NYC Speaker Attire

Pants: Express
Shirt: Target
Jacket: Ann Taylor
Shoes: Christian Siriano
Bracelets: Claire’s
Earrings: Charming Charlie
Necklace: Charming Charlie
Bag: Adora Bags

One of the hardest things about speaking in front of an audience, especially speaking about fashion- and blog-related topics, is figuring out what to wear. Of course, as a teacher I now go through this trauma a little bit every day when I stand in front of my closet and consider each outfit with the context of standing in from of my students. But for a conference the nervous factor is magnified a hundredfold.

When speaking before an audience there are so many things to consider about the outfit and what it is communicating. You need to seem knowledgeable on the subject matter. You need to come across as current, modern. You need to be approachable so that people feel comfortable engaging and asking questions. You need to be comfortable in the whole outfit so that you don’t spend too much mental power rethinking, worrying, adjusting, etc… You need to dress according to the social norm of the conference, which personally I think can be one of the hardest elements. You need to consider the style or tone of the place in which you are speaking – a Midwest high school classroom is very different from an FIT classroom for a fashion conference.

So, after a lot of debate, numerous outfit try-ons and mirror selfies, I opted with this combination for the Fashion Intelligence Symposium in Manhattan. (You can check out the basics of my presentation on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers.) It was comfortable, modern, easy to move in, a little fashion forward without being insane, approachable but still commanding. Plus it was a great outfit to transition from the conference to dinner with some blogger friends, which is where these photos were all taken. (I still don’t have any from the conference itself yet.)

NYC Speaker Attire is a post from: ModlyChic