Corporate dressing…how exactly do we define this? Does it mean forcefully/compulsory wearing of outfits that are highly expensive but hardly fits the body image? Does it mean being highly sophisticated/flashy and looking trendy even when the wearer can hardly breathe and walk? Or wearing a decent outfit that makes you look comfortable, smart and happy? What exactly do we mean when we talk of a career woman looking/dressing corporate?
Have you been to some of telecommunication offices, banks, radio/T.V houses and see what the ladies wear in the name of looking corporate? Let me focus on the lady bankers today. When next you go to a bank, take a closer look at what most of the ladies are wearing and you will wonder if they were forced to wear such outfit. You see a lady sitting at a counter frowning and hardly respond to your greeting (even when she is supposed to be the one that welcomes you with warm smile as you approach her). Try make a mistake by having a slight problem with whatever you came to do at that bank and you are doomed for that day. Your entire day will be jinxed due to the way she will attend to you and you could still walk out of that bank without achieving what you went there to do. Over the years, I have taken time to study why lady bankers get so irritated and always look like ice queens. Have you ever worn very tight trousers that you could hardly zip because your waist line is more than the size? How do you feel in the inside? How about topping it with a designers suit that you still cannot button up when standing, not to talk of sitting down? You see a woman with a waist line of 38 squeezing herself into pants and suit of size 30…crazy huh? How on earth will such a woman concentrate and work comfortably at her work place? If she happens to be the type that walks around a lot, check out what her shoes look like and you will cry for murder! Whoopppppp…same lady is also wearing shoes that can qualify for the- “woman that lives in a shoe’’ story. So high that she can hardly walk and wobbling all over the place looking funny but inside of her, she is looking corporate and cool. I know banks always want their female staff to look attractive but does what I just described gets near to anything attractive? This is simply fashion blunder/mismatch!!
I just concluded one of our WOMEN BUSINESS BODY IMAGE Forum in Abuja and our major Theme for this particular event was – corporate dressing… if the career women are getting it right/wrong in this section. The men who accompanied their lovely ladies to the event had such great fun laughing and enjoying all that the women were exposing concerning why they have to wear what they wear to work places. By the way, my meetings are very relaxing and everyone feels free and comfy to air his/her opinion. The good thing is that at the end, everyone goes home renewed, happy and energised to make a change where necessary. Check this out .
A lady took the stage and she was enraged for being forced to wear nothing but suits and designers pants to work week after week. Not that there is nothing wrong with someone wearing suits but looking at that woman, you will understand why she could not feel happy with her corporate wears. She is in the category of the size 18 and above ladies starting from her top-mid section-laps.
As soon as she took the mic to share her opinion, I knew where she was heading. This lady’s suits and pants are all smaller than her size and she was faced with the torture of compulsorily wearing them for five days in a week. Now, one will ask why she has not worked on her weight so she can feel free to wear her choice of clothing happily. This area is always the last side we deal with privately after the meeting so that such participants will have time with me to have their wieght regimen planned for them. It is not that this woman never knew she is over weight but the work schedule also complicates her entire body image problem. She sits down most of the time at work and all she consumes are all bakery stuff washed down by one sweet beverage or the other. Even the coffee/tea comes with lots of sugar if you have a sweet tooth. By the time she gets home around 8pm, she gulps a full plate of her favourite swallow with soup filled with beef (she loves beef a lot) and next, she is tired and heads to bed. During my private weight consultation session with her, I discovered her anger was not just that she has to wear such unfit clothing day after day to work but the fact that she has no strong will to deal with her weight issue which was eating her up in the inside…even to the extent of threatening her marriage and keeping her husband too far from her. Presently, she is on her weight loss regimen and making great progress.
Before this brave and fantastic woman could finish her talk during the event, I noticed the other women sitting down examining their body and sighing, making the men among us to unleash their laughter even more, creating a ripple of loud and happy/relieved laughter for all of us. Now, do not get me wrong here, the men are just having a good time not that they were making fun of the women. The men also share some of their experiences with their women and reeled out most of the things they would like to see their career women wear both at work and home. It was a very exciting and educating moment for all of us.
As a career woman, your company is not asking you to wear unfit suits/pants/skirts, shoes that hardly allow you walk smart. Are you aware that “shakey-shakey” walk due to the high heel shoes you put on is not a sign of looking corporate? Looking corporate involves you wearing clean/decent clothing that makes you comfortable and allows you to move freely to do your work. Again, if you are on the heavy side, you look uglier and sloppy wearing either under size/over size outfits. You have to take a bold decision to work on your weight so that your body accepts what you wear.
Those of you who feel they do not have time to work on their weight are wrong. Leave a message for me here and you will be amazed how easy this could be.
Send your reactions to –voiceofworkingwomen@outlook.com
JACLYN IWU
