I’m calling it – Power Dressing is back.
Actors now rock up to film premieres looking like they’ve stopped off on the way to present results to the City.
There’s the film Kingsman with it’s focus on dressing like a gentleman and the Kingsman-Mr Porter tie-up I wrote about recently.
And on the female front, yesterday’s Sunday Times had a double-page spread on how to dress like a TV Alpha Female.
The Mad Men Dress is seemingly now the sartorial equivalent of a good suit, judging by both the above and every pic I’ve seen in the local business press recently about new hires, networking events and awards ‘dos
winners at the Forward Ladies Women in Business Awards, Leeds, December 2014 (pic source)
So go into a typical agency today and what do you see? Jeans. We seem so determined as an industry to embrace the casual hey-we’re-just-a-bunch-of-creative-types vibe that we’re starting to look behind the times. I will give the creative department a free pass to wear whatever is hot this week and if you’re a digital billionaire like Mark Zuckerberg then clearly you wear what you want. But agency staff in general need to up their game – and not just for client meetings. If you look smart, you think smart. Dressing sharp and smart is reassuring, it says ‘we’re all about building brands and businesses’ and ‘our bottom line is effectiveness’. And isn’t that exactly what the industry is trying to achieve?
