I’m in the latest AAMI Rhonda and Ketut television commercial, the social butterfly in the long blue dress!
And here’s a close-up of the dress I wore in this school reunion ad … lots of bling, sequins and shine!
A wonderful, generous friend recently posted me this brand new dress, with the tags still attached, after raiding her wardrobe and clearing out goodies she isn’t wearing.
Shortly after, the AAMI television commercial came up and the wardrobe girls popped me in it. I was so relieved, given some of the 1980s taffeta dresses they were looking to put on poor, unsuspecting victims!
What a wardrobe department actually looks for
Standing in a holding room while professionals decide what you wear is an education, and the criteria are not what most people assume.
They are not looking for the most beautiful dress. They are looking for the one that reads fastest.
It has to be legible in two seconds. A commercial gives each person a fraction of a second on screen. An outfit with lots of small detail turns to visual mush; one clear shape and one clear colour survives.
It has to hold its shape while you move. Anything that creases, clings or rides up gets rejected immediately, because you will be doing the same three seconds forty times.
It cannot fight the other people in the frame. Wardrobe is dressing a group, not a person. That is why they think in blocks of colour rather than individual outfits.
Every one of those translates directly to real life. If you have ever wondered why an outfit photographs badly despite looking fine in the mirror, it is nearly always the first one, too much small detail, no clear shape.
Being visible is a choice you make before you arrive
Most of the crews on commercials, television shows and movies are male dominated and the fact is, if the director likes how you’re looking he’ll put you up front and centre.
A couple of times when the wardrobe girls have put me in conservative outfits, I’ve missed out on good camera action. What can I say. I’ve never been a wall flower.
That sounds like a story about television, and it is really a story about every room you walk into.
I am not suggesting anyone dress for the approval of a director, or of anyone else. But there is a plain, unglamorous truth underneath it: what you wear decides how quickly people notice you, and that is either working for you or it is not. Beige and cautious is a choice with consequences, the same as a long blue sequinned dress is.
The women I work with who feel invisible at work, at events, in rooms full of people, are almost never dressed badly. They are dressed quietly, in clothes chosen to avoid comment rather than to invite it. One clear colour changes it completely.
The dress cost nothing at all
Here is my favourite part of the story, and the reason it belongs on this blog rather than a showreel.
That dress was free. A friend cleared out her wardrobe, posted me something she was never going to wear, and it ended up on national television.
Nobody watching that ad knew or cared what it cost. Nobody ever does. The camera cannot tell the difference between a $400 dress and a hand-me-down that fits well, catches the light and suits the person wearing it, and neither, in real life, can anybody at a party.
Which is the thing I have been saying here for fourteen years, now with a television commercial as evidence.
(This is from 2013. The ad has long since finished its run and is no longer online anywhere, so you will have to take my word for the dress, which is still one of my favourite things I have ever been given.)
If you have an event coming up and no idea what to wear to it, or a wardrobe full of quiet clothes and a growing suspicion that is the problem. That is exactly what a styling session is for.
I hope you guys are having a cosy, restful weekend. And now you’re Looking Good Girls.
“He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord,” Psalm 112:7.