DRESSING FOR CONFIDENCE: BEING TRUE TO YOURSELF

DRESSING FOR CONFIDENCE

Being True To Yourself Is The Ultimate Confidence Driver

The third and final instalment of my dressing for confidence series is actually a thought that runs across the previous two looks and tips, and that’s really about being true to yourself.

The thing with confidence is that we feel it the most when we feel comfortable, when we feel at one, and when we feel true to ourselves. There’s nothing more distracting or powerful at reducing your confidence than feeling uncomfortable in what you’re wearing. When I talked about the power suit and how authoritative and confident it can make you feel, I was clear from the outset that your take on the power suit must be one that makes you feel good and one that makes you feel comfortable. The tailoring, cut, fit and style are all elements that can make you feel fabulous or hideous, and so finding the ‘look’ for you is just as important as dressing for confidence in the first place.

The idea behind using colour to boost your confidence is that colours can make us feel a whole array of emotions, and as such we can use them to boost our confidence, our positivity, our enthusiasm. That being said if yellow is not your colour, then it’s not something you should force because it’ll make you feel uncomfortable, and that in itself will knock your confidence. Finding the right colours, tones, textures and materials for your skin, body and style is just as important as trying to use colour to boost your confidence.

What is key, regardless of the tips anyone shares, is that in everything you do to bring yourself confidence, you stay true to yourself, and true to your style.

A very good friend of mine (I hope you don’t mind me using you as an example if you’re reading haha), and an extremely inspirational woman in my industry who I admire and look up to for her confidence, drive and ‘no bullshit’ approach to work, never used to wear her favourite clothes to work. She’d wear black, but she barely ever wore black out of work, she’d wear sequins, colours, prints, clashing tones, vibrant pieces that really stood out. I kinda got the slight desire to keep some special pieces separate to work, but I always felt like the choice to hide away her true style was in fact not really bringing her whole self to work. Those clothes she adored, those are the things she shone in, they were her true style, and it showed, you could feel it when she wore them. Nowadays the black work wardrobe has gone, and the true colourful, bold and vibrant person turns up everyday, and truly I’ve never seen her so confident or smashing her career.

The morale if you will, is that your work wear shouldn’t be dull, drab, or a leap from your usual clothes. What you wear says a lot about you, and there’s nothing that exudes confidence as much as someone who is quite clearly true to themselves. Of course some careers require formal attire or restricted uniforms, but on the whole you can give them your own twist and bring a bit of yourself to them through accessories, tailoring and colour tones.

For me, my work wardrobe is just as colourful, mismatched and vibrant as my work one, I’m lucky to work in the advertising industry where we truly can wear what we want. And that I do. Even if it is print clashing, colour coordinating hell and somewhat ‘out there’. Because those are the clothes that I feel me in, I’m confident in them because they’re what I like to wear, they make me feel good, and that in itself is the ultimate dressing for confidence goal.

Take this final edit in my dressing for confidence series as the ultimate example, it’s an outfit that is so reflective of what I wear day in day out and a prime example of being true to yourself no matter how statement you might feel. I adore a midi skirt as you know, let alone a zebra print one (this is my favourite piece of Next’s entire work wear collection, it’s so me), I think leopard print is fabulous and loved these bold pumps, despite the print clashing I thought they’d look so fun alongside the zebra print. Continuing my love affair with roll necks, a classic navy tone was the perfect accompaniment to the navy zebra skirt, and importantly qualifies the look as work appropriate. You might think the look warrants a navy maxi coat, which in fairness would look fab and slightly more formal if you had a very smart work meeting to attend, but I just love a teddy coat, and to me it felt like the perfect finishing touch to what is one of my favourite, bold and ‘true to me’ outfits.

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When you have a big work day, an interview, an important meeting, one to ones with senior stakeholders, don’t dress how you think you should, dress in the pieces that make YOU feel confident. Because if you feel confident, then you’ll sure as hell be confident.