Seven seconds to make it count

By SELWYN PARKER

This will never do: "I scramble into my clothes - whatever's lying in a heap on the floor," our very own Pamela Stephenson and wife of comedian Billy Connolly once said.

"I do, however, put on a clean pair of underpants each morning. By Friday I've got seven pairs on," she added.

This might be all right for a sometimes comedian and psychiatrist (as Stephenson is now) but it clearly will not do in the corporate world where managing the way you look comes with managing the organisation. Just ask Susan Axford of Your Style. She is in the business of coaching executives in personal appearance.

"You've got seven seconds to make a good impression," she warns chillingly. "Fifty-five per cent of that seven seconds is about the way you look. As the saying goes, `You don't get a second chance to make the first impression'."

While seven seconds seems amazingly precise, Susan Axford's point is taken.

If they do not like the cut of your jib when it is first unfurled, so to speak, you are making unnecessarily heavy weather of the rest of the interview.

As Susan Axford, who was fashion and beauty editor of the Herald for 11 years, explains, personal appearance is an issue that encompasses a multitude of issues.

"It's not just clothes. It's the handshake, eye contact, business etiquette, grooming, how to take clients to dinner."

Susan Axford would say it starts with clothes. The fashion commentator clearly does not agree with the view, probably expressed by a frump, that "the best clothes are invisible [because] they make you notice the person."

Anyway, most chief executives like to look nice for those teetering seven seconds but often do not have the time, inclination, knowledge or wives to go shopping.

"Some have had broken marriages and their wives used to shop for them. They say, `I'm at a loss. What do I wear?"

This is where Susan Axford's business starts.

She routinely inspects top people's wardrobes and just as routinely does not like what she sees.

With men, she usually finds "a wardrobe-full of double-breasted suits with very wide lapels which shows they've had them for a while. If they aren't right for them, I take them away." After all, why leave temptation in their way?

Probably also lurking in the closet is a competing collection of drab neckwear and bright, wide, in-your-face neckwear -- known in the fashion trade as "Holmes ties" -- which the executive probably bought after a bad day at the office. Both types of ties are also generally banished.

Also dismissed are plain white shirts. "The navy suit with the white shirt and blue tie is very predictable," laments Susan Axford. Also frowned on are short socks. "You can see that nasty, hairy gap when they cross their legs."

The offending ensemble is generally replaced with something a little less cautious, and of course long socks.

"My clients probably look better in a single-breasted suit with a narrower lapel," she says. "I also like to put some colour in the shirt and in the tie. The tie represents a man's individuality. I would discuss it with him before I went out to choose one." Though, of course, not too much colour.

There is a limit to which individuality can be expressed in most organisations. "Your dress has to fit with your personality and the company culture." Thus corporate fashion is a tense compromise between personality and ambition.

Mistakes that women executives make include ill-fitting and dated clothes that do nothing for their shape, inappropriate shoes and slack grooming.,

Susan Axford -- who can be emailed at: susan.axford@axford.co.nz -- has a special expertise with larger women or as the former journalist eloquently puts it: "Slenderising illusions with fuller-figure people."

She remembers taking in hand just such a fuller-figure woman who had pleaded for help. The client, who faced a major speech, usually wore acres of head-to-toe fabric starting with a v-necked top. No, no, no, urged Susan Axford.

Bearing in mind that what is worn on the top half of the body is all-important for anybody standing at a lectern, she suggested instead a jacket with a roll-top collar and modest shoulder pads. "The shoulder pads make a big difference. Otherwise if you've got a big bust, everything clings to the bust."

The jacket's waistline was cut to "skim the body," the skirt came up to knee-level instead of ankle-length and a bit more effort went into grooming.

"Everybody told her she'd lost weight when she hadn't lost a thing," says Susan Axford. Thus, is the fuller figure slenderised.

Susan Axford is anxious to point out that she is not about high fashion and $2000 suits for top people. "It's a sound investment for all employees to spend some of their salary on their work wardrobe."

Better grooming alone can make a difference. After all, it does not cost much to cut your nails and polish your shoes, and professional interviewers make a point of looking at both.

But, you probably would not want to turn yourself into a fashion maven. As essayist William Hazlitt said: "Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves will, in general, become of no more value than their dress."