man’s world. What I found unsettling about what Mr. Molloy says in his book was that if women are going to get ahead in the workplace they should still acquiesce to their male counterparts’ opinions of how we should dress. I found this very disempowering for women. While at first, dressing in a way that a man thinks we should dress so that we can keep up with our male colleagues might make sense, why is it that in order to keep up we still have to fall in step with a man’s perspective solely? There was something about this that made me very unsettled. Maybe I am being over-sensitive to this idea because I was raised by a feminist and am very pro-woman, but this concept left me with a very sour taste in my mouth.

I am in full agreement that women should leave their sexuality at the door when they step into the corporate arena, so why is it that the bar of dressing powerfully in the workplace should be set by a man anyway? To me this will always keep a woman in line with a man’s comfort level. Is this what we want, and more importantly, how liberating is this?

In my opinion when a woman dresses in the workplace she should always follow the standards set by her office, and she should take her job role, her goals in that office, and what she wants to accomplish into consideration. But if she wants to infuse it with some personality, femininity, and – egads, actually look like a woman - then I say go for it. As long as you look the part of what you are trying to express, then you should be fine.


#3 - No knits???

“Sweaters are not a part of the uniform of executive and professional women. When a woman wears a sweater she often sends a sexual message.” This is a direct quote from Dress For Success which I find appalling. Is he kidding with this one? His feeling is that a jacket is a better alternative to a sweater because a jacket will show off curves too much, vs. wearing a jacket. While he is right, sweaters will show off a woman’s curves more than a jacket will, since when did it become blasphemous to actually show off the fact that women do have curves? I simply hate the fact that, again, it seems that in order for a woman to be successful in corporate America she has to abandon who she naturally is and hide to make her male counterparts more comfortable. All Mr. Molloy seems to imply here is that men are these hormone-infused people running around unable to control their urges simply because a woman reveals that she is a woman.

In defense of Mr. Molloy does say: yes, it is very important that a woman doesn’t dress overtly sexily in the office; and yes, it doesn’t do a woman a bit of good when her sexuality overshadows her competency. However, has Mr. Molloy spent any time in a women’s clothing store? Does he realize that all sweaters are not the seductresses of the clothing world? In addition, to be so general and say that all sweaters will have this effect is a joke.

Mr. Molloy does point out that he thinks it is okay to wear a knit when it replaces a blouse and is worn under a jacket. Gee, thanks for that one, Mr. Molloy. Of course we women must wear it under a jacket because God forbid someone sees that we have breasts or something. And of course he points out that these knits MUST be loose fitting. Yes, he is right, a tight sweater can send a negative message to others, not just men, but women as well. Sometimes the overtly sexy gal in the office is more loathed by her fellow female coworkers than the male ones. But I certainly hope that when Mr. Molloy says loose-fitting he doesn’t mean shapeless. Somehow I think he does though, because Mr. Molloy seems to discourage women looking like women.

So what is my position on knits? Well for starters, who the heck chooses a blouse over a knit these days? By the way, Mr. Molloy is a HUGE fan of the blouse which is not surprising. But I know is that a majority of my female-based clientele will opt for a knit over a blouse any day. I know I do. I think Mr. Molloy is being unrealistic and doesn’t realize the complexity of our lives today. How many of you are time-starved in the morning and find it so much easier to grab a professional and well-fitting knit or sweater set in the morning over a blouse?

Here are my guidelines on choosing knits:

• Never choose a style that is too tight.
• Keep the neckline high enough so that cleavage is NEVER showing, especially if you bend down.
• Never let your belly show.
• Choose knits that aren’t too fine gauge (which can show off a bit too much.)
• Choose a bra that is either slightly padded and/or minimizing if your chest is larger.
• Having a larger chest I know that I feel more comfortable wearing a knit in the workplace when I feel my breasts aren’t overly exposed.
• Knits that have become weathered by too much wear or have started to pill should be relegated to casual weekend knits.

Work knits should be the finest quality that you own.

The thing I find so comical about my guidelines is that they would seem to be a given. To any well dressed corporate woman this is a no-brainer, but apparently it seems to Mr. Molloy it isn’t.

#4 - Can we be so general?

Writing books on what image wins in the workplace is a tremendous challenge. How can anyone create such grand, sweeping judgments on what is and isn’t acceptable in the workplace? The next thing that infuriates me about this book is that it is just that - general. Mr. Molloy points out that all women should wear pantyhose to work and his take on mesh pantyhose will only have you succeed in the “oldest profession” out there (which in case you didn’t get the reference, is prostitution.) I guess Mr. Molloy isn’t thinking about any corporate career in a creative field where the rules are definitely more lax.

Yes, mesh or fishnet pantyhose are seldom accepted in most workplaces, but it is the across-the-board rules that Mr. Molloy imposes which I find frustrating.

The other thing Mr. Molloy points out is that focusing on which colors do look good on us should be abandoned, and instead we should focus on wearing colors that win in the workplace, regardless of whether or not they are flattering on the wearer. While I am not in total disagreement with this observation (even I have said, for example, that no one should ask for a raise wearing red because it is a very aggressive color) it is this “throwing out the baby with the bathwater mentality” that just bugs me. And Mr. Molloy’s observations about forgetting about the woman wearing the color and focusing solely on the colors that win in the workplace ultimately rules the woman out of the equation. And why can’t we wear colors that look great on us?

Here is my opinion on this. I had a client who was of Asian descent. She had very bold and striking coloring. I remember when I was analyzing her colors she looked at one of the very bold jade green drapes that I was about to drape under her face. She found this green shade to be so bright and jarring that she was convinced that the color would just drown her out. I then draped it across her and to her pleasant surprise she looked great in the color. The reason was that, while the green shade was very bold and bright, so was her personal coloring. As a result, her level of coloring not only could withstand such a strong color, but the color also became very subtle on her because it balanced back to her coloring. I then showed her how the color looked on me. Having much softer, fairer coloring, the same exact green shade looked too jarring on me and it absolutely drowned me out. My client realized that she needed to wear brighter jewel-toned colors because her personal coloring demanded it. It is because of this that I stand by the fact that we should wear colors that flatter us, because when we do the colors will blend into our coloring and support us. This is in opposition to Mr. Molloy’s feeling that only certain colors should and can be worn by all women. I know for myself that nobody notices me in some of the colors that Mr. Molloy encourages all women to wear.

#5 - Why can’t it be about fashion too?

Being a fashion designer for ten years prior to starting this business, I found Mr. Molloy’s acerbic tone about fashion uneducated and ridiculous. Mr. Molloy writes about falling into the fashion trap. Mr. Molloy’s states in Dress For Success that a woman who dresses fashionably in the office comes across like a “lightweight” and is not the type of person who can be trusted with important matters. He encourages women not to fall victim to the fashion industry, which he seems to imply is this evil monster who will ruin your career if you partake in it, as though fashion is some serpent testing you to fall prey to the dark side. Does he think we women are so weak that we simply cannot control ourselves, or that we are so without free will that we will not be able to make smart responsible decisions that are still fashionable?

I am left to wonder again why Mr. Molloy thinks it is okay to be so general, and why can’t a woman be both well pulled together for her work role and fashionable at the same time? As he says in his book, “The main reason businesswomen should ignore fashion is that the fashion industry and their spokespeople completely ignore businesswomen.” Oh, really? Well that is certainly news to any designer, like myself, whose ten year career was steeped in designing for the career woman. Has Mr. Molloy ever heard of Ann Taylor or Talbot’s?

And how can a woman just ignore fashion? We have to get dressed and every season it is the job of the designer to give us fashionable clothing. Granted, many of my clients, especially my career-minded clients, often tell me that they aren’t interested in being trendy or cutting-edge, they just want to know that they look good. So I think it is important to point out the difference between fashionable and trendy. I agree with Mr. Molloy that getting dressed shouldn’t be a trendy fashion show because, yes, trendy clothing will overshadow a woman’s competency. However, what is wrong with looking fashionable, or stylish? Most busy women could care less about following the trends, but tell any woman that she shouldn’t be fashionable and she will laugh in your face.

In my opinion, dressing for corporate America should be a careful balance between being fashionable and appropriate for your specific work environment. The best way to do this is to go the classic route and then infuse it with some fashionable statement pieces. Take a great suit or jacket-pant combination and punch it up with some personality through some great jewelry, shoes, a handbag or other accessory. Keep it clean and basic and if anything, just ensure that you are wearing your clothing vs. your clothing wearing you.

In summary:

Clearly, I am not a big fan of this book but I invite all of you to follow the book if you think it works for you. I believe that there are many ways of looking at something, and obviously, with the number of books that have been sold Dress For Success does have some valid points. But just like getting dressed, never take something at face value. Personally, this book goes against many of my views and positions about dressing a woman. The reason our company’s tagline is “Set your style free” is that I believe that there is no general hard and fast guideline that all women should follow in regard to getting dressed, and nothing bothers me more than when a woman seems to be ultimately ruled out of the equation when choosing styles that work best for her.

(c) 2005 Bridgette Raes Style Group