Professional Image

Identity and Roles

Personal identity is one of the problems of the modern world and fashion is actively involved in providing a short cut for a new identity. We believe we can identify identity and personal values through appearance. Even if it’s a cultural practice widely spread, it’s not accurate. It’s as if fashion has taken upon itself the burden to rewrite the daily script, the role and gestures for the buyers of certain brands. The buyers become the incarnation of what the brand stands for: the classical man with a twist, by Armani, the international aura of the Cartier watch, the globality of Benetton, the rough Marlboro man, or the couture creation by Westwood. The irony is that, even if fashion shouts to make us different, it makes us more homogeneous. It would be more accurate to say that fashion provides an individuality inside a group that shares the same code. For our purpose, it is therefore important to distinguish between identity and role.

Roles

To have many roles is an ordinary daily experience for everybody, even if we are not aware of it. To explore and to know their potential, a certain measure of play is necessary. Dress is a uniform. It communicates a message, and helps us play a role if we dress for the role. When we know how to manage roles with ability, flexibility, and sense of play, when we dare to experiment with more dimensions of ourselves, we elicit positive responses in others, because the message we send is a message of power.

Public and Private Life

It’s very important to distinguish between public and private life, and to establish the right distance from the social role. To bring private life – gossip, sexuality, secrets – into public life can have conflicting and negative effects. But it is also very draining to act always according to the public role in private life.

As far as image is concerned, if you really like your job and are ambitious, be prepared to be more classic on the workplace and to wear more daring looks off duty. This is not such a great compromise if you think that some classical outfits look good in any wardrobe and you can accessorize them creatively for private life. Think of what is at stake, be practical and start “playing”.

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