Well..Adjusting host Robin Hopkins shares how to find personal style while keeping it profesh
When I was in the 6th grade I was a huge tomboy. I lived for playing football and kickball at recess. I had zero understanding of what the gaggle of girls (wearing tight Jordache jeans) were doing as they sat on the playground singing AC/DC songs and gossiping about boys.
Yes, I’m aware there is a lot to unpack in that sentence.
At the time, I had a lovely and cool teacher, Mrs. Cincotta. After one particularly sweaty recess, she pulled me aside for a heart-to-heart. She told me that I had to figure out how to fit in with the girls because change was a comin’. She was of course talking about puberty and all the gendering and separating that happens with preteens. There may be less of that today, but as a mom of two kids in this age bracket, I can attest it’s still a thing.
In our little chat, Mrs. Cincotta offered me a dollar for every day I wore a dress.
The proposition struck me. A buck a day was big money to an 11-year-old in the early 80s. But I couldn’t do it — even for that kind of money. Wearing dresses was not who I was. It’s still not. Though I’ll pop one of those bad boys on for a wedding or a commercial audition if required. Even then, I feel almost like I’m in drag.
When I look back on that moment, I feel love for a teacher who tried her best to help a young kid have an easier go of an awkward stage of development because make no mistake, she was right. My time in middle school and high school was hard for all the reasons her spidey sense picked up on. Hello, young, lesbian Robin. I see you!
But this moment is also important because it was the first time I was forced to confront the idea of other people’s expectations of who I am versus wanting to feel like myself, to feel okay in my own skin. At that moment, I had to decide what I was willing to lose in order to be me.
This issue doesn’t go away as we get older. The question of what folks think of how we present ourselves, how we dress. And it is particularly present in the workplace. We all have to walk that tightrope between bending to the will of corporate culture and dressing to make ourselves feel comfortable or like ourselves.
In Episode 3 of Well…Adjusting, Larkin, a 20-something in the interior design field, joins us asking the question of not just how to dress for success, but how to dress for her queerness and still be taken seriously at work. We pick apart this question in great detail. So much detail that we needed several cocktails and you hear the ice machine working overtime in the middle of the episode. That’s some real in depth chatting.
We unearth larger, connected questions about imposter syndrome and taking up space in the office as a woman.
Luckily, we had an expert on hand to talk about not only how to dress in a way that enhances you, enhances your career, but also how to be a boss bish in the workplace.
Here’s Kerry Sullivan sharing some of her wisdom from her 20-plus years of experience as an executive at Fortune 500 companies like Nike.
Kerry:
What’s interesting is that when you work in the fashion industry, it’s even more so, and I was in the rags business. What’s funny was that when I came from New York, I was overdressed and so I freaked people out cuz I was wearing suits and I had a clipboard and I didn’t fit. And I had to learn how to dress casually.
I had to learn how to dress casual. And, and that’s the advice I would just give: try to just move into how you feel comfortable. And just do a uniform that works for you, that is comfortable and can work, and then it becomes kind of your signature. And especially in a design creative environment that’s even more cool.
I had one gal that worked in our team that wore this long black skirt every day, and I was so envious because she looked so comfortable. But then, she just would put a denim jacket on. Put a leather jacket on. A different blazer, like a t-shirt; like boots and heels. But she had a signature black skirt that I thought was genius. And it kind of simplifies because then people hear you.
It’s like Rachel Maddow’s suit, right? You know, Rachel Maddow. She just wears very simple makeup. No jewelry, no static. So then your voice is heard. So if I had to do it all over again, I would’ve done that, if I had had that wisdom.
So if you’re in a creative environment, you can get that cue from other people around you. It’s just something to observe in other people. And then who do you idolize in your office? Everybody has the office crush. Or you’re intrigued by somebody, or you just are like, ‘wow, that person is freaking awesome’. What is it about them? They’re commanding the room. It is a very easy lens to absorb in for yourself. Like, ‘wow, that is a cool idea’. And then just make it your own. That’s the thing, you get advice from all sorts of people and you have all filters, but only you can listen to your belly.
You have to connect to your own sense and your own wisdom and just breathe into, like you have to meditate into yourself. Like, how do I wanna be? What can I do? Because if it’s something that’s possessing your time, if it’s static in your everyday conversation to yourself, that’s negative talk. You have to work to quiet that.
Do you want people to hear you or do you want people to see you? Right? Because some people that are seen are bags of bullshit.
They are just that, I’m serious. They look awesome, they’re cool, but they just don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t have the respect because their words are wishy-washy or they’re not subject matter experts, but you can still be inspired by the way that they walk their, their confidence, the way they carry themselves.
Okay. How do I wanna be today? I’m gonna be confident. It’s good to have a little mantra. Like, I’m gonna be open, I’m going to be positive. I’m going to listen to what they say before I judge what they’re saying. That’s a good everyday check-in to be like, ‘how do I wanna approach this team today?’
How am I gonna approach this issue and remain myself? Remain centered. Breathe through those things. But I think getting the cues of different people and then just creating your own, give yourself time. It’s not an overnight thing. A haircut is not gonna solve your woes. Like bleaching your hair is not gonna solve dealing with an asshat in the office. It’s just not. I think self-possession is the key to walk with. It’s hard being a female in a workplace. It is. It can be really invigorating and inspiring
Look, the, the pressure on women to show up in certain ways is there. It has always been there. When you’re presenting, that’s when the nerves go through the roof cuz you know, everybody’s critiquing you from your eyelash to your eyebrows, to your shoes and how you’re walking and how you’re carrying yourself.
So, to get through that, it is a centering. They’re here to listen to me. I have subject matter. And they’re here to listen to what I have to say. I’m already here. Why not give yourself that? I am already here. I exist. I exist at my desk, and I exist in a boardroom of 500 people. To present, you have to have that inner dialogue, but the static is really, there’s no easy switch to do that.
You have to have somebody to talk to, somebody to just go for a walk around the block with, to just release that pin off of your head because it’s just not healthy. And you’d be shocked how similar other people’s struggles are if you just stay your truth.
Like, hey, I’m struggling. Like I don’t fit in. I don’t know what pants to wear. Like, what the hell will you go shopping with me? But yeah, I will. I’ll send you a link to these I found on Amazon or whatever, like you just never know.
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