All Dressed Up in My Suit and Tie….(Uh oh….)

“A portfolio picture?” I stammered.  Just the name stirs a bit of discomfort in me.  Twice in the past three weeks I’ve been requested to provide such a picture for a website.

Now, it’s not like I don’t have a suit and tie.  It’s not that I can’t wrangle up a Full Winsor knot, or that I look awful in formal wear. (At least I don’t think so…but that’s ultimately in the eye of the beholder, I guess!).

I spent four years in an east coast prep school.  On numerous occasions each month, while in the military, I donned my dress uniforms, which honestly I preferred to the prison-esque blue dungarees many of my shipmates chose to wear.  And after leaving the Navy, I spent more than a decade schlepping around Fortune 500 corporate functions in formal business attire.  I know the look.  I’m used to the look.

But here’s the thing…I don’t really LIKE the look.  More to the point, I find even a sport coat and tie a bit restricting and overly “proper.”  I guess what I’m saying is this…I simply don’t think that look properly represents who I am.

So, who am I then?  Well, from a fashion standpoint, on most days, I don the old torn jeans and a pullover fleece.  On more “businessy” days or for a full-blown networking reception, you might find me throwing on some khakis and (at most) a suede blazer.  You see, I do understand the difference between being totally casual and “professional.”  But whereas I once was the proud owner of dozens of ties, I now probably have only about four.  I simply don’t wear them.

Yes, if I’m going to coach a client in an overly formal business environment, I’ll dress up.  But most often, I remain fairly casual, if a bit preppy in my attire.  I’d say my fashion matches well with the type of clientele I tend to attract and with whom I tend to coach.  These tend toward the small start-up types, with their informal cultures and their young, entrepreneurial leaders.  They get me.  I get them.

Now, I should mention (in all fairness) that with neither of the portrait requests (when I asked for clarification) was I required to overly dress up.  But it got me thinking about how our own formality in appearance can really affect who and with whom we eventually work.

I recall, during my second year with American Family Insurance (a Fortune 400 corporation), undertaking my own social psychology experiment (yes, I’m a slight geek!).  For two days, three times I day I walked from one end of the headquarters complex to the other wearing my normal business casual attire.  Along the way, I counted the number of employees I did not personally know who said “Hi” to me along my route.  On Days 3 & 4, I made the same journey at the same intervals of the day, but this time I wore a sport coat.  The results?  Nearly three times as many people said “Hi” when I was wearing the sport coat.

Scientific?  Probably not…likely wouldn’t even qualify as quasi-experimental.  But even anecdotally, there WAS a difference.

In any case, what’s interesting was the visceral reaction the requests of the past several weeks evoked in me.  The “gut-check” really got me thinking….

What are others experiences with this…and what are your own fashion “thoughts and preferences?”  Are coat and tie more professional, or simply differently profession?