Can what you wear influence your success? As living proof that one size does not fit all (I'm 6' 7" tall), finding clothes has always been a challenge for me. Even in the "big and tall men's shop" it turns out that most of the clothes are for big men (horiizontally rather than vertically big).
That's why I was interested to see a post on the 99u.com site about the influence of clothes on our atittudes and behaviour, and thus ultimately on our success. In this case it's not what you wear when you are meeting with an agent or a publisher or producer, it's what you wear when you're doing your work:
"Consider the findings of a study published last year by the Kellogg School of Management. They showed that students were far more accurate on tests of attentional focus and sustained concentration while wearing the white lab coat of a scientist. Crucially, spending time thinking about the lab coat didn’t have this benefit, it had to be worn."
That raises some questions:
What should we wear to be more creative? All black? Or would that just make us fee like people who want to be seen as part of the creative crowd without necessarily doing anything creative?
When we turn from creating to critiquing our own work, would it be a good idea to change to a more businesslike outfit?
One simple aspect of this I've heard (and experienced) is that if you work from home, getting dressed as though you're going out makes it easier to get down to work. When I turn to critiquing I find it useful to change location, usually just from my home office to the living room, and to change my posture from sitting up to sitting back, so the idea that changing clothes could be helpful doesn't seem that much of a stretch.
You can also get some useful effects from props--we'll look at those in the next post.