3 Takeaways from Pro-Stylist Duo Beckie + Martina

I recently attended a fun event hosted by The United Women in Business Foundation (UWIB) in partnership with Kate Spade New York at the kate spade Rockefeller Center global flagship store. (Side note: If you’re a fan of the kate spade brand, this shop is worth checking out! It’s a crazy-beautiful explosion of colors and glitter and gold and silver and New York City cheer and wonder!) The evening was dedicated to #girlbosses looking to learn more about dressing for success. Professional style tips came courtesy of NYC-based stylist-duo Beckie + Martina.

Here are my three takeaways from the event:

1. Clothes matter

Beckie and Martina began their presentation by talking about the importance of first impressions. They quickly sold the champagne-sipping crowd of ambitious young women clad in mostly black office wear on the importance of wardrobe by citing that a whopping 55% of a first impression is based on physical appearance. (More on first impressions here.) That means dress the part, boss babes! Take your appearance seriously. If you need help with your work wardrobe, but professional stylists aren’t accessible to you at the moment, pick your most stylish friend and offer to clean her apartment a few times in exchange for style advice, a closet audit, and a personal shopping trip or two!

2. High-low is the way to go

Most of us are money-conscious; while we don’t mind splurging from time to time, we also want to pay rent and have some decent food in the fridge. Financial priorities can sometimes make it challenging to curate the kind of professional wardrobe we dream of wearing. In the interest of being smart with money and smart with clothes, Beckie and Martina advocated for high-low dressing; that is, strategically mixing expensive pieces (high) with budget pieces (low) to create killer looks for less bucks. So, go ahead and invest in these pieces, and maybe a great blazer or two, a power suit, and a classic pencil skirt, and then hit your fave thrift shops and resale boutiques for fun pieces you don’t want to spend too much on.

3. Make friends with accessories

Beckie and Martina were big on accessories. Both were wearing at least a few pieces of eye-catching jewelry, and that bit of bling made these glam ladies look pretty darn fabulous. They talked about using accessories as a way to elevate basic outfits from boring to next-level luxe. My collection of accessories is definitely wanting, and kate spade always has a fabulous offering of fun, statement-making jewelry. You know what that means! Time to go shopping!