Lucy Kellaway: I don’t believe we can be authentic at work

Lucy Kellaway is associate editor of the Financial Times where she writes an award-winning management column that is also syndicated in The Irish Times. Her weekly column pokes fun at management fads and jargon, while celebrating the ups and downs of office life.

She is the author of three books: Sense and Nonsense in the Office, Who Moved My Blackberry? and The Real Office: All the Office Questions You Never Dared to Ask.

Kellaway is in Dublin on October 19th to speak at the Gloss magazine's Look the Business event in association with Vodafone. The popular networking and fashion event will be attended by more than 1,000 senior businesswomen.

How has your business style evolved over the years?

I have been in the workforce for a good 35 years. You’d think I’d have worked out what to wear, but I am almost as confused as I was when I started. I began my career working for JP Morgan. I was a scruffy student transplanted on to Wall Street with no idea what to wear and was taken aside by the head of HR pointing out that I musn’t wear pants. I thought she meant underpants but she meant trousers.

So I looked at the other women and saw it was perfectly simple. They all went to Brooks Brothers and bought navy blue suits and button-down shirts, so I did exactly the same. It was brilliant because for the only time in my working life I knew what to wear every day. As journalists we’re really scruffy but there are occasions when you really mustn’t be scruffy. . . I’ve always been struggling a bit with clothes and I do better on some days than others.

Does a work uniform mitigate against individuality and authenticity?

Have you ever met an authentic banker? I am totally opposed to this idea of authenticity at work. What does it mean to be yourself? For me it means the self that I am in my jeans in the garden. All work is pretence . . . the trick is finding something to do that doesn’t involve bending yourself out of shape intolerably. For me banking was bending too far. I don’t believe we can be authentic at work because if I’m really authentic maybe I can’t be bothered to work at all. At work you have to be nice to people whether you like them or not. I don’t think we do ourselves a favour if we pretend we are authentic.

That said, if you are wearing clothes that you just feel totally weird in, that’s not going to help you. It’s kind of like a giant game of dress up but you mustn’t dress up in something that stretches the imagination too far and is just too implausible for you. A lot of us are confused about clothes but getting it right at work is important and makes you feel better.

You changed your outfit onstage while speaking at a conference recently?

I was trying to prove the point about authenticity. I was in front of 600 Prada-clad bankers in Singapore – the whole theme of the conference was authenticity. I wanted to prove the real me was not appropriate to stand on a stage. The real me was in jeans and Birkenstocks and they wouldn’t have listened to a word I said dressed like that. I pitched up in the jeans and Birks and proceeded to put on a Diane von Furstenberg dress over the the top, which is the right sort of thing to wear, and took my jeans off onstage. Unfortunately the transaction was difficult and I ended up flashing my knickers so I don’t recommend you try it. No outfit changes on stage ever.

Where do you stand on the high heels at work question?

It’s completely outrageous that women should be required to wear shoes that are very, very uncomfortable. However high heels are an interesting one because they help me be inauthentic in the right way. So if I want to feel a bit more powerful and a bit in control, wearing heels helps me. It makes me physically a bit taller. Yeah, sure, it makes me a bit unnatural but the slight discomfort in my shoes is reminding me to mind my Ps and Qs.

How do high-profile women such as Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama use clothes to send messages about themselves?

If you look at all of those women, they have been brilliantly styled. They have come up with something that is a sort of image construction that projects something about them that they want to have projected. The whole Hillary Clinton pant-suit thing I think has been brilliant. But the idea that this is really them is nonsense. They are public figures and with the help of wardrobe consultants they’ve developed a look that is the right thing given the jobs they hold.

What outfit do you wear when you are trying to impress in a corporate environment?

I have a Diane von Furstenberg dress that is now about five years old but which fits properly, is never creased and, because it has long sleeves, I don’t need a jacket to wear on top of it.

If you could steal one woman’s work wardrobe, who would it be and why?

I wouldn’t steal their wardrobe, but I would steal their hair. The locks I most covet are Nicola Mendleson – she’s head of Facebook in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She has gorgeous blond locks.

What is your biggest bugbear when it comes to business attire for both men and women?

Men look ridiculous in suits with no tie. Women going to business meetings with ludicrously loud and flashy handbags.

In conversation with Róisín Ingle