What Power Dressing in 2016 Really Means

Think about power dressing. Start by considering shoulder pads. In the 1980s, women tried to extend their professional clout by forging a masculine silhouette. Double-breasted suits obscured actual breasts, while pinstripes were like natural camouflage, allowing the wearer to blend seamlessly into the red-blooded environs of the boardroom. Well, not quite seamlessly.

That’s because a woman trying to dress the way a man would dress if he were a woman was a confusing (and condescending) proposition on its own. And when hair and makeup came into play, it actually backfired. In the name of power dressing, women began piling their hair into scaffold-like updos, practically giving it a head start up the corporate ladder. They may not have gone to a barber, but a stripe of blush revealed cheekbones as sharp as a razor’s edge, and aggressive shades on eyes and lips were the makeup equivalent of an executive decision: unflinching and unapologetic. Clothes may have made the man,but makeup armored the woman inside men’s clothing.

Times have changed. As women reach the top of every profession, their desire to be one of the guys is as dead as the three-martini lunch. If a woman wears a tie, it’s only because she doesn’t have to.

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Allure Fashion Director Rachael Wang shares her own personal style:

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But the real leap forward in the evolution of power dressing is in the hair and makeup. Think about that. We’ve gotten to a place where it’s possible to display both femininity and authority, where prettiness doesn’t equal weakness, where you can lean into your work as successfully as you can lean into wearing long, wavy hair while you’re doing it. There may be no more famous a poster child—make that a poster woman—of this pivot in our national psyche than the formidable president of J.Crew, Jenna Lyons. Her famously tomato- red lips represent the type of creative insight—and, going out on a limb here, business acumen—that generates billions in revenue. More evidence that the women who indulge their preferences, and even dare to have fun with beauty, mean business.

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