How To Dress Age Appropriately At The Office

These days it seems that everyone is trying to chug down their personal version of the fountain of youth. Looking “old” has become the ultimate loser way to be viewed. To me, that’s unfortunate because to me making it another year in this crazy world is pretty awesome, but I digress … Looking older than you are isn’t fun, and it can ruin the way you are perceived – especially at work. The old “out of touch” dinosaur never gets to voice her ideas without getting the side-eye, and she rarely gets in on the big important meetings because her look doesn’t quite fit in.

Then there is the reverse of this.

Another phenomenon I’ve noticed is women who look way younger than they are. This used to happen to me a lot (admittedly, sometimes it still happens – more on that in a bit). I would always be mistaken for a women in her twenties (low twenties) mind you when in reality I was in my thirties. Some of this can be credited to my youthful glow, and back then, some of it was my wardrobe. I was dressing a decade behind.

Here is the thing, when we get mistaken for looking younger we automatically move into the compliment zone. We think it’s SO wonderful that we look so young. The problem is, not looking our age can hurt us. Here is an example:

Not too long ago I attended a fancy-pants industry breakfast. I was dressed well (stylish, age-appropriate for a fashion industry event), properly groomed, and ready for action. My business partner and I met a reporter who wanted to do a piece of our business, School of Style. I felt myself getting the cold shoulder from this reporter, but I didn’t know why. When it came time for the interview, I was clearly being edged out but at the last minute got interviewed as a courtesy. We started the interview, and I wowed him with my smarts. He interrupted me and said, do you mind if I ask how old you are? I said 35. He was shocked and said, “I swore you were 22, and here you are this 35-year old accomplished business woman.”

Now in this scenario, I was dressed well but looking younger than I am (thank you amazing genes) almost lost me a major press opportunity.

Think about yourself and how you are perceived, age-wise. Are you still rocking sparkly pants that make you look too young? Or are you dressing like a 45-year-old women, when you are a spry 33?

Hate to get all doom and gloom on ya, but your wardrobe could be killing your career.

In this video series, I am going to show you to dress age-appropriately for work. Whether you are in your 20s, 30s, 40s, or 50s- I’ve got you covered!

So stay tuned, and I’ll catch you on the next video. Oh and if you simply can’t wait to learn more about dressing for your age, I wrote the book on it and its FREE!!!

What I’m Wearing:

Duster Jacket, Topshop
Body suit, Zara
Pants, The Kooples
Shoes, Christian Louboutin
Hat, Gladys Tamez
Necklace, Nordstrom