Olivia Pope – Photo credit: hellogiggles.com

I love the idea of style, everywhere, anywhere, at all times. If it were up to me, we’d live in style, not just for some vain, purely materialistic purpose, but for the currency of well-being it brings to our lives. Even at work, even when the air-tight month end deadlines could make us care less about whether our right shoe matches the left, or whether we look like we’ve gotten dressed out of a suitcase. Even when it’s cool not to care about style, because we supposedly have more “substance” than that.

As many of us tread the professional waters of our professional lives, we try as much as we can to be mindful to match our shoes, comb our hair and generally look presentable. Some even make it a mission to look their absolute best, upping the ante when it comes to office style, creating new categories of office fashion pedigrees as they christen the most expensive must-haves when it comes to work fashion. Yet even in the midst of this whole “being careful about your appearance” culture, there are still some style mistakes some of us make without even realizing:

1. Mistakenly thinking style is just about what you wear! Your office fashion may be on point, yet you may still lack in the way you present yourself to your managers and peers. Style is about knowing who you are, what looks best on you, what is appropriate for which circumstances, and generally how to carry yourself and adapt to your surroundings. So as you’re impatiently waiting on your tax refund to overhaul your work wardrobe, pause and think about who you really are, what you really want, especially out of a job or career, and let that guide your sense of style at work.
2. Being inconsistent in your approach to style. Are you the woman who dons a Prada suit one day, only to show up in distressed jeans and a tee the next? Unless your company is uber-versatile when it comes to dress codes (or favors changing personalities), inconsistency in your approach to style can confuse others and hurt your image at work, especially if you’re in a position of leadership. So while you don’t have to wear the same suit in three different colors, flip-flopping between ultra-conservative and grunge, not so much!
3. Forgetting about your direct surroundings! Style is not about pretty clothes (refer to item#1). If you’re decked out on the daily, and your cube looks like a remnant of World War II, we have a problem (well, you do!). Approach who you are, what you do and where you do it with neatness and…style!
4. Producing sloppy work! Whether you’re aware of it, you’re building a brand at work! Producing sloppy work just shows you don’t care, and you don’t pay attention to the way your work is done, received and/or perceived. A big component of style is projecting positive results too…
5. Dressing for the position you want, not for who you are! You’ve heard it, you should not dress for your current position but rather for the one you want. Yet, grabbing clothes and shoes off a mannequin, and putting on a persona to fit some self-assigned ideal, is not style, it’s impersonation. As much as you may want to dress for the position you want, don’t forget to infuse your style with your own essence. Wear that suit, but add a hip (but not too hip) necklace to it.  You can still have swagger and succeed…
6. Letting your looks precede you! There’s so much you can tell about yourself just by the way you carry yourself, the way you dress (or the way you choose not to dress), and the general way you present yourself to the world, especially the corporate world. Yet nothing beats showing the real you, even in a corporate world where most put on a facade and pretty much “fake the funk”. Now there’s a difference between faking it “till you make it, and purposely or not omitting to show the real you. Don’t let your style precede you, let it speak for the real “you”!
7. Or having your style just show the most “blah” version of yourself! There’s a reason why you put on a suit to interview for a job, or scour the blogs (hopefully this one) to figure out what to wear to the office holiday party. You want to show yourself in the best light possible. Opting for work style options that are boring, “blah”, and don’t show who you are only works to cast a shadow on you. You don’t have to don sequins to the office, but you’re allowed to sparkle a little…
8. Not respecting others’ style (or others): You may think your brand-spakin’ new Birkin bag just catapulted you into high society, yet that doesn’t give you permission to look down on anyone else’s  Coach purse. Respect others; that includes who they are, the way they carry themselves, and the way they choose to dress or present themselves. That nerdy-looking gal with a bit of a grungy style may just be the next female Mark Zuckerberg, or may very well be the highly-sought after investor the whole company has been talking about. As my grandma would say, if you ain’t got anything positive to say (or contribute, or add to the Universe), you know…
9. Refusing to let your style evolve: Working Girl was an awesome movie, and a great flashback into 90’s fashion and the era of padded shoulders. No offense here, but moving with the times is not only good for your wardrobe, it can also do wonders for your career. Don’t get me wrong, the office is not where you should be experimenting with the latest fashion trends (please stay away from distressed jeans and blue-streaked hair). Yet placing yourself out of the 90”s style wise may help you connect better with millennial colleagues, and even tap into new, more modern business opportunities…
10. Last but not least, thinking you can get away without any sense of style whatsoever! There is no such a thing as bad or good style. Yet not having any sense of style attacks your very identity. It’s not just about what you wear, but the culture you bring in through the way you carry yourself. Not knowing who you are, what you bring to the plate, and what your particular, unique cultural sense of style is, can only hurt you. It’s ok to show who you are…

What other style mistakes have you, or others, made at work?

The Corporate Sis.