Your Public Best - Lillian Brown [20]
The third man I gave a voice lesson to that day was a former salesman who had been promoted to become a public relations spokesperson for a major corporation. He always wore expensive suits, but often with too much jewelry. That day, his suit was a conservative gray with lighter-gray pinstripes, but he was wearing a tie with a paisley pattern of green and white. To make matters worse, he sported a silk pocket square that matched the tie, and he had folded it into points that stuck out quite far from his pocket. If he had just changed his tie and choice of pocket square, he would have looked very distinguished and a suitable representative of his company.
The lesson here is that it’s not just your choice of suit (all three of these suits were fine), or even your tie that makes for a tasteful appearance— your pocket square, small thing as it is, can enhance or detract from the overall image that you are presenting.
If in doubt, it is better to wear no pocket square rather than one that detracts from your appearance.
By contrast, last year I caught a gentleman in a TV makeup room tucking a gray wool thing into his suit pocket before he was about to be interviewed on a talk show. He noticed that I was looking at what he was doing, and he said, “Oh, you caught me. I always wear a pocket handkerchief, and I discovered this morning in the hotel that I’d left them all at home, so I’m using this instead.” And he pulled out of his pocket the object, which turned out to be a clean, well-folded ... sock. (Actually, it looked fine!)
Jewelry. Men should choose any jewelry that they wear very carefully. For example, if you wear a lapel pin that denotes an organization or whatever, it may flash light as you move, distracting your listeners. Also people will constantly be trying to figure out what it denotes, if anything. Thus, it is usually a good idea not to wear such a pin when you are appearing under bright lights.
Watches and rings should not be flashy or diamond-studded. If you like such jewelry, wear them once you are out of public scrutiny.
Avoid wearing necklaces. Even the open-shirt-collar Hollywood crowd and singers should consider not wearing them on TV or before large audiences.
Tie clasps generally look dated and usually flash in the light. If you feel that you need a tie clasp, try a tie tack, such as a single gray pearl, instead. Collar pins, on the other hand, look wonderful on some men.
For those men who sport a single earring, consider taking it off when you appear on TV—unless you’re in a rock video!
Emergency Kit. Consider assembling a kit for emergency situations. Pack a pair of long, black socks, a tried-and-true TV tie, a gray shirt, a disposable razor, a comb, and a compact of translucent blotting powder.
MAKEUP FOR WOMEN
Makeup has only one purpose: to enhance your natural beauty. It should maximize your good features and subtly diminish any problem areas. Your makeup should be a miracle of understatement and should not attract attention to itself. It should be becoming to your hair, skin, and eye coloring, and it should present you at your very best.
In Washington, D.C., where I live, a certain society hostess is well known not only for her wonderful parties, but also for her overdone makeup. She seems to spend a lot of time before a major party putting on several layers of the stuff, which ends up only seeming to cover up and distort what natural beauty she possesses. Other women in town are always talking behind her back about her bad taste in makeup, which includes drawn-in