![Jody Watley [ca. 2006] singer/songwriter of Makeover Superstar, and also inspired this post.](http://www.josephrosenfeld.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/jody-watley-the-makeover.jpg)
Jody Watley [ca. 2006]
It is my honor and focus to help each client realize and fulfill their personal image goals. And while each client has her or his reasons and desires for making changes and improvements, a true measure of success can be assessed when I see that each one of them becomes a makeover superstar.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
It’s practically impossible to see New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on TV or in person without reacting to his obvious obesity, isn’t it? At the same time, do you feel that your opinion about Governor Christie’s weight affects your perception of the job he does as governor?
A recent Wall Street Journal article, “Want to be CEO? What’s Your BMI [Body Mass Index]?” got me thinking about how weight affects your perception.
I often wonder why so many people seem to end up giving up on their image, especially when they have so much potential to enhance it. Sometimes it takes the temerity to keep trying. Anyone who’s ever taken the bar exam knows that it’s not unusual to fail it the first time out of the gate. But that doesn’t stop most from retaking the exam.
At Prato’s Museo del Tessuto, piles of old clothes are arranged to simulate the atmosphere inside a textile factory where ‘pickers’ sort old clothes into categories so that the fabrics may be reused in current fashion.
One of the most common adages we all like to use at this time of year is “Out with the old, and in with the new.” But what’s wrong with being in with the old?
I was entirely consumed with this thought while in Florence over the holidays because, as the birthplace of the Renaissance, it’s a place that continually looks back to the past and makes it fresh again. In fact, Florentine scholars, artists, and scientists during the Renaissance have been famously credited with giving new life and meaning to ideas from antiquity.
Making the most of your personal image can be easy or difficult. It doesn’t have to be difficult, but the more you resist, the more difficult it is. If you have resisted updating your image, gave up on trying to coordinate clothing to make cohesive outfits, neglected to consider the messages and purposefulness of your clothing and outfits, or have let yourself go only to find that you have a negative self-image, then you’re making it more difficult to make the most of yourself.
While in Paris, I saw three amazing art exhibits that connect art and fashion in Paris, and your image. The Musee d’Orsay has been exhibiting “Impressionism and Fashion,” an impressive collection of paintings by the likes of Renoir and Manet, and of period fashions on loan from the Musee Galliera – Musee de la Mode de la Ville de Paris, and from the Musee de la Mode et du Textile – part of the massive Louvre museum. The Impressionists were certainly well known to focus on the surroundings in which their subjects were painted. But what this exhibit proves is that the painters were also highly focused on the changing fashion of the time.
Edouard Manet, La Dame (1873), part of Impressionism and Fashion at Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Many people think that image is fluff but they would be completely wrong. Now I know that what people think when they take on this view is that it’s selfishly self-focused to be image conscious. People think that image is fluff because it feeds the ego, that it’s a self-indulgent excuse to dress better, and to look like you’re showing off or that you’re trying to one-up someone else.
Do you think that it is hard to ask for help? Well, I sure as hell think so. It’s so engrained in me that it took having an all-out breakthrough moment to realize that, for me, it is hard to ask for help. This was such a ground shifting epiphany that I’m going to share the story with you so that we can all no longer have the belief that it is hard to ask for help.
It’s a big deal that your clothes impact or influence others. But what about choosing the right clothes so that they best impact you?
A recently published study by two students of Northwestern University’s Kellogg Business School provides insights into how to get the right mindset by choosing the right clothes. They created the term “enclothed cognition” to describe a process that affects your mindset based on the symbolic meaning and the physical experience of wearing your clothes.
How do you know if you need to improve your likeability factor? The answer is directly proportional to your desire to finding greater professional or social success.