- Whether we're looking at the Maori warriors,
or we look at cultures that dye their hair,
or they wear their hair in some special way,
all cultures fixate on appearance.
The ornate nature of how we attend to our bodies
is a use of energy and time, which obviously has importance.
The question that I'm often asked is,
well what should I wear?
You, Mr. Navarro, you're always wearing a suit.
I'm comfortable wearing a suit,
but in many places now rarely is that the case.
You can now go into a town in the United States
and possibly not see one person wearing a suit.
But I can tell you that from every study
that's ever been done, we prefer people
that are well-groomed and well-dressed.
[dynamic music]
In the 1980s, you had women
with these very padded shoulders,
men with padded shoulders, you had the big hair,
you had a lot of blue lining of the eyes.
Power clothing has always been with us.
You could not go into Queen Isabella's court
unless you were wearing certain attire.
The same thing in the court of Versailles.
A few months ago, I was in a studio in California
and no one there was wearing a suit.
Everybody was in jeans.
But think about it,
what happens during the Golden Globes?
What happens during the Academy Awards?
All of a sudden, you don't see anybody in jeans.
You see some really elaborate attire.
Why are they doing that?
Because we are drawn to this, we expect this,
it communicates something.
Just because we dress down to sit around in the office
doesn't mean it's always appropriate.
The fact that we see people dressing up for these events,
that we see them dressing up to go out.
What it indicates is that this is part of our heritage,
and it has meaning and significance.
[serious music]
Back in the time of Pericles,
what did the winners of the Olympics wear?
They wore a wreath around their head.
All that sacrifice, all that running
was merely to be crowned with a wreath.
That nonverbal, that little piece of property
that you got to walk around with, spoke volumes.
The Native Americans who would wear the feather headdress.
The kings in Europe that literally wore crowns.
Places in the Pacific Islands where only royalty
were allowed to wear special headdresses.
And when they were first contacted in the 1700s,
the mariners from a mile out could tell who was the chief
based on the attire and how they were groomed.
No different than in the 1400s,
the Conquistadors had seen this in Mesoamerica.
There was no question when Cortes
and others landed as to who was in charge,
who were the leaders, who were the followers.
It was based on their body language,
how they carried themselves, how they were groomed,
the clothing they wore.
In the time of Henry V, all the way through Henry VIII,
there were strict guidelines as to if you were a duke
you were supposed to wear this kind of clothing,
and this color.
If you were a knight you were entitled to this color.
And of course, certain colors, purple in particular,
was reserved for the king and so forth.
[bright music]
The beauty dividend is controversial,
but you can't ignore the research.
What the researchers did was
they went through a high school yearbook,
and they looked at high school pictures,
and they had different people look at 'em and say, okay,
which ones do you think are handsome?
Or which ones do you think are beautiful?
And then they went and they found these people.
And eight, 10 years later,
one of the things they found that those people
who were selected from a yearbook as being handsome
or beautiful were earning anywhere from eight to 10% more
than the same students in that yearbook.
I'm often asked, maybe I'm not particularly great looking,
And I know that there's this concept
of the beauty dividend.
But you know, in my studies,
what we find is that actually can be fixed,
and it can be fixed really easy, with a makeover.
Change your hairdo, change what you wear,
come in dressed differently, appearing differently.
And that satisfies this concept of the beauty dividend.
Now, all of a sudden people view us differently
and with greater respect.
We know that faces that are symmetrical
tend to be perceived as more beautiful.
And I'm often told by experts that somebody, for instance,
like Kate Moss, who has a face
where there's a lot of symmetry, contributes to that beauty.
What experimenters have done is they will take a baby
that's four or five months old
and they will look at at different pictures.
And what's interesting is that even at that young age,
five six months of age, a baby will spend more time
looking at a beautiful face than perhaps one that isn't.
There is a beauty dividend in the same way
that there's also a height dividend.
Malcolm Gladwell tells us in his books
that about 3% of the American population,
males, are above 6'2", but they account for about
38% of senior executives on Wall Street.
It's not that taller people are smarter.
What happens is, we perceive these people differently.
For instance, in presidential debates,
the reason why they're spaced at nine feet apart,
usually, it's because anything closer than that
then you can see the height difference between candidates.
What if I'm a short person?
I know giants in industry that are not very tall,
but they compensate that by the exquisite abilities
and skill sets that they bring.
All these things can be overcome.
When I do coaching, especially with executives,
and I say, please stop worrying about what you look like
as a result of how you were born.
Let's take what we have
and let's see what we can do with it.
[futuristic music]
One of the things that we often see with attire
is obviously we wanna shape perceptions.
But many times we see what's called perception management.
And you certainly see this during trials.
Well, one of the most recent ones
was the case of Elizabeth Holmes.
- [Reporter] Any comments, Elizabeth?
- [Reporter] Any comments?
- During the time that she was in business
and she was trying to grow her empire
you saw her dressed very stoically.
She dressed with a black turtleneck like Steve Jobs,
and her hair was straight down, and so forth.
And this is when she's trying to get investors.
Cut to the chase, she's arrested.
Now she goes to trial.
And look how she's softened up,
her hair softened up, there's curls.
The hair is changed in color.
Her attire is completely different
than what she wore before.
Including the fact that one of the bags
that she took to court was a diaper bag.
This is perception management.
Does it work?
Maybe sometimes it does.
Most of the time, I think people see through that.
But the fact that we use these things is for a reason.
And that is that it does affect perceptions.
And with a trial, maybe that perception
is useful with just one person.
And that holdout could make the difference in your case.
[dynamic music]
When the topic of trust comes up, consistency in behavior,
consistency in style becomes a big factor.
What is trust?
Trust is our ability to relax
because we know they will not let us down,
because consistently they behave in certain ways.
And so we don't worry that they're gonna show up on time.
They always do.
We don't worry that they're gonna show up
with clean clothes.
They do.
That's consistency.
Consistency contributes to what we consider trust.
[bright music]
There are many cultures
in which we have coming of age rituals.
And you certainly see this in Latin America,
and in Europe, where you would have these debutant balls.
Where the young women, usually 13 to 15,
would be introduced to society.
And from that moment on they're no longer children.
They are eligible for courtship.
In Latin America, and in many parts of the world,
you have the quinceaneras, where at the age of 15,
they too are introduced to the world.
[all cheering]
This flamboyant productions of the colorful attire,
it is the annunciation of the family formally saying,
please welcome our daughter into society.
And that from this point forward
society is to treat her and respect her differently.
[futuristic music]
You may have noticed that on social media
there's an inordinate amount of dressing up.
I'm astonished at these young people on TikTok,
how much makeup they wear, how much eyeliner,
the eyelashes that they wear.
Obviously they have been getting it, that this matters.
So whether you're in a virtual environment,
whether you're on Zoom, on Skype,
or on TikTok, or any of these things,
what we're seeing with these trendsetters
is this obvious need to dress better,
and to wear makeup to stand out.
They're in essence saying, this is important.
And if you have 3 million, 5 million, 40 million followers,
there may just be something to that.
[serious music]
[all singing]
Some things will never change,
that we will use clothing attire and our presence
to communicate who we are, what we are,
what we believe in, and to speak about ourselves.