Meet Klair is a woman in her 30s who lives in San Francisco, CA. She works at a start-up as a Product Manager where she is surrounded by high powered executives and works with engineers. Her work environment is mostly men, making her one of a couple of women. The dress code at work is casual, which has made it easy for her to fall into particular dressing patterns consisting of skinny jeans, a basic t-shirt and her everyday sneakers. On the surface, her outfit seems comfortable, but deep inside she feels a bit juvenile. After digging a bit during our consultation, we discovered Klair wants to be taken more seriously at work. As a women in a high position at work, she sometimes feels inferior to her male counterparts due to her non-threatening demeanor and basic clothing choices. Instead, she wants to be taken seriously not only within her company, but when she travels abroad to visit the international team, where people dress more “professional”. She wants her clothing to set the standard of how someone can talk to her. She wants her outfit to say 1000 words as soon as she enters a room.

Klair has this counter-culture side to her and can’t ever imagine herself being in a stuffy suit or fitted work dresses. Supreet lets her know that’s not what “professional” has to mean. Instead, professional is more about appearance and silhouette rather than conforming. As we dug deeper in our session, Klair explained, “I want to look like I don’t give a sh*t.” She further asserts, “I want to look more intimidating to my male counterparts at work.” This was gold! At first, we thought Klair just wanted some new clothes to “shake things up”, but instead, we were able to dig into the real reason why she felt like she had to shake things up. She was sick of being talked over and overlooked. We discovered her style statement “counter-culture professional edgy”.

As Klair visualized herself as this badass female, Supreet took detailed notes. Her shopping list was being formed. We realized Klair wanted her shoes to look intimidating and so we ditched any round toe shoes she had and went for bigger and bolder shoes: block heel pointed shoes, Jeffery Campbell square-toed ankle boots with a buckle, edgy mary-jane block heel and snake skin mules. For clothing, we ditched cardigans and went to edgy suede and leather jackets, knit blazers for a comfortable and professional appearance, over-sized dresses secured with a studded belt. Klair loves black and dark colors for work, but wanted to know how to play with pops of color for her non-work or casual Friday wardrobe. After doing her color analysis, Supreet showed her other color possibilities and how to bring them in while keeping her style statement in mind. At first, Klair was a bit nervous about color, but Supreet assured her that there should always be room for trial and error so we can learn.

Supreet shopped for Klair’s shopping list with her work style statement in mind and ordered the clothing. On the Try On Session date, Supreet brought all the clothing to Klair’s home and set up shop in her bedroom. Supreet handed Klair full outfits to try on and explained why she picked what and showed her how to style the jackets by pushing up the sleeves. She also showed Klair how to wear one pieces in 3 different ways and photographed each look. Klair old wardrobe was also incorporated into her new looks to maximize what she had. Supreet handled all the size exchanges and returns.

Klair was super excited about her new looks! Klair’s favorite part was saving the photos in her phone and picking her outfit of the day in bed. Klair was so excited about her work wardrobe that she asked Supreet to help her establish a fun “going out” artistic wardrobe. Her going out clothes were also mostly black and minimal, but she has this artistic side that wanted to come out. They repeated the process with her going out wardrobe. Klair and Supreet shop seasonally to add fun pieces into both her work and fun wardrobe.