Styling Is Messaging, And We're Still Doing It.

by Karen and Erica

We began to have some appreciation of personal style. when we were in junior high. For us, white GoGo boots and Mondrian dresses were the first clue that clothes could be fun, and that some were more cool than others.

College for Erica was prim and proper—pastel shifts and sweater sets, heels and fishnets. For Karen, jeans (bellbottoms) and construction boots. Neither approach was really us. But we had to look like everyone else.

By the time we got to law school and our first law jobs, we were starting to develop individual styles, different ones for work and play.

At the beginning, we had to wear suits. Suits—skirt suits—were de rigeur on the job, especially for board meetings or court. Navy or gray or black. Boring, but simple. But after a few years we cracked the code. Wearing a suit demonstrated that we knew what this world was all about. Once we did that, we could send out another message too—that we were not actually mini men, in fact we were different beings altogether. Our suits would be new and different too. Silk, wool, leather, sequined (well, maybe not all over sequins). Neon pink, wildly patterned, polka dots. So long as it was a suit—a skirt suit in the early days, later pants (sometimes)—we were in. That was a breakthrough!

Then we took it to the next level. Dresses. Hard to believe that was practically revolutionary, but it was—though not nearly as revolutionary as pants, a change that would not come for a while and would not come quietly! Diane von Furstenberg’s wrap dresses were perfect. Beautiful colors, stretchy fabric that could be worn tighter or looser depending on the state of our diets, colors and patterns. And sexy too!

In our social lives, things were less regulated and we had different approaches. Erica wore leather dresses or pants, and stilettos. She also wore elegant jewelry, every day of the week. Karen, who wore only skirted clothes to work for years, never wore them on the weekend. Weekends were for jeans—never blue, usually wildly patterned Cavalli jeans—and boots and blazers and chunky costume jewels. She also came to understand that scarves could elevate everything—and keep you warm in the New York chill. Erica never really took to scarves, but she had furriers in the family, which meant she did not need scarves.

As we grew more confident in our careers, our clothes got more adventurous. Erica went to board meetings in a fabulous suit with large red flowers all over it. Karen went to court in a pink polka dotted suit (which prompted court reporters to expand the array of colored pencils they brought to hearings.) We knew we had a place in this world we loved, and we wanted to be seen for who we were. And we wanted to have fun, especially at work.

Our thinking has not changed. We know we still have a place in this world, and we still want to have fun. Not so many suits these days, but everything else works—skirts and pants, colors—or not—high heels or low, metallics or technofabrics. Everything is built on what we learned about the messages of style while we had careers. The point then was to be seen for who we were, and to play a little. It’s the same now.