It’s not about fashion, but about what we are communicating through our choices and how they make us feel.
In the last article I mentioned Dr M. Grzesiak who writes in his book that personal branding is actually our own perception of ourselves. Of course sometimes we feel great about ourselves and sometimes not so much. In this article I would like to indicate one of the important elements which can make us feel better. I’m talking about clothes. They definitely work on my mood and behaviour and it looks like also some researches confirm that.
Do you have a certain clothes which make you feel great? Like a beautiful red blazer which gives you power or the high heels which make you feel strong? Apparently even socks and underwear can increase confidence and self-image even though nobody sees them. For example, I have certain clothes which I associate with power, ambition and competence. I would never wear for example a pair of jeans and t-shirt to an important presentation. They would just not give me the right feeling. On the other hand those casual clothes can boost opennes… It’s all about how we want to feel and what we want to communicate.
The people who know me personally often mention that I always wear elegant clothes and accessories. Everything needs to match. Why? Because this perfectly matched up look make me feel in control of my life and gives me confidence.
Also the studies show that wearing certain clothes can trigger some psychological changes in our brain. The experiments performed by Hajo Adam and Adam D.Galinsky at Northwestern University, USA showed that students of medicine who were wearing a lab coat made less mistakes than the ones wearing a painter coat… Why do you think this happened? It ‘s because students wearing a lab coat associated it with experience and knowledge which increased their attention. This phenomenon is called enclothed cognition.
There was another research at the University of Hertfordshire, UK and Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey where participants looked for a 3 seconds at the image of a man with a pixelated face in a different clothes. As a result they rated the man in a tailor-made suit as more confident and successful. This proved that even when people can not see face and have very limited time, they will make judgments of others by simply observing the clothes they wear.
As a conclusion of those 2 researches I would like to summarize that if you want to create a personal brand which radiate confidence and power wear the clothes which not only make you look like that, but also that make you feel like that.
Kasia Giska