When Michele Royalty wore a simple black strapless gown to a black-tie business dinner for her pharmaceutical company, she says, 'I saw the CEO's eyes drop to my cleavage.'
'Once a CEO is startled by seeing your cleavage, an image is set in his mind that is not going to disappear,' says Ms. Royalty, who recently retired as an executive at the company. 'I never wore that type of dress again.'
Events like awards dinners and client cocktails can blur workplace rules -- including office dress codes. And since it's harder for men to embarrass themselves with evening wear, it's often women who reveal too much, leaving their clients or colleagues with indelible memories. The results can range from slight discomfort to a huge misunderstanding.
'What happens when the sun goes down is people go crazy,' says Patty Fox, a stylist and fashion coordinator for the Academy Awards. She says she gives businesswomen the same advice she gives movie stars: Don't step outside the bounds of your personal style, even for a special occasion.
Gail Graham, executive vice president of marketing for Fidelity Investments, watched a respected co-worker alter her colleagues' impressions of her at a recent business dinner. She 'showed up in a dress that was practically backless and showed cleavage,' says Ms. Graham, who later heard male colleagues talking about the woman -- days after the event. 'It became the story about her. You want the story to be about you and your accomplishments.'
'There's no greater crime' for a businesswoman, Ms. Graham adds, with just a smidgen of hyperbole, 'than to show cleavage.'
While avoiding displays of decolletage may sound obvious, getting the look right isn't as easy as people think. What some women see as fashion-forward can often come across as sexy in a business environment.
Women face mixed messages about what they should wear to evening events. Ubiquitous photos of decolletage-revealing celebrities and models photographed on red carpets and runways do their part to encourage faux pas. The super-short skirt lengths, low necklines and body-hugging silhouettes marketed in stores these days often conjure up the image of a trophy wife rather than an executive. Eveningwear is practically synonymous with sexy.
So it's a good bet that many professional women have made the same mistake I once did of showing too much skin at a business dinner. A male guest complimented my backless dress that evening. But evidently, the dress I had thought was evening-appropriate struck him as something worn to impress; later he coyly suggested I was romantically interested in another unmarried male guest -- something that wasn't at all true.
Because women and power have an awkward relationship in our culture, dress is a particular pitfall for female executives. People aren't knocked off-kilter when a young office assistant shows up in a revealing dress. But when it's the CEO -- or Hillary Clinton -- it's a different story.
'If my attorney bills out at $1,000 an hour, I want them to look like a lawyer, not a celebrity,' says Jonathan Fitzgarrald, director of marketing for Greenberg Glusker, a Los Angeles law firm.
It's not just a matter of image; sometimes, there can be real trouble. Lisa Goldstein, an attorney and founder of consulting firm Rainmaker Trainers in Philadelphia, says that during a client dinner with spouses, a head of a law firm was propositioned by her male client and his wife. The client 'suggested that they swing together,' says Ms. Goldstein, who was informally consulted on how to recover the professional-client relationship. The lawyer felt that her revealing evening dress had set the wrong tone, sending 'signals that were misinterpreted,' says Ms. Goldstein.
Any rational person should know better than to proposition his attorney. But the reason there are dress codes is to limit the signals that could go awry -- including ones that evoke the irrational.
I suspect these are lessons that our grandmothers could have explained without consulting a neuropsychiatrist. But Louann Brizendine, a prominent brain researcher and author of 'The Female Brain,' reassures us that human behavior isn't going to rise above responding to revealing clothing anytime soon.
Our brains are hard-wired. The cortex in the back of our brains, Dr. Brizendine says, scans the environment looking for fertile mates. Complicating relations between the sexes, the part of the brain known as the 'area for sexual pursuit' is two times larger in men than in women.
Exposed skin speaks louder than annual revenue growth, even to a CEO. 'What if the men in your office changed for dinner and came bare-chested?' asks Dr. Brizendine.
Jonscott Turco, a psychologist and consultant with Partners In Human Resources International, says he would prefer not to see women in revealing clothes at business events. 'They're thinking it's an empowering thing that they can be sexy and professional,' he says, 'but guys don't see it that way. If she's dressed sexy, that's all they see.'
Christina Binkley
|
|
