As women continue to make strides in and out of the workplace, celebrity stylists encourage finding power by reclaiming one’s style, with Lalaluxe founder and stylist Nicole Pollard Bayme noting that Joan Didion used to write about slipping into her “armor” as she went into the field. Now, women can dress however they want.
“She was working in a time where she had to armor up to go out into the world, and we don’t have to do that anymore, and that’s the beauty of the time we’re in now,” Bayme said on the Her Wardrobe, Her Power panel, presented by South Coast Plaza, at TheWrap’s Power Women Summit on Tuesday in Los Angeles. “We can be vulnerable and we can dress in a way that suits who we are and not have to show up in a man’s world looking like a man unless you want to.”
For Micaela Erlanger, a celebrity stylist and brand strategist who has dressed the likes of Meryl Streep and Lupita Nyong’o, reclaiming that power might be as simple as thinking about “who you want to show up in the world as,” which might differ across the days of the week. “Who you are gets to evolve just as you do when you get dressed,” Erlanger said.
Actress, model and activist Lauren Wasser took on the mission of evolution and reinvention when she suffered from toxic shock syndrome in her 20s, which caused her to lose her legs. She recalled that the tragedy prompted her to “really dig deep and find out what life is really about.”
“It’s not really about what we wear and all this hoopla — it’s really about your heart and you wear the clothes, the clothes don’t wear you,” Wasser said, encouraging audience members to “love yourself, take care of yourself [and] invest in yourself first and foremost,” even if that means slipping into a comfy pair of sweatpants. “I think your body tells you what you want to do … at the end of the day, loving yourself unconditionally and being you every single day when you leave that house is so powerful.”
Listening to your own intuition and finding an individual approach to style — rather than relying on capsule collections or social media trends — is also more likely to bring joy into your life, according to celebrity stylist Katie Bofshever. “Individuals that don’t look like everybody else — that is what’s powerful,” she said. “You should dress to light yourself up and find the core of who you are. Dress for your body and leave the rest.”
And when the doubts of judgements creep up, fashion historian Dr. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell reminded audience members that judgements based on appearance aren’t bad, and are simply a human “evolutionary” trait we all share.
“We are presenting a person to the world, whether we are aware of it or not,” Chrisman-Campbell said. “Be aware of that, and then be aware that this is what makes us human. This is what makes us glamorous. This is something that we are all we are. We are all fashion experts, because we all get dressed every day.”
