What you wear matters. Unless it doesn’t.

A recent Wall Street Journal article reported on research from Harvard Business School regarding the importance of what you wear in communicating your status.

Rather than focusing on the status conferred through wearing expensive brands, the research focused on what observers thought of individuals who deviated from the norm.

Before I go any further, I have to confess that I have a bit of a reputation for not following the norms of corporate dress. I dislike the idea that there is an appropriate uniform to convey that you are an Important Business Person. I do have a suit, but I haven’t worn it in years. Old-fashioned (ill-advised? unpopular?) as it may be, I am at heart a huge fan of meritocracy.

I know when it started. Freshman year, I went through the process of rush (sorority recruitment). Standing at the Kappa Kappa Gamma house, chatting, I was asked three times in 30 minutes, “What does your Dad do?”

Really? Was Dad going through rush? How would my father’s occupation impact my attendance at frat parties? Perversely, I began concocting occupations for my father that veered far from his actual work managing a manufacturing operation.

“My dad? Oh, he’s a garbage collector”

It’s probably not necessary to point out that I did not pledge with the Kappas (go Theta!).

Anyway, back to the point - what does your outfit say about your status? Interestingly, the research showed that in some situations, ignoring the norms actually conveyed higher status. (See the section of the article that discussed wearing sweatpants to buy expensive clothes). The concept is that ignoring dress norms can signify a sense of high confidence and comfort - i.e., you don’t need the clothes to prove it.

I experienced this first-hand in a corporate setting. Big acquisition case, big presentation to the boss’s boss’s boss. We had been working on this deal around the clock for weeks. It was the height of summer, and we were going in for the big ask. I came to the meeting wearing what I usually wore in summer - a sleeveless dress, a cardigan in case the a/c was too high, and heels. Honestly, it didn’t occur to me to wear anything different, until my colleagues showed up dressed to the nines. I took some flak about my outfit, (spoken: “it takes a lot of confidence to dress like you don’t care”; implied: you are making us all look bad). The meeting went well. Did it matter what I was wearing? Well, as the article points out, there’s a fine line between confidence and cluelessness. I doubt the meeting would have gone well if I had worn sweatpants, or had hairy legs to go with my summer dress. And really, who knows if the outfit made a difference? It was in the realm of acceptable, if perhaps more casual than other attendees. I’d like to believe that what mattered was that I had prepared extensively, thought though a number of scenarios, and in the end, knew what I was talking about.

To read the article in the Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304017604579445140870078088

To see the research in the Journal of Consumer Research:

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1086/674870?uid=3739936&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103690533567