This week we visited Smart Works Newcastle, a charity that supports unemployed women in their search to find work through an interview preparation service and an interview dressing service in which clients are styled an outfit suitable for an interview for free.
For our styling challenge, we were split into groups and given different made-up clients with a description about them like their name, age, job role, height and fashion likes and dislikes.
My group was given Tatyana, a 30-year-old woman who was 5 foot 3, applying for a job as an admin assistant who wanted to wear a trouser suit (or blazer and same colour trousers). Her colour preference was neutrals/beige, sizes were 8-10 and for shoes, she was a size 4 but didn’t mind a heel.
Based on this criteria we searched through the several racks of clothing trying to put together an outfit. The stylists at Smart Works were extremely helpful and lent us a helping hand when we needed it whilst providing tips on how they choose an outfit.
Ultimately we decided on a white silk sleeveless top, a cropped white blazer, beige trousers, black heeled boots, a maroon handbag, minimal gold jewellery and a patterned scarf. We thought this outfit complied with the clients requests but added some stand out features with the bag and scarf. Additionally, the colours align with the season of spring making the outfit quite timely.
There were many elements we had to consider when putting together this outfit such as the client’s height, we had a few trouser options that we decided against as they would have been too long. For the same reason, we went with heeled boots to give her more height and also to make her look more elevated and confident. We chose the bag to add a bit of colour to the plainness of the outfit and the scarf as the colours matched well with the beige of the pants and the red of the bag.
What would you wear to a job interview? Let us know on our socials @Fashion_North
