English has many expressions related to clothes. Two common ones are: “Dress for the job you want, not for the job you have” and, simply, “Dress for success.”

Dress to impress

Tara Luizzi is a personal stylist in Washington, D.C. Through her company, Tara Styles DC, she teaches her clients to find the clothing styles that work best for their bodies, careers and lifestyles. Luizzi says that, like it or not, other people size us up by the way we look. In other words, they make a judgment about us even before we speak. And part of what they are considering is what we choose to wear. “My feeling is that you don’t have a second chance to make a great first impression. So I think it is very important to have a look that’s pulled-together and conveys who you are and your status of life, I guess.”

Do nice clothes make you work better?

But choosing the right clothes is not just about impressing others. A recent study suggests that people who are dressed more formally perform better at some work tasks. A task was to use big picture thinking to solve a problem. The men in suits were more able to think about the big picture, the way a boss would.

Clothes and feelings

When you feel confident in yourself, I think you have a better day. So I use clothing as the armor(盔甲) to the world. If you dress in something you love or you feel great in, you’re going to walk in with more confidence and you can make more money.