Dressing for work in an American corporation

[CloserToFiftyThanTwenty]

Just that - what is essential to look professional in a US blue chip company? I'm assuming a suit / day dress is standard wear, along with decent shoes and bag. But what about the subtle stuff: manicure / hair / make up / tights?

Any advice much appreciated!

Well I work for a French company and shabby chic is the norm....if you are Paris pencil thin. Otherwise considerable effort is required. I like the glam older women who have helmet blow drys and v expensive jewels. Scowling helps.
I like this thread and am glad I can be a European scruff as an excuse not to make an effort!

I know. I imagine New Yorkers must come to the UK and think we're like the Flintstones.

Watch Millionaire Matchmaker for even more extraordinary expectations of how women should look. Everybody on there seems to have ironed straight hair and body con dresses.

I'm fascinated by this thread, no idea why as I'm a HCP in a polyester uniform, as far removed from corporate NY as I could possibly be.

I agree. Children . Getting manicures is mad

I suspect French shabby chic is even more difficult to achieve than Manhattan groomed. Groomed is more upfront whereas shabby chic lulls people into a false sense of security.

Actually a lot of New Yorkers arrive in London and go OMG and then realize after a very short while that the lower maint gives you time to do things like enjoy cake.

Quite frankly I don't think any of the girls I work with eat cake. The breath it in and obsess about it but they don't actually taste it. I live two blocks from Carlos bakery of cake boss fame and those cakes are not yummy at all. Stop by the Germany bakery and the cake shops owned by the French family and those eating the cakes are nearly always European.

You are right there. I have mastered the shabby aspect though.

IME just wear the ugliest shoes you can find.

Jobs a good un, you'll blend right in.

Sorry toffee, that's all I remember! Viscount, cape, (possible) cane. Swooshing about the place with style and gravitas!

Is there a style known as shabby shit?

I worked for a US company for 15+ years (although not NYC based) and the clothes women wore were comfortable - no jackets, but lots of smart cardigans/twin sets that type of things. It did make me laugh that the dress code policy actually stated underwear must be worn!

Does it depend on the type of company though? I thought everyone dressed like a student at those techy start-up places where they all make like $250k a year and no one knows how. Reminds me of one of my favourite lines from The Social Network - "sorry, my Prada's at the cleaners, along with my hoodie and my fuck-you flip-flops."

Yep. I'm guessing there's a massive difference between the way Google expect you to dress and the way the Patrick Bateman world expect you to dress.

I've been following this thread all day. We have lived in DC for the past few years and I'd agree re the manicures and people looking polished, women having hair that doesn't appear to move in the breeze etc. However, I read the Oxygen piece and just thought - this sums up everything that is wrong with the materialistic culture that exists in some cities here (especially NYC). The whole thing came across as incredibly shallow and, dare I say, old fashioned to me (aside from the obvious re good shoes, quality pieces etc). It was also slightly incongruous as the picture of the woman whose advice everyone is meant to take doesn't show a stick thin supermodel, and she has flabby upper arms on show. That would be a definite no-no, surely?!

It's all about how you look and not what you can achieve (though arguably appearance could contribute to this). In the same way, I find that the long hours culture here is very different from corporate UK. Here in the US (IME) it all seems to be about presenteeism as opposed to quality output. The best corporate boss I had in the UK once told me in no uncertain terms that he 'didn't give a shit if I worked my full hours, so long as the work got done'. I'd be interested to know if others have found a similar trend or if it's just me!

Wouldn't it be great if Su Pollard was given a job at Goldman Sachs HQ.

I once saw a woman walking down the street dressed in an eccentric style and as she approached I thought to myself "that woman dresses like Sue Pollard".

On closer inspect, it was in fact Sue Pollard.

There is only one.

Wibbly - The face time is awful and it's why I have been looking for a European employer. Where I work people earning $70k have a masters and are expected to bill about 65+ hours a week. That means they are working 90hrs a week.

I went part time in December and decided I wanted out. My dream job would be the controller job at space NK but the recruiter I'm working with has insisted I don't have the experience for it. The reason I want the job is simply that I don't have to put in FaceTime.

Japanese company I am interviewing for answered my question about hours by saying they have office hours of 9-6 mon through Friday and overtime is expected for special projects. For what they want to pay I think they are dreaming but there are so many people willing to work for less as ones job is so tied into their social status. When I was laid off I had many people blank me. it was wierd.

I just realized who Su Pollard is. She is not well known in the US, but back in the late 90s, our local PBS TV station aired some of the lesser known "Britcoms" and one of them was "You Rang M'Lord." I have to admit that I loved its pure wackiness and especially her as Ivy the maid.

That's really interesting Want. The longer we are here, the more and more European I think we are! I have a Swiss friend here who talks about how her DH's job would be three people's work in Switzerland, two people's work in the UK but one person's job in the US. I think she has it spot on. At my DH's work they employ various interns - I say employ in the loosest sense of the word. Incredibly bright, Harvard/Yale etc educated, talented young people and they'll work for free, then absolute peanuts, just to get a foot in the door. Maybe I've become cynical (actually, there's no maybe about it!) but this corporate greed is so wrong. I've heard people being accused of being 'too European' for taking their full holiday/vacation time. Bollocks to that is all I can say... And not one person seems to have the sense to realise that burnt out, exhausted employees won't produce the best results. I don't think we'll be here in a year's time as we just don't want this kind of lifestyle anymore. It's been a good experience but there's so much more to life than the materialism/money/screw every last dime out of whoever you can culture that's so prevalent here.

Want2b has given good frank advice to the question that OP has asked. ElizabethHoover I think you sound a lot of a tit, and I chortle this from my very bohemian station working on my laptop in bed in a t shirt ruined by woodstain.

yy Want and Wibbly, I have ruled out working for a US corporation based on all these reasons.

based on my experience of living and working in NYC and now travelling to the usa for business 5/6 times a year. want2b has been absolutely spot on and people having a go at her just have no idea what they're talking about. Men spend just as much time on grooming or wearing the right stuff too.

on the jewelry thing...The usa is the only place I go on business where I deliberately up the bling factor because as a senior person it's appropriate to do so. To give an example, I have a halo ring that is a 6ct Tanzanite surrounded by 2.5 ct of diamonds. In the UK, I am careful about when i wear it so as not to send out the wrong image. However on an East Coast business trip I would wear that ring with a diamond tennis bracelet, diamond watch, studs and necklace and still be under blinged when meeting other senior women.

I also make sure my nails are always cut short (no time for a proper manicure!) and painted as I have made the mistake before of not sorting my nails out before a trip and felt people's eyes wondering to them in meetings. I have never felt that in the UK!

The women don't tend to do the bag thing as much as women in the City nor as want2b pointed out are their clothes or shoes as stylish as here. While I adhere to the us style grooming rules, I have found it has played in my favour to be regarded as very "European" and so I don't change my style. People notice and frequently compliment me. It can be an advantage to be different.

and felt people's eyes wondering to them in meetings

Yy. The meeting I went to with a recruitment consultant here in LA (let's put the west coast stereotype to bed, it's plenty dull and corporate here) her gaze lingered on lots of different parts of me. When, frankly, made up, hair clean and neat, wearing ironed clothes, I was about as presentable as I have ever been. She was very nice but essentially told me I looked like I'd rolled out of bed.

I've worked for a lot of big name corporates in London - a very great many, enough to make the selfsame recruiter look from my CV to me, and back at my CV again, baffled - and noone would ever be so rude.

A lot of the senior British women I've worked with had gravitas precisely because, while remaining moderately well presented, they gave zero fucks. That simply is not allowed in the US.

Americans are expected to look as if they are highly competent, successful, and take their job seriously. Attention to detail regarding hair, for example, conveys competence. Quality clothing and jewellery conveys success. As I mentioned in my previous post about my first impression of BBC newsreaders, looking like you haven't combed your hair makes you look unreliable and they'll have trouble taking you seriously. There have been times I've said, "Dear Lord! She looks like she got drunk in a Top Shop, passed out trying on clothes, and then crawled into work wearing whatever she woke up in." I'm joking but the impression is real: the image of her getting drunk and then staggering into work in a state has been put in my head.

It's definitely important that your hair is perfectly tidy. Having a manicure doesn't mean fancy painted talons - I think if they're manicured like a man's nails (that is filed, perfect cuticles, immaculately clean, perhaps clear polish) they'll be alright. Certainly better that than to have a chip on the polish, anyway.

I was just looking at the websites for Ann Taylor, J. Crew, and Brooks Brothers. All three of them are perfect for the sort of clothes people wear in offices, although I guess high-level management may shop somewhere a bit more expensive. However, the models are misleading with their style (particularly their college girl hair). That's down to the stylists and the clothes in real life translate to something more conservative.

If you read that Oxygen link and follow through to some of the other related links at the bottom, there are a lot of good tips, particularly on dressing with authority. I noticed she made a particular point about wearing heels vs wearing flats. You're pretty much expected to wear heels, although not stilettos. One to three inches is fine.

I don't think NOT wearing big diamonds is a terrible thing. It's more important that you don't wear anything wrong. So, sins of commission far worse than sins of omission.

Jesus Christ on a tandem, I am so incredibly grateful that will never have to deal with this shit. O hope the OP has found the information useful and wish her the best of luck in her job though.

Re. the news reader issue though - you can slap on as much make up and as many diamonds as you want, but it will be a cold day in hell before I believe a word out of the mouth of anyone on fox news, whereas the bbc had been trusted internationally for decades. I don't equate the quality of the journalism with the quality of the blow dry, and I think anyone that does is more than a little bit silly.

at the Consultant Rootypig! I agree with you on your point about gravitas, although I think things are changing here.

Ann Taylor and J Crew are always on my stops in the us, although I would say Ann Taylor more for work.

To clarify on my comment on the jewelry thing, I agree that you don't HAVE to wear big diamonds, my point was more if you have it and like wearing it, then it is much more appropriate to put it all out there in the US than in the UK.

I am not sure I agree about the expectation on heels but certainly agree that wearing 4" skyscrapers seems less appropriate in the usa than in the UK.