As I was reading my bloglines this morning, I came across Paul Singh’s latest blog–”The perception of authority and what your clothes really say about you“. He brings up an incredible point, one we often talk about within the walls of the Trunk Club. He notes the Milgram experiment and states that authority comes more naturally when your clothes are in line with the message you are trying to portray.
Paul is a wise one and exactly right. If you see a plumber come to your door to fix a broken toilet and he was wearing a hand-stitched suit, would you think he knew what he was talking about? We have stereotypes and expectations of what “types” are supposed to look like. What “type” do you want to look like? Your authority and therefore your success will come more quickly if you portray the correct “type”.
