The 80’s Called – They Want Their Look Back!

If you can play the guitar and sing like Joan Jett (the woman shown on the left side in the picture) then by all means, please continue to dress like an 80’s rock star.  For the rest of us though: The 80’s just called –  they want their look back!

Paula.Reyne.com Before and After 480x630

Paula.Reyne.com Before and After 480x630

I’m joking of course, but what woman out there hasn’t spent one too many times showing up to play in a ‘look’ whose day has come – and gone!

This topic goes beyond issues of mere vanity and strikes at the heart of how it affects our relevance in the world around us, and BTW are measured in the marketplace with things like promotions, and pay.

In December of 2009, Forbes magazine published an article titled Think Looks Don’t Matter? Think Again, which explained how there really is no such thing as an ‘all things being equal’ scenario in the workplace when it comes to the way a person looks.  Especially for women, the more you can do to improve you level of attractiveness to others, the more it increases your chance of getting a promotion at work – regardless of qualifications – and especially when opportunities are in short supply.

The article stated that for both men and women, it’s very helpful to be taller – and thinner – and especially for women, to have a more youthful and attractive appearance. Doing so could help you bring home the bacon as much as 10% more than if you’re viewed as being less attractive.

No one is arguing the system is fair.  Instead, I’ll be sharing some helpful advice for how to work within the system that exists to freshen up your style, do it in a way that saves you so much time you’ll wish you’d known it all sooner, and helps save you money – all of which are useful in the pursuit of career goals – and will even leave you loving your look again (or perhaps, for the first time).

Besides wearing heels and practicing good posture, there is next to nothing anyone can do about height.  (Even models must use good posture to showcase the clothes they display on their bodies in their most favorable light.  How much more then must the more vertically challenged of us work at good posture for any hope of looking good in the things we put on!) We can watch our weight and exercise – things we should do for health purposes anyway – and that will carry us a long way down the road towards becoming thinner and more youthful in appearance, but really, is there anything a person can do about their base level of attractiveness?  Didn’t our parents’ genes turn the trump card on that one?

While it’s true that our family’s gene pool did draw up the blueprints on the bodies we live in, there is a lot we can do to enhance our look – regardless of skin type, age, or size. The builder/designer team, Chip and Joanna Gaines (from the TV show ‘Fixer Upper’) do this all the time.  They take a dilapidated, tired looking, old house, address any foundational issues that need to be addressed, and through skillful application of colors, textures, and a few focal pieces thrown in here and there, transform it into a showplace – and we can do this very same thing with the way we look!

First we address the foundation:  This includes things like bathing regularly, use of deodorant, and daily – or more frequent – attention paid to areas like hair, teeth, and nails. ( Just as a home builder would never attempt to build a house without a foundation, you cannot take shortcuts here.  It really is the foundation of your look, so the better you ‘build’ here, the better you set yourself up for everything that comes next.)

With this done however, comes the real fun – deciding what to wear! If this hasn’t felt like much fun lately, maybe its because you haven’t yet discovered your own personal style.  Personal style is about finding a look that best expresses who you really are; it provides an avenue to accentuate your more favorable attributes while paying less attention to your less favorable ones. It can and often will change over time, as you grow and develop, and it should incorporate some of the latest trends/fashions – but not blindly following whatever the IN look of the day is to the exclusion of what works best for you.

This 5 point Style Quiz (taken from the book, Fashion For Dummies, by Jill Martin and Pierre A. Lehu) is a great way to begin to identify your personal style.

In my next post, I will show you how to put together a simple, yet stylish, wardrobe of just a handful of basic items – which may already be found in your closet- and which will not only position you well for that promotion opportunity, but has enough versatility built in that it can be used for an after work gathering and even for date night!  If it all sounds too good to be true, you definitely won’t want to miss it, because I’ve laid it all out in pictures!

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the opportunity, found in today’s post, for discovering your own personal style – and a spark has been ignited within you for beginning to explore it all more so you can get the love back for the way you look. If you have enjoyed it (or any of my other posts) please be sure to leave me a comment and let me know, so I can continue to work on providing the kinds of information you most enjoy and that is relevant to you.

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Thanks for stopping by!

~Paula Reyne 🙂