Customer Reviews

Beyond Business Casual: What To Wear To Work If You Want To Get Ahead

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Ann Marie Sabath has written an excellent guide to one of the thorniest issues in business today--what to wear to work. The advent of business casual in the 1990's created a dilemma that lives on in the business world. Everyone from the CEO of the company to the lowliest clerk is trying to figure out how to dress. Ms. Sabath, with her 13 years of experience, has written on this subject in her uasual direct and easy-to-read approach. Her question and answer style takes the reader through all aspects of workplace attire from defining business casual to deciding what to wear to the holiday party. This book is appropriate for everyone entering the business world as well as those who have been on the job for years.

This book is certainly easy to read and presents some very solid advice. It covers a wide variety of topics from heel heights to skirt lengths, from the rules about wearing cologne to protocol for wearing nose rings at work(don't!). However, I was disappointed that it contained not a single illustration, as I would think that a book purporting to help people learn how to dress for work might include a few sketches or photos...a picture being worth a thousand words, you know. In addition, several topics (the skirt length issue, for example) were repeated numerous times, which was annoying to say the least. Finally, I found the pagination system to be deceptive at best. The text STARTS on page 15 and the last few pages of the book are devoted to things like "about the author" and an index. By my count, you really only get 185 pages of text.

Self-help books tend to be either insightful or dumb. Author Ann Marie Sabath manages to accomplish both results in the same book. At times, the book provides useful examples on topics that are truly unclear, but other times it tells you to wear your goulashes in the snow. If you are willing to shift through some incredible obviousness, then you will find enough pearls. The lists of common mistakes that start each chapter are particularly helpful. If you do nothing else, read these lists and find out if you are committing a dressing gaff. If you can honestly say that you have not or never will commit any of the mistakes on the lists then you are ready to navigate the business casual workplace confidently.

Provides information about attire that other books lack. Sabath gives the history of clothes, which helps a lot to put all the articles of clothing into perspective. She explains about how the clothes are made and what makes an article possessing or lacking in quality. She has illustrations to assist in the narrative points. She even gives complete advice on how to shop for the clothing. This book is far better than all the others that purport to cover the same subject.

Beyond Business Casual: What To Wear To Work If You Want To Get Ahead explains what to wear on the job when there's no written dress code; the dress faux pas most commonly made in the business world today; what "business casual" really is; how to add clout to what you say by what you wear; and how to dress when you're in doubt about what to wear. Very highly recommended for anyone concerned with "dressing for success", Beyond Business Casual is formatted as a series of questions and answers, and offers a wealth of real-life examples and illustrations drawn from Ann Marie Sabath's business attire workshops and her years of experience in consulting with members of the business community on how to look professional.