By Margery Hannah
Impression management is a requisite to performing on the social stage of life. To possess a keen sense of style provides the ability to wield power across settings by keeping an impeccable image. Author John T. Molloy asserted the importance of dressing for success in his books of similar name, outlining nearly fifty years ago the necessity of adorning for your desired post as opposed to your current position. His how to dress for success books have provided insight into the art of subtly for generations, making him “America’s first wardrobe engineer” according to Time magazine.
But if Molloy was the first American wardrobe engineer, Edith Head was the first American wardrobe architect. “You can do anything you want in life if you dress for it,” says Head in How to Dress for Success, her book eight years senior to Molloy’s Dress for Success.
For several years, I worked for a nonprofit of similar title to Molloy’s books, everyday partaking in the transformational nature of clothing. Though “We suit the woman from within” became the tagline expressing the need for a menu of programming that included workforce development, employment retention, financial literacy, health and wellness, and leadership, supporting a woman wherever she stood in her employment journey, the truth of the matter is that the organization’s divinity lay in the boutique, where women stood taller at their reflection in a three-way mirror affirming their newness in the clothes they’d just been provided.
Garments as an expression of love is Biblical. One of God’s first acts of care and mercy after Adam and Eve sinned was to provide clothing. (Gen 3:21). God took care of the Israelites during the exodus by causing their clothes not to wear out (Deut 8:4; 29:5; Neh 9:21), and Israel loved Joseph above all his other sons and gifted him a coat of many colors. To express her love, Hannah gave Samuel clothes (1 Sam 2:19). And the highest level of love in the Bible, that God so loved the world He gave His one and only Son, came with a prophecy about Jesus, ‘They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots’ (Matthew 27:35).
“This is where the magic happens” the organization’s longest serving CEO would tell potential donors and guests when leading them on a tour of the space.
I recorded a video for that organization about my “power piece,” a derivative of “power dressing” popularized in the 1970s and 1980s–assisted by Molloy’s books– and modernly rooted in the 1920s by Chanel suits consisting of tight skirts and collarless button-up jackets, usually with braid trim, metallic buttons and fitted sleeves, both pieces in wool. For me, a power piece typically means one thing:
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Chelle A. Carter-Wilson
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