Look around at your co-workers. Can you believe the unflattering outfits professional people wear to work? Well, I’ve got four words for you: Look in the mirror.
Because 32 years after John T. Molloy published the best-selling self-help book “Dress for Success,” plenty of us still can’t dress ourselves properly.
We need someone like Mayna Sgaramella, wardrobe consultant and personal stylist.
“First, we don’t see ourselves as other people see us,” Sgaramella told me. “And it’s easier to critique other people, because we have too much emotion involved when we look at ourselves.”
Timberland Bank brought Sgaramella and her rack of clothing samples to Gig Harbor on Thursday morning to coach its team of managers.
You might think a bank born in 1915, that calls Hoquiam home and that lives by the slogan “Plant your future here” wouldn’t mind if its employees dressed themselves with the aplomb of a lumberjack.
Apparently not. Timberland, which operates 21 locations in six counties, has a dress code and logowear. But the bank wanted Sgaramella’s advice as part of a two-day retreat to upgrade its corporate image and customer service, said Marianne Price, vice president and director of human resources.
These days, matching clothing to body type has taken on renewed sensitivity across America with the success of the voyeuristic cable television show “What Not to Wear.” In each episode, family, friends and co-workers nominate an unsuspecting victim who gets a wardrobe makeover from hosts Stacy London and Clinton Kelly.
“All my clients,” Sgaramella said, “have watched that show and ask, ‘Are you going to tear me apart like Stacy and Clinton?’”
She doesn’t. Partly because the TV show’s victims never asked for help and often resist it. Meanwhile Sgaramella’s clients willingly pay her $100 an hour to help them scrub their closets of bad clothes, take them shopping, then mix-and-match the new purchases into a series of full-length photographs for a day-to-day wardrobe reference book.
And it all starts with what some of us would hate: an honest body-shape assessment.
“When people look at themselves in the mirror,” Sgaramella said, “they’re thinking all kinds of things: ‘My belly sticks out.’ ‘My butt’s too big.’ Our brain’s cluttered when we look at ourselves. I can see them as they really are and help them identify their body type.”
Can’t a spouse do that too for free?
“A spouse is only helpful if they tell the truth, and sometimes there’s a hypersensitivity to the truth when it comes from a spouse,” she said.
I get that.
Once Sgaramella establishes a client’s body type, “then they can look for the right cuts and styles to balance out their body rather than just pick out what’s in for the season or trendy,” she said. “That’s a big mistake people make. Not everything out there is going to look right on them” even if all the fashion magazines proclaim it the new in-look of the summer.
Another common mistake: waiting until the last minute before an occasion – like a job interview – to buy what you’ll wear.
“It’s like grocery shopping when you’re hungry,” she told the Timberland managers. “You buy things you wouldn’t otherwise buy. You’re just pressured. … You’ll settle for something that’s ‘just OK’ rather than perfect, then rationalize it by saying, ‘Well, it was on sale for 40 percent off.’”
But when it comes to your professional image in a job interview or at work, where you hope to get a promotion eventually, do you really want to give the impression that you’ll settle for mediocre just to save a few bucks?
“Research shows that people who dress better advance in their careers quicker than people who don’t,” she said. “You might think that’s not right. But that’s the way it is, so why not embrace it and make it work for you?”
Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785
dan.voelpel@thenewstribune.com">dan.voelpel@thenewstribune.com
Mayna Sgaramella
Who: Owner of Closet Fly of Bothell, wardrobe consultant/personal stylist
What she does: Helps clients purge their wardrobe of unflattering clothing, shop for better-fitting attire, and coordinate separates into multiple outfits.
Cost: $100 an hour
Three biggest clothing mistakes: Not taking your business wardrobe seriously; not updating your style; shopping under pressure
Tip: Accept your body shape, then dress it only with styles that fit rather than what’s in style.
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