The Well-Spoken Woman Read Online Free Page B

to Wear , the hosts surreptitiously videotape the poorly dressed who are in desperate need of a style intervention. It is a humbling tactic, but the video does the trick. The pictures provide a blunt assessment of the unsuspecting subjects' inability to present themselves well on sales calls and at meetings. Some of the fashion victims lack an interest in shopping or self-awareness of body type. If a day at the mall sounds like spending time in a torture chamber, enlist a stylish friend or personal shopper so you can invest in the right clothes. The adage about dressing for the job you want applies. You want to meet the audience's expectations by looking as though you have something to say that is worth hearing.
    Step 3: Dress to Impress Strategically
    Ann Richards was never seeking to blend in with the crowd. Everything about her persona made a statement, and she used her silver hair and silver tongue to her advantage. The Texas-sized, dairy-whip hairdo defied nature and flouted the stereotypical image of leadership. Men with gray hair are “distinguished,” whereas women with white hair are “old.” Barbara Bush, the formidable wife of President George H. W. Bush, was often mistaken for his mother because her hair had turned white prematurely. What could have been a huge liability for Richards was turned into an asset. To paraphrase Emerson, strength often grows out of a perceived weakness. Richards's bouffant do became a prop when she mailed postcards with photos of it being styled in a beauty shop, and as governor she declared an official Texas Big Hair Day in 1993. She often quipped: “I get a lot of cracks about my hair, mostly from men who don't have any.” 8
    The hair wasn't the only feature of Richards's appearance that was tacticallyand deliberately deployed. Dressed to impress could mean black leather and hunting camouflage. The tough imagery burnished her good ol' boy bona fides in a state where macho rules. At the age of sixty, the governor posed in biker regalia astride a Harley-Davidson® to promote road safety. In the fall, she would suit up in camo to lead excursions for game birds. The hunting trips weren't stunts orchestrated for the press cameras. Richards's father had taught her how to shoot straight and cast a fishing line. By defying conventional stereotyping, Richards purposefully molded her image to avoid the traps that often limit women seeking executive positions in government and business.
    A unique accessory can set you apart, but it need not be on the scale of Lady Gaga's raw meat dress. Gaga said she wore the slabs of meat draped around her otherwise nude self to signify that she is not a piece of meat. 9 Draw a distinction between a costume that opens you up to ridicule and an accessory that can set you apart. A forerunner of designer Donna Karan, Amelia Bloomer attempted to fashion a look for the busy woman on the go. In the 1850s, the rage in women's fashion was multiple layers of floor-length petticoats, which became mud-encrusted from walking on unpaved roads. Long before Spandex, women wore painfully confining corsets that made breathing difficult. Bloomer's practical idea, an outfit of shorter skirts with long pants underneath, was considered outrageous. The “bloomers” were a bit goofy, but women could breathe and move in them. Fans of the new style eventually abandoned the pants when they felt the outfit was distracting from the fight for the right to vote.

    A statement piece can be something simple. Women's rights activist Bella Abzug had her own collection of hats, although they were more conservative in style than those worn by Dr. Height. As a young attorney, Abzug wore a hat so she would be taken more seriously by her predominately male counterparts. Sarah Palin looks smart in her rimless eyeglasses, a style that is an update of Gloria Steinem's thick hair and aviator glasses from the 1970s. Congressional powerhouse Nancy Pelosi doesn't leave the