When us women say that we are having a crisis because we have no clothes to wear to work, we are not exaggerating. No, it is not an excuse to go shopping again! Research by the University of Illinois has shown that you work better in the right clothes, with the professionally appropriate dress code.
This research was successfully conducted at the Kellogg School of Northwestern University, where Adam D. Galinsky, who carried out the study, teaches. In what does this research consist? In demonstrating how to wear a certain type of outfit, and how important that is to improve your performance at work. In other words, people were given a white coat. Some were told that it was a doctor’s coat; others were told that it was a painter’s coat. What were the consequences of this? The people who had been given the doctor’s coat carried out their work more precisely. Those who received the painter’s coat painted with greater emphasis and more inspiration.
All this may seem absurd, but Galinsky has emphasised that “clothing has an impact, because it embodies the way in which other people perceive us, as well as what we think of ourselves and how we express ourselves with our outfits”. Additional research has shown that women who show up at a job interview wearing masculine clothes are more likely to be hired (take a look at our tips on what to wear to a job interview), and people who wear formal clothes is perceived as being more intelligent by other colleagues.
What is our opinion? As Ugo Bernasconi stated:
“Nothing contributes as much to the monk as the habit does.”.
The outfits that we wear communicate what we are and what we are doing without any words and in an immediate manner. Therefore, the clothing that we wear should make us feel comfortable in our own skin and in our job. Our clothing should be suitable for the working context in which we operate.
