Dressing for Impact: The Power of Personal Style in Leadership with Melanie Lippman
Episodes You Might Also Like
Featured
Description
Confidence is one of your greatest assets as a leader, and the way you present yourself plays a significant role in how that confidence is perceived. But as a woman in a professional setting, you’ve likely encountered conflicting expectations about how to dress, expectations that may feel misaligned with who you are. How do you define a personal style that reflects your leadership presence while staying authentic to yourself?
Melanie Lippman, CEO of Amplify Image Consultancy, is an image and personal branding consultant dedicated to helping ambitious women develop a signature style that aligns with their executive presence. With a background in fashion and neuroscience-based coaching, Melanie empowers women to embrace their confidence, elevate their personal brand, and step into leadership with authenticity.
In this episode of Branding Room Only, Melanie shares how personal style influences executive presence, why confidence is a key component of a powerful brand, and how women can navigate the unspoken rules of professional dress without sacrificing self-expression. She also unpacks the deeper mindset shifts needed to break free from outdated style norms and dress with intention, authority, and impact.
Chapters
1:15 – How Melanie defines personal branding, her favorite quote, and the songs that get her in the right mindset
5:21 – The impact of cultural expectations on confidence and style, and how imposter syndrome plays into it
10:31 – Melanie’s journey from the fine jewelry industry to image consultancy and why personal style is a key leadership tool
13:06 – The role of introspection in defining a personal style that aligns with your values and goals
21:31 – How trust, authority, and brand perception are shaped by what you wear
24:49 – The biggest style challenges women face in leadership and male-dominated industries
28:54 – How Melanie helps clients embrace authenticity and build confidence through their wardrobe
37:37 – Common style missteps that hold women back professionally
45:36 – Advice for elevating your executive presence and making an impact through your style
48:13 – Melanie’s love for personal development, why mindset work is a core part of her coaching, and the unique magic she brings into a room
Connect With Melanie Lippman
Melanie Lippman is the CEO of Amplify Image Consultancy. She studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) as a teenager, where she focused on fashion merchandising and cosmetic and fragrance marketing. Then, she returned to FIT to receive certifications in Image and Color Consulting to help teach women how to style their best lives. Prior to starting her business, she worked for esteemed fashion industry brands such as Marie Claire, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Neiman Marcus.
As a highly sought-after image coach, Melanie specializes in empowering ambitious women to build a personal style reflecting their executive presence and inner confidence. She combines her decades of styling experience with neuroscience-based coaching and guides women leaders to step into a worthiness mindset about clothes that command attention and body self-assurance. With her help, professional women can use their style as a tool to increase their visibility, attracting and connecting with clients.
Amplify Image Consultancy | LinkedIn | Instagram | TikTok | Facebook
Mentioned In Dressing for Impact: The Power of Personal Style in Leadership with Melanie Lippman
Melanie’s Free Masterclass: Stop Hiding in the Shadows of Your Career: Elevate Your Executive Presence & Dress for Impact
Curated Resources from Paula:
How to Assemble and Leverage Your Personal Board of Directors
2025 Intention and Goal Setting Webinar
Sign up for Paula’s Upcoming Webinars
Learn More About Paula's Personal Branding Strategy Session Offer
Subscribe to The Branding Room Only on YouTube
Sponsor for this episode
This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.
PGE Consulting Group LLC is dedicated to providing a practical hybrid of professional development training and diversity solutions. From speaking to consulting to programming and more, all services and resources are carefully tailored for each partner. Paula Edgar’s distinct expertise helps engage attendees and create lasting change for her clients.
To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Paula Edgar: Welcome to The Branding Room Only Podcast where we share career stories, strategies, and lessons learned on how industry leaders and influencers have built their personal brands. Now, let's get started with the show.
Hi everyone, it's Paula, your host of Branding Room Only. I'm very excited for my conversation today with Melanie Lippman. She's the CEO of Amplify Image Consultancy and she's a highly sought-after image coach who specializes in empowering ambitious women to build a personal style that reflects their executive presence and inner confidence. She combines her decades of experience in styling with neuroscience-based coaching, guiding women to step into the mindset of a leader who feels worthy of the clothes that command attention and body self-assurance.
Melanie's transformative approach enables clients to align who they are internally with an impactful outer image, making success and confidence a part of their daily wardrobe. You know I love that. Melanie, welcome to the Branding Room.
Melanie Lippman: I am so happy to be here, Paula. Thank you for having me.
Paula Edgar: I am excited for this as well. Let's jump in. What is personal branding to you?
Melanie Lippman: Uh, everything, when you walk into a room, people are forming an opinion, whether you like it or not so why not sit in the driver's seat? It's about who you are, your energy, if people like you or people don't like you, it's everything. It goes into—I know you chat about this all the time—your message, it goes into how you show up, who you interact with, what you say or what you don't say, it's all of the things.
Paula Edgar: It's all of the things. Personal branding is all of the things.
Melanie Lippman: There we go.
Paula Edgar: I love it. I love it. Tell me, do you have a favorite quote?
Melanie Lippman: Absolutely. “You're not pizza. Not everyone's going to like you.”
Paula Edgar: Well, even though I just asked you a question, I was like, “I'm not?” I love that. The way you answered the first question and the quote that you chose both bring up something that I don't talk about often on the podcast, but I do think I should be talking about it more, which is likeability is a big part of your personal brand.
It is, and I think that, on the one side where you're saying what is a brand, whether people like you is a part of your brand but to the point of your quote, a good strong personal brand is not trying to have everybody like them.
Melanie Lippman: It's so interesting, I was listening to something. Seth Godin has a new book and he's talking about how Cracker Barrel is not trying to win a Michelin star, we're just not trying to do this. I think part of my success as an entrepreneur and also as a great coach for my clients is being okay to trigger people.
I think as women, we’re so tied into someone liking us and being approved and all of the things that we're not saying the thing and doing the thing that we're meant to do in this world because we're afraid that someone may not like what we're saying. However, sometimes, especially when someone hires you, to make them be the best version of themselves, you're going to have to say something that they may not want to hear or we may act in a way that may actually make someone else feel self-conscious because we're so okay with our side.
Paula Edgar: Yes, which leads into authenticity. I always say there's some kind of magic, or je ne sais quoi about a brand. There are some people who, whether it's a room or a Zoom, as soon as they get into the space, you just know they got something. It's like the difference between yogurt with fruit and just yogurt. There's something else there.
Anyway, we're jumping in. Okay, what is your hype song? Let me explain to you, a hype song could be either when they're going to get full Melanie walking into a room, what is playing in your head, or if you're having a terrible day, what song do you need to play to get you back up to full Melanie?
Melanie Lippman: I have two. Worthy by India Arie. It’s just like if I'm getting in the zone and I need to coach and I need to get on a call, I'm waiting a master class, it so embodies what we're all trying to be and we're all worthy of taking up space and belonging and all the things that we struggle with.
Then when I'm just having a day or I need to get on a call and we need to change my energy, and literally I just had another branding shoot three weeks ago and I was on the top of a garage in Philadelphia parking garage and the photographer is like, “I want you to dance, what song am I putting on?” I just looked at her and I'm like, “Pharrell's Happy?”
Paula Edgar: Yeah, it's such a good song. When you're in a bad mood and you're like, “I'm just unhappy,” you have to be happy to listen to it. It's an instruction and a mantra at the same time. I love that. I love it. I love the songs. All right. Tell me about how you grew up and how you think that might have shaped your brand.
Melanie Lippman: Absolutely. I grew up in Bayside Queens, 25 minutes out of Manhattan. I think that it definitely shaped the way that I grew up, in an upper middle-class-ish family, but there still was that energy of keeping up with the Joneses that happened a lot were Jewish. There's also a lot of that proving stuff that happens within our culture that you're supposed to marry a doctor or a lawyer and you're supposed to have all the right things and you're supposed to be the perfect wife and all of that. So I feel like there's a lot of that that surrounded me.
Then also when it came to showing up and with clothing, I personally absolutely loved getting dressed. My family actually owns an accessory store on Bell Boulevard, Bayside. I grew up, I was like the little girl in the playpen. That's really where I realized that when a woman felt confident in what she was wearing, she could take on the world. When she didn't, she literally can convince herself to absolutely do nothing and say suck.
But even though I knew that, and I saw it from such a young age, I always had that imposter syndrome, not sitting at the cool girl table, feeling the need to prove. I felt like that has been something that has come along with me on my journey when I went into the corporate world and I wasn't a man. It was like, “Oh, there's something wrong with you” sort of thing. Then even coaching my clients and helping them, there’s still that worthiness that sometimes comes up and now my journey has been untethering from that.
Paula Edgar: That's interesting that you say that because do you feel like the, and I'm really grappling right now with imposter syndrome and what it is and if it's a thing or if it's the places and spaces that people are with. Pause on that. But I consider you, I think of you and you're confident.
Oftentimes, there's a misalignment with confidence and imposter syndrome. But I love that I can ask you the question because even folks who may show up as confident may also have challenges that they still have to continually navigate when it comes to that. Any thoughts on that? I wanted to highlight that because if somebody were like, “Does Melanie have imposter syndrome?” I'm like, “No, absolutely not. Goodbye.” But it's important for us to realize that we don't have to show up in the ways that people expect us and that we can BS in on a lot of things too.
Melanie Lippman: Absolutely. I think it always comes to that likeability and do I belong? I think we're all looking for belonging in some way, shape, or form. Are you going to like me? Definitely, I'm very confident in the message that I need to bring, I'm confident how I show up because I've done the inner work. I personally, again, I'm not pizza, and not everyone's going to like me. If you don't like my outfit, that's your problem, not mine sort of thing, but there are little things that will trigger me.
For example, getting off of the topic, I gave a beautiful masterclass two days ago. I enjoyed giving it, I poured into these women. I showed them that them struggling with their wardrobe was something that they could easily help and achieve and that it was a mindset thing. Someone after the master class sent me an email pulling apart my presentation and I felt so good in that presentation and literally, people were texting me, “You were on fire, you were amazing.” There was a minute that I stopped and I paused and I was like, “Did I suck?”
Paula Edgar: Good old negativity bias that we all have. I can tell you 40 things are great and one thing is bad, we will think about that one thing. Yeah, yeah, that resonates for me. I'm no longer in a space where I look at evaluations anymore. In my mind, I'm like, “If I'm giving you full quality, that's what you got. That's what it is.”
I used to have a business partner and we would do things together and she would really be really focused on the evaluations. For me, that made me anxious and it made me show up in a different way than I would normally, but I had to say, some people are just miserable. That's just what it is in a nutshell.
Melanie Lippman: The interesting thing, by the way, I have a coach that I work with, part of it is a lot of the internal and mindset and energy and all of that. We have a friend in common. We're in the same mastermind together. When that happened, what I actually realized is that the way that I was showing up so unapologetically as myself probably triggered this woman. I'm okay with that. That actually has been my journey this year is I'm okay triggering people.
Paula Edgar: Oh, I love that. I love it because, again, not pizza. So, tell me about your career path.
Melanie Lippman: Yeah, so I grew up, obviously, I mentioned in the fashion industry, my family had an accessory store, and I really quickly just realized how confidence is something I just wanted women to feel over and over again. I knew fashion was in my blood. I went to FIT, I graduated. I then went and worked in the fine jewelry industry for 10 years. I represented huge brands and dealt with Neiman Marcus and Harrods and Saks and Barneys when they were around, all huge big brands.
What most people don't realize is the jewelry industry is filled with men in navy blue suits and white hair. We all think it's only the law. So I went in this industry and I at some point felt I like was one [in Shaw] because by the way, I am 5’1 so I am always the shortest person in the room. That's a given. I was usually the youngest woman in the room and usually the only woman in the room and the person who was a female was Anna Wintour. It was nothing like me sort of thing.
I quickly developed this armor of what you thought a woman in luxury should wear, a Chanel bag, Louis Vuittons, like, "Let's go get a Gucci blaze," or, "What's the expectation?" Armored up. It wasn't until my boss one day, I was in her office, we were having a meeting and she called me out. She said, "What's going on here?” “What do you mean? I got my nice little clothes to represent your brands.” She's like, “Why don't you be a little bit more you?” I remember leaving her office and being like, “I don't know who me is.”
Paula Edgar: Mm, wow, yeah.
Melanie Lippman: More than clothes, every single decision, politics, religion, where you live, who you date, what you eat, I was just basically doing what was told and what was expected of me. So when someone said, "Why don't you be more you?" I'm like, "What does that even mean?" And it really took me that awakening to be like, “I need to figure this out in a way that feels good. I need to then do that in my wardrobe,” because I knew that that was a direct reflection. That's where the framework of all of my work even came from was just that journey back to finding or discovering once and for all who I was.
Paula Edgar: I mean, tell me, tell us about the journey when you think about this. Every time someone tells me about the pivot point, it's like a [inaudible], and then what, what are some key things that you think used, did, experienced in order to figure out who you are before you were able to then put it into your clothing.
Melanie Lippman: Yeah, so I was the person, because obsessed with being in fashion, I just loved Vogue and all of those magazines. I interned at Marie Claire when I was in school. I just loved magazines and it was early 2005, maybe. I remember literally doing this self exploration journey of what do I actually like and where do I eat and what are my hobbies? Living in New York, I feel like our hobby is going to nice restaurants.
Paula Edgar: That's correct. That's correct. That is my hobby.
Melanie Lippman: There's nothing wrong with that, whatsoever. But I felt like I was like, “Okay, I'll tell you what's the hot place on Saturday night” sort of thing. I did this whole introspective work of what actually do I like and what am I attracted to and I just figured out what the patterns were and what actually were things that I actually enjoyed and what actually was the thing that was given to me and what the expectation was.
I feel like that's something for my clients that we really work on a lot is what actually is true for you versus what it has become just a universal truth because of your upbringing and that's what has been shown to you.
Paula Edgar: Oh, wow. That just sounds therapy because it sounds like a lot of excavating. I mean, I just know from the work that I do with personal branding with folks that this is probably the hardest part, the self-assessment, self-awareness piece because so often people are lying to themselves.
“I'm wearing this outfit because this is what I'm supposed to be wearing. I speak this way because this is what I'm supposed to be doing.” Then to actually interrogate yourself with someone's help, hopefully, because I couldn't imagine doing it with myself, I'd be like, "I don't know, girl. I don't know."
Melanie Lippman: What do you want me to tell you? I'll tell you.
Paula Edgar: Exactly. I'd be like, "Hi, self. I'm not sure." But doing that seems to me a little scary and I would need to do it with somebody who I felt safer. I'm glad you talk about doing that in tandem with your clients because I just feel like you need somebody to help you to be accountable to you, but also to be there. This is kind of woo-woo but to hold you in that space when you're going through that.
I've had situations where I'm so obsessed with my clothes, loving my clothes so much that having to get rid of my clothes was a painful thing for me. But then I realized that that's little kid Paula who just loved clothes. There's a lot that comes up with that. So yeah, you're doing therapy.
Melanie Lippman: The other thing also that I think is super important is having it be aligned with your values because that's very, very important. I'll do an exercise. It's like a pretty common values exercise is who is a person that you really admire and then why do you admire them and then them having the realization that they would only notice it because it's true for themselves as well.
I think that having the way that you show up when it comes to your branding or clothing or something and realize that it's tied to something much deeper, then it's like, “Oh, it’s just a concept or an idea. It's pretty,” this is like, “No, this actually means something in my core.” That also really helps mirror with the things of figuring out what actually is me, because it's much deeper than like, “Oh, that's nice.”
Paula Edgar: You just triggered something for me, because I just thought to myself, I feel like a real annoyance, real frustration when people don't have that for the clothes, where it's just like, “Ugh!” Again, everybody listening, it's coming from a judging place, but the Lord is still working on me, anyway, the point is that because I love and feel so good when I'm in the clothes that I love, that when I see people who are just like, “Oh,” and just sitting there, I'm like, “Oh, my gosh, this will be so much better if X.”
I know that that's not a feeling you can give to somebody. I mean, you can because you're a coach, you're doing this, but for me, I'm just sitting there like, “I cannot believe that you came outside looking like this,” because I just feel like I talk about branding all the time, people are always looking at you, always thinking about what I have you but then I realized that part of that is sometimes a reflection of what they're feeling internally too.
So I come back on the judging piece and I'm like, “Okay, I'm giving some empathy,” but that's how it shows up. If people are giving you 30 seconds to think, “Okay, the first thing I saw when I saw you, I was like, ‘Ooh, you're wearing a Brooklyn T-shirt.’” I've seen you dressed to the nines, I've seen all those things, but it's important because I feel like it makes me feel about how you're feeling about yourself at that time when I see what you're wearing.
Melanie Lippman: One million. Do you feel that part of it is also the person who, let’s say threw in the towel is because they feel like it shouldn't matter?
Paula Edgar: Oh, I hear this a lot when it comes to women in the workplace and I deal with a lot of lawyers, but they say to me, “Well, it shouldn't matter what I'm wearing because my work product should speak for itself.” I want that to be true for them. But I just know that it's not. It's like, “Okay, let me hear you.” I understand what we would want it to be, to be very clear, anything else, if you put scrambled eggs on my plate and just throw it on there, I'm not going to want to eat it as much as if you have a little sprig of parsley and it looks lovely. Presentation matters. The way that you show up matters. To some people, it's a little bit of a protest and I'm like, “But who are you fighting for here?”
Melanie Lippman: I'll say it's because I get into, not fights with people, but on TikTok people are going, and I'm like, “You don't understand. You can't change the rules unless you're in the room and you can’t get in the room unless someone takes you seriously enough to be in the room. So why don't you get into a position where someone is going to take you seriously and then start being the generational change as opposed to just being the five-year-old that's like, “I'm packing up all my toys and going home”?
Paula Edgar: But it's so true. I tell the story often and people get really frustrated with me but I tell it anyway because it's true, when I first started practicing, when I was a third-year law student, I went for an interview with a judge and I had gone to Macy's and let me just tell you, I didn't have any money. I went to Macy's and I spent money on this pantsuit and I looked so good.
I was like, “Yes, Paula is out here killing it.” [inaudible] this interview and I got there. The judge looked over to his court attorney who I was right next to and says, “If that's my interviewee, tell her to go home and put on a skirt.” I was like, “Wait, what?” Am I on that show? What would you do?
Melanie Lippman: Frank, what's his name? But you're jumping out at me.
Paula Edgar: Exactly, that part, but it wasn't. So I looked at her with this like, “Help!” and she was like, “Yeah, oh,” shrug. But the thing is after that, you really will see me in pants. Part of it for me is if I know that that's a place that I'm going to be judged, I just want one less thing for me to have to override.
Now, people are like, “Paula, you gotta fight [inaudible]” I can wear pants whenever I want to. I love wearing dresses. It's not like I'm going outside of what I want to do. But I also know that we have to interact with bias all the time. I just was like, “Gosh, he said the ugly thing out loud. What about the people who don't?” It's frustrating.
But with something that we navigate all the time and particularly in professions where there's a lot of generations in the workplace, the expectation was, “Hey, that's what you're going to be wearing because that is what women wear,” whereas we're a little bit more free now.
But I have also had women interact with me and to say they expected me to show up in a certain way. But any who talk to me about clothing and building a powerful personal brand, what do you think that connection is between the imagery, the packaging, trust, and then perceived authority as well?
Melanie Lippman: Yeah, absolutely. Having the brand, which for me is a little bit different than speaking about branding holistically, it's more about having the dialed-in of what actually makes you feel confident and then actually having a strategy for how to get there, it's like everyone throws one style like it's a fairy tale. It's like one of these fake words that has no definition. But I like to give my clients definition because they're all [inaudible] and they want to know what things mean and [inaudible].
So I'm like, “Okay, what makes you feel good? What are the tangible things that are associated with it? You can rinse and repeat this.” The beautiful thing that gets to happen is as you're rinsing and repeating, people know what to expect of you, which builds trust. There's never a disconnection of what Paula is going to be showing up in.
If you weren't wearing something fun and happy, I'd be like, "Are you okay?" And then the conversation wouldn't be about us doing work together. It would be like, "You look different." So there would be a disconnection and the trust would be broken in some way. People don't realize that no one's going to say, "I don't trust you," there's just going to be a feeling of "Something’s off. I can't put my finger on it, but something's off.”
That's what the brands that build the trust and the connection. But even more importantly, it builds the trust and the connection for the wearer. If we think about it, we all have this woman in our mind that you see her at a conference. Maybe you see her at your kids' school. She's always perfectly clothed. She's always wearing the right thing. We all have a version of her.
But when we start to unpack her, if you want to go a little bit deeper, it's not always so much of what she's wearing, it's the confidence and the unapologeticness of what she's wearing. She's not mentally tugging at something and undoing herself or physically tugging at something. She's just there. She's not really caring about what everyone else is wearing. She's just a magnet and it's energy.
When you do the branding work, you get to show the consistency for everyone around you. There's not the disconnect, but even more importantly, you get to show up as the fully expressive version of yourself, unapologetically. If someone has a comment about what you're wearing, not saying the judge, because that's a little bit of a harsh thing, but it's like a guy comes up to you at a conference and he's like, “Nice pink suit, lady,” you're going to [inaudible] things as opposed to, “I'm going to run to the bathroom and change,” because you've done the work to know that you're wearing the “right thing” for yourself.
Paula Edgar: Right, no, that is such an important thing beause I do think about it. First, when you said, picture that person as always perfect, I had a picture in my head, but they were dressed to the nines. I thought to myself, “If that person was dressed in a tank top, and shorts, I would still feel the same way about them.” I think that's exactly right. That's exactly what you were just saying in terms of it’s how they wear what they wear in addition to what they're wearing. Love that, love that, love that.
What do you think are some of the biggest challenges that women who are leaders face when it comes to embracing a style that is professional and authentic to them?
Melanie Lippman: I think that the majority of women that I work with, a lot are in the legal field, they're still trying to dress like a man in some way, shape, or form. It may be that they're wearing a black or navy suit or it may just be that they're not embracing their femininity in some way. They were meant to feel unsafe being too feminine.
There's some sort of armor that is always being brought to the forefront when women need to realize that their superpower is actually their emotional intelligence and their femininity. They feel that there's a disconnect that they're in a room with a bunch of men that they need to prove and that they need to have ego and be macho. But actually, if they just took a step back and be like, “I'm here because I'm supposed to bring a different point of view and a different energy to it,” and actually lean into it as opposed to run away from it, so many women say to me, “I feel like I'm wearing a costume.”
Isn't that another layer of resistance in your day of you feeling like another thing that you have to worry about? There's that one. Then the other one is something that has to deal with body image. I'm going to wait to lose 10 pounds or I'm going to wait to this. I'm going to wait to grow five inches taller. I'm going to wait and wait and wait till something happens.
But you're not doing the work to actually fully express yourself. But by the way, people are still inviting you to speak on a stage or come to this conference and you're actually taking yourself out of the running for things, because they're like, "Hey, do you want to come to this?" And you're two-second laps of yes is being, "Well, I'm not going to invite her again. She doesn't seem like she really wants to go." That waiting when it comes to the body image is definitely another thing that I say.
Paula Edgar: I was just thinking about it because of what I do. I think I'm a lot more self-critical when it comes to if I don't show up the way I want to show up. I was at an event and they took photos and the photos were at the most terrible angle. It was like, “Let us find the body angle that's going to be terrible.”
Again, still my ugly picture is still a good picture for most people. I'm just going to throw it out there because I'm a photographer's daughter. I haven't taken pictures my entire life. But I didn't like it. I thought to myself, “I could tell them to take these down,” and I'm like, "No, it's still me. I still like me."
That piece of it is what I wish I could just give to other people because so often I will see people wrapping themselves up in sweaters and scarves and you can see that they're not confident in how they're showing up. I recently did a panel and one of the people who was at the panel just had a baby. She was like, "Everybody, stand in front of me." I'm like, "No, do you know you just gave birth? You created life, excuse you."
Melanie Lippman: Your body did the unthinkable.
Paula Edgar: Exactly. I'm like, “You should be wearing a highlighter. You have done all the things,” but because of the way society is, there's so much finger-pointing and looking, et cetera. It's just really challenging to navigate that. I think from the leadership perspective, you said about women often embodying male style, for lack of a better term, I see that so often in the legal profession, where it’s like, “Okay, Ma'am, let's not [inaudible] the shoulder pads because I'm not sure what's going on here.” It doesn't fit properly, or it's not accentuating some of the benefits that you might have because you could be any size and look good.
You could be any size, any height, any width, and look good, but a part of that is feeling it. I think that it's really challenging. You kind of said what you do, but I wonder if I came to you and I was like, “Girl, I don't like nothing, [inaudible] to wear?” where do you start off with someone who may not have confidence? What's the layering that you pull out?
Melanie Lippman: I literally just had a conversation with a woman who was made partner. She told me that she didn't know why she made partner. She thought that it was by accident.
Paula Edgar: Oh, you're breaking my heart.
Melanie Lippman: But that also shows of how, and then she’s like, “Part of that is now I need to go to conferences and I'm going to go speak on panels and all of this stuff.” She has a lot of clothes. She hasn't bought clothes since before the pandemic. The same thing that we dance around all the time, but part of it is that unworthiness to even look nice and unworthiness to even feel like you wear nice things because a lot of the women that I also work with are probably first-generation JD.
There's a little bit of a disconnect between them and me. They’re the fourth generation, that sort of thing. There's always this. The first part is just the inner work. That's one of the first things that I do with clients is, “I'm going to take you out of whatever's happening right now. You're spinning in your underpants and you're just telling yourself stories and you're just making it happen. Let's talk about you five years from now. Let's talk about what's the thing that you're going to be accomplishing. What board are you sitting on? What are you spearheading? What are you doing?” Then they start getting excited.
Paula Edgar: I get excited for them.
Melanie Lippman: Right. That's the thing, getting dressed is dressed up. It's playing. You have some fun with it. As an attorney, you don't know the fun. We make it so it's this experience and basically we're creating an alter ego for you that is making it so you're not going into that, “I can't pull that off,” or, “What are they going to think?”
Then we go from that place of what's possible. We start painting the picture of who she's hanging out with and what are the events that she's going to and they get really excited. We create from that space.
We always go back to that space because our little [inaudible] going to come up to me [inaudible] and it’s like, “Let's go do them and focus on that,” as opposed to that lack of energy that we can get stuck in. I would say the first thing is, “Let's just rise up and go from a real 30,000 feet of what are we working on?”
Then it doesn't have to be, “Okay, you need this whole entire closet.” It’s like, “What are the things that you have coming up in the next three months? Let's make you prepared for that. Let's make you feel good.” With the women that I work with and the people that you work with, they all need the evidence. They all need the proof.
Like, “Hmm, okay, I know you have credentials. I know someone recommended you, but really?” Sort of. What we do is then I start creating. They went to a conference and then not only did they get a compliment because that's the external, but they went and met a new client. Someone invited them to a dinner that they weren't invited to three days prior to that.
Paula Edgar: I love it.
Melanie Lippman: I'm making different decisions. I'm going into conversations and having something to say as opposed to feeling like I'm not part of this. And they’re like, “This is working. Please give me more.”
Paula Edgar: I love that. I love manifesting the future in order to get a little more brave in the present. That is so amazing. It's true, as soon as you started talking about it, I was like, "Ooh, what are they going to do in five years?" You get excited about the opportunity and it takes you out of the mire of where I am right now. I love that.
I think that that is a wonderful tool to be able to use and obviously, it just worked for me even though I wasn't doing it, but you go like, “Yes, I want to do that.” What about authenticity? We're sitting here, I've got blue nails, you've got multiple color nails, you're wearing your biggie t-shirt, I've got my red glass, I think we've found some spaces of authenticity already.
How can people think about being the authentic self without necessarily feeling they have to be a 10 like we are, but bringing some piece of themselves into all that they do? How do you encourage that?
Melanie Lippman: Yeah. The one I have them actually do it for their non-work situation first. The interesting thing is a lot of my clients come to me and they're decent at work. They know what the expectation is and that's what they've lived on. That feels like, “I know what the rules are. I know at a conference I'm supposed to be wearing a suit and that. Then when it comes to what do I wear to my kid's volleyball game? Or what do I wear on date night? Or what do I wear with my friends?”
That's when “I don't know who I am” comes up. We actually have to figure out what is the thing about them that makes them unique and that they're excited about. Then they get to play with it a little bit on the weekends when there's no judgment there. Friends are going to judge you, you need new friends, sort of situation.
You can get to play and see what's you. I would then encourage them to, as they figure that out, try to bring some of that into the work wardrobe if they're feeling super disconnected. One of the things is that we will only change and we'll only do things at the speed of which feels safe.
If there's someone who's showing up every single day in a black suit, they are not wearing a hot pink suit to the conference next week, it's just not happening. If they do, they're literally going to cry bloody murder and get the [inaudible] we need to leave. We just know that's going to happen.
We need to do it in small incremental ways. Figuring out what their off-duty brand is. Then another way is just to maybe find out what's the one thing that gets them excited and this is really where the difference between working with someone like me who's more of a coaching perspective versus a stylist that's going to literally just throw something at you and is like, “Let's figure out what your version of “you” is in one way.”
Is it color? Is it print? Is it texture? Do you like fun accessories? Start incorporating one thing different into your wardrobe in a way that feels like [inaudible] again, the proof, you need to show your brain that you didn't die and then you’ll go do more.
Paula Edgar: That’s so true. I remember talking to a junior associate one time who was like, “I just hate it. I never wear suits. I don't want to wear suits.” I was like, “Did somebody say you had to wear suits?” She was like, “They didn't say it, but everybody else is wearing a suit.”
I was like, “Well, why don't you try accessories?” I'm a hoop girl. I love a hoop earring. I'm probably not wearing anything other than a hoop earring whenever you see me. She had little cowry shell earrings. They were a part of her ethnicity. They showed a little about who she was and she was like, “I felt powerful wearing them, even though it did not change a lot in terms of what they saw.”
She's like, “People notice.” At first, I was nervous because they noticed, but then it became okay. Then people started looking at her for what accessory she was going to be wearing. She shifted the culture a little bit, where the boringness that would have been there before started to be like, "Oh, let's see if I can do something a little bit different." I think that's what authenticity does. It makes folks feel agency to have their own. You can change whole cultures.
Melanie Lippman: I love that so much. It's so interesting because that's something that people always say to me is the reason why it's so hard for me to find my style or for me to dress in a way that I want if there's no one there. It’s no example for me. The other female partners, “I don't want to dress like that.”
They look frumpy, they look old, they look stodgy or they look like they're stuck. If I ever go to them for mentorship, they kind of like, “This is the way it is” sort of thing. I just want that agency. I want a little bit of a choice to be who I am here with the spin on it. I always will say to my clients, “Well, that's a beautiful invitation for you to lead the way.”
Paula Edgar: Yes, you can be the person. Put on that cake, girl. Talk to me about style missteps. This is probably the question I'm most excited about.
Melanie Lippman: It's just a personal question, Paula.
Paula Edgar: It is. I don't know what those steps are, but I have judgment about what some of the steps are. I have ideas about what some of the steps are, but I want to hear your thoughts as a professional about this. What are some of the things you think that folks don't do well when it comes to style?
Melanie Lippman: I think number one is always not dressing to embrace your body. I think that's the thing all of the time is everyone comes to me and they say there's a concern of feeling frumpy, whether they're 50, whether they're 30, whether they're 70, it's always like, “I don't want to look stodgy.”
That's one of the number one causes of being frumpy is just your clothes are wearing you because you're trying to hide or conceal yourself. I'm going to just say, you've got this body, let's learn to embrace it. The beautiful thing that gets to happen is when you embrace it, then you get to realize, “Something looks good on me.”
Or, “I like the sleeve.” You get to focus on what's possible as opposed to mentally going to war with yourself in the mirror, which is what ends up happening when you're at war with your body. That's one of those missteps, is just hiding in your body. Obviously, we've spoken about it before, leading with that masculine armor of the expectation of the navy and the black and then the not embracing color.
I do really think that a lot of people are concerned, “Am I standing out? Am I too much? What are they going to think?” It doesn't have to be that way. You can do it in a small way. The unfortunate thing that happens is when you're not wearing color, you're looked at as you're unapproachable. You're building a wall.
You're not creating this connection or opportunity that you can very easily have with someone. How is someone not going up to you and talking about your eyeglasses? These women constantly, especially in law tell me, “I have to go to this networking event and I hate it. I'm an introvert. Why are they making me do these things? No one told me I had to grow a book of business. What is this?”
Then they're putting themselves in situations and they're literally like, “Don't talk to me.” I get it, sometimes going up to someone, you don't want to do that and that's totally fine, but why not wear something that's just going to make someone go up to you because you don't look like every other person in the room?
Paula Edgar: Absolutely. I'd say be memorable. You don't have to be flashy to be memorable, but if you're wearing what everybody else is wearing, your memorability is lower, at best. It's true, I like people to be like, “Girl, I love those glasses,” or, “Look at those florals.” Because that's just who I am. It's always been how I am.
But you're right, I hear so many people being like, “I don't want to be because people are going to see me.” But my biggest style challenge—and this is across the board, men and women—is clothes that do not fit. Either too tight or too loose or not enough shapewear. Where the clothes are begging to be put someplace else.
It's not the clothes' fault. It's that you were not accepting. Again, I get it. There are a lot of post-COVID clothing issues where folks are like, “That was my closet and it's to go stay in my closet, I can't,” but because we weren't moving as much, it's not fit in the same way or you lost weight.
My biggest pet peeve and I have had outfits that I love so much and that I outgrew or shrunk in and I was like, “[inaudible]” My husband who is the ultimate truth teller of me because I represent him when I go outside, he's like, “That doesn't fit no more.” Somewhere in there. Someone’s like, “Eew, get out of here.” Mind your business. But you always feel self-conscious.
Melanie Lippman: When you're hugging at your clothes, you're not paying attention and you endure the nuance at the table.
Paula Edgar: Yeah, or covering. I also—and this is primarily for women—but it's being afraid of your body too because I feel like women have breasts. It's not a bad thing to have a little bit of decolletage, but it's a lot when you have a lot of it. It's understanding what you're wearing, how you're wearing it, and what is the circumstance.
For example, I was on a Zoom with somebody the other day and all I could see was, “Oh, if you could lower it so I can see the whole,” it was just uncomfortable, and she was like, “Oh, my God, I moved my camera. I didn't realize.” For those of you who don't use the self-view on Zoom, please, you need to see what you're looking like.
Because she was like, “Oh, my gosh, I can't believe.” But again, thinking about it is such an important thing and it doesn't have to be burdensome. Don't you find that people are like, “Oh, that's just so much me to think about all the time.” It can become a part of who you are.
Melanie Lippman: It's so interesting though. I was speaking at The League. Do you know The League? It's like all legal professionals of all, so I spoke there yesterday. Someone was asking me about the clothes fitting and all of that, about the time commitment. Then I was like, “Can I just ask you a question? How many times do you change each morning? When you're going to a conference, how long does it take you to pack?”
She was like, “Hours.” I was like, “Wouldn't it be easy to just do this work and take two extra minutes to have it be perfect a day as opposed to doing the mental undoing of the not doing it?” I actually think that it ends up spending so much more time not doing this work and not having the branding done than having it done.
Paula Edgar: It's so true, but that just brings up a question for me because you were talking about conferences and stuff. It's a personal question for you. When you go, let's say on a four-day trip, how much luggage are you taking with you?
Melanie Lippman: I always take only a carry-on.
Paula Edgar: I don't know why I knew that you were going to say that and I'm in shock.
Melanie Lippman: I didn't before I got married. But now my husband is like, “We are not getting anywhere together with a bag being checked.” It's funny, I actually went to Arizona and they made me check my [inaudible].
Paula Edgar: Oh, no, [inaudible].
Melanie Lippman: It's oversized. I'm like, “I don't check this bag.” But I'm very intentional because I do think you can get to the point where you make up phony situations in your head of what's going to happen. Then you're so unfocused.
Paula Edgar: This is me. I'm like, “What if a ballerina went to me and needed a tutu?” I have it. I'm like, “What if Michael Jordan wants me to play basketball? I need to have this outfit.” Totally making stuff up. I am a two suitcase checking if it's more than four days, girl, because I need options. Then literally might have been last because he's like, “But what do you think is going to happen?” I'm like, “I don't know, but if it does, I'm prepared for it.”
Melanie Lippman: But there's going to be a snowstorm.
Paula Edgar: There's a snowstorm, exactly. I'm in shock, but I'm also impressed. That means that you're so precise, where I literally am like, “There might be someone who might be what if you need to go to this gala and you have this dress?” Tell me this, what is one piece of advice you have for women who are trying to elevate their executive presence and dress for impact?
Melanie Lippman: Figure out what works for you and let go of what the expectation is. I hear constantly, “What's the dress code? Can you explain this dress code to me? What are you wearing?” We're so reliant on what everyone else is doing. I'll always say, “Why don't you be the dress code?”
Paula Edgar: Ooh, I love that.
Melanie Lippman: Get over that. We're so reliant on the external.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. You know that quote that's like, “You can never be overdressed or whatever.” But you know what I mean. Do you think that is true?
Melanie Lippman: I personally don't because I'm the one who usually is the person on the soccer field. My husband makes fun of me, he’s like, “Where are you going?” That to me is something that's important. I think that you can be too overly formal to the point that it's off-putting, where if you are, let's say, in a networking situation with peers and it's supposed to be a situation where you're supposed to be making connections, I think the concern is more about being too formal than being overdressed.
I think you could wear nice things and you could feel good in your clothes and go wear leopard and shiny things all day long, but don't put on something that is going to almost make you seem you're, for lack of a better term, better than because separation is a bad thing.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. Especially if collaboration and connection is the point. When I go to a conference, I want to stand out. I want people to be like, “I remember the one who was over there in that color, during that thing.” When there are pictures, I want to be able to find myself because I know that I didn't wear the same color as everybody else.
For me, it's a part of the brand to do that. But I get folks being like, “Whoa.” We are all supposed to be here, it is what it is. But for me, that's the conversation piece. I always tell people, I start at 10, so I get it. But you can be four, five, and six in there and still be memorable.
Melanie Lippman: [inaudible] one there.
Paula Edgar: Yeah, right, exactly. Without being a negative scale, not to do math because I don't do that, but the point is it can work. I knew that this was going to be a conversation that went by fast because I get excited about this, but I want to get into three questions that I ask everybody. Number one, because I'm nosy, what do you do for fun?
Melanie Lippman: I am the biggest personal development geek.
Paula Edgar: Really?
Melanie Lippman: Yes, it is fun for me, but I am like, “Give me a meditation. Give me Reiki. Give me vortex. Give me crystal.” I am woo to the nth degree. [inaudible] “Your energy,” I'm like, “I know, I'm radiating.”
Paula Edgar: You're going to pull a card, you're going to pull a card.
Melanie Lippman: Now I got my cards.
Paula Edgar: I love it. I love it.
Melanie Lippman: I just love any of that because I just think that us knowing ourselves and trusting ourselves and just clearing that so important and then also goes into I just love spa situations and all of that and then beach, reading, anything that completely lets me just zen out.
Then besides that, my son is 11 and a crazy athlete. I'm the mom screaming the loudest on the sideline. Typically, so that's usually how my weekends are spent. I am in some sort of field.
Paula Edgar: I love that. Okay. I have what's called the stand by your brand aspect, which is what is an aspect about you and your personal brand that you will never compromise on?
Melanie Lippman: The inner work. I think a lot of people want to come to me for photoshoot styling or, “Can you help me create this perfect outfit?” I did that for years and I created co-dependent relationships with my clients where they would come to me for permission to wear the things so I don't do the shortcuts anymore because it's a disservice to the person.
I'm like, “The reason why you can't figure out what to wear for your photoshoot, there's a bigger challenge that we need to work with. When you're ready, I'm here, but if you're looking for five outfits for a photo shoot and just that, I'm not your girl.”
Paula Edgar: I love that. I also love that knowing yourself and that piece of it so much makes it easier to know if I'm not your girl. If this won't work because of the work that I need to do with you and the work that I know that works when it's done properly. I love that.
Branding Room Only is a play on the term standing room only. I am clever. What do you think is a piece of magic, something about you that people will want to experience that would have the room filled to the gills standing room only to experience about you?
Melanie Lippman: People come to me constantly and they say they have no sense of style. They're like, “I'm born without the style gene. I got nothing. I'm basically useless.” It is with the work that I do, I very quickly will show them that they actually have an opinion when it comes to how they show up. They just haven't learned how to paint the picture and how to articulate it.
Most people will say, “I don't speak fashion. That is just not my thing.” I get them to understand very quickly, this is what makes you feel good. These are the patterns that I'm noticing.” It's very much like, “Let me show you what's possible.” They are hot and cold. Within such a quick time span, they will go from, ”I got nothing,” to, “I do have something. I'm excited. Let's do more.”
Paula Edgar: I love that. Tell everybody how they can find out more about you and the work that you do and stay in touch.
Melanie Lippman: Absolutely. You can find me on LinkedIn, on Instagram, and on TikTok. I have an amazing free masterclass that I'll send over to you to put in the notes. It's called Stop Hiding in the Shadows of Your Career, Elevate Your Executive Presence, and Dress for Impact. It'll really help with those internal shifts of how you see yourself and how to make sure the inside and the outside is matching.
Paula Edgar: Oh, I love that. Well, I knew we were going to have fun in this conversation and it was going to be very profound for all the people listening because it is. Everybody go tell that friend who has it but needs a little bit more and that friend who doesn't have it and we know they need to hear about this.
Remember some of the best practices we talked about today. Download, like, and share. Wait to see you next time. Stand by your brand. Talk to y'all soon. Bye!
