I’ve been working with a lot of client virtually lately. When I work with clients in this manner I can’t physically visit them and their closets so I rely on photography and Skype sessions to see what is going on with their style. To start, virtual clients send me photos of themselves wearing the outfits and pieces they want me to assess. When I receive these photos I usually scan them quickly and then go back and analyze them more closely. During the initial scans of these clients’ photos my reactions to them have been quite consistent. As I am scrolling through I say things like, “Need more color, need to accessories, great fit but boring, need to finish the outfit”, and so on. As I’ve said many times before, clients who call me aren’t fashion nightmares, most of them just feel bland and underwhelmed. Sound familiar?
Seeing that most of my clients are professional women, I am using today’s post in this series as an illustrative lesson on how to amp up corporate blah outfits and make them corporate stylish, as it can’t just be my clients who are struggling with getting excited about what they are wearing to work or how to maximize the use of their great core basics.
I’ve touched on this topic a ton of times on this blog but it bears repeating, creating a stylish outfit, particularly for work where the pieces tend to be more classic and tailored, requires finishing touches, especially if you want to get more mileage from what you own. This finishing step is so simple yet so effective it’s almost silly that women don’t take advantage of this.
Now if you’re reaction to adding another step to getting dressed seems like a bother, what I am going to show you below is that you don’t need a lot of accessories or a masters degree in finishing a look to be successful. Trust me, it’s not that hard. You also don’t need a lot of variety. Just a few accessories can get you a ton of mileage, which you will see below as I use the same accessories over and over again to make three very basic work looks more interesting.
Corporate Blah to Corporate Stylish
Outfit #1- Amping up a basic work dress
So, instead of going out and buying yet another basic black work dress you thought you’d add some more variety by purchasing a dress in a color that is different yet still fine for work. However, now that you’ve worn this dress the same again and, again, it too is boring you to tears. “How could this happen?” you wonder as you feel like, despite trying to step out, you’re still struggling.
When an outfit has begun to put you to sleep the answer is not to go out and buy more clothes, necessarily, it’s about changing up what you already own. By doing this, instead of one way to wear an item, you get several ways. The second you’ve grown tired of one look you can try something else. This is why, sometimes, the simple addition of one piece in your closet can make you feel like you have a new wardrobe.
In this outfit I took this green dress from J. Crew and, in the first outfit, added a yellow necklace, yellow pumps from Ted Baker and a cobalt blue bag from Vince Camuto. I started with the yellow necklace and that was my road map on the additional colors to add.
In this next outfit, the same dress is styled with a coral necklace and flats from Anthropologie. To finish the look I added a white bag from Kate Spade.
Lastly, the same dress is used again with pink- pink earrings, a blush handbag from Coach and Via Spiga shoes.
Outfit #2- Adding variety to a navy blazer
Now if you think that accessories have the power to style one work look multiple ways, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Here I took a navy linen blazer from J. Crew and a sleeveless Boden dress in cobalt and use the exact same accessories to change up these looks, as well. Nothing about the accessories has changed only the base outfit has.
Outfit #3- Tailored pants and a black blazer boredom
If the common work look of heathered pants, like these from Vince Camuto, a black blazer, like this one from Elie Tahari, and a simple white tank under the jacket has become clothing Valium to you, consider adding a final step of accessorizing. Again, I changed nothing about the accessories, they’re the exact same ones I used in the previous two looks. Now, this incredibly basic, almost to the point of dumb, looks fun, interesting and stylish.
So, yes, accessorizing does add an additional step to making work outfits pop, but consider the alternative: Without a variety of accessories, instead of having the nine different outfits to choose from above you would have three. That’s a huge difference and money saved for a few additional seconds of time getting dressed in the morning.
