Recently a Facebook friend used her status to comment on the unprofessional appearace of the flight crew on an American Airlines flight. Apparently it was "honoring" something so they were allowed to wear jeans and t-shirts. Already this sounded like a bad idea. Unless your company is doing a day of work for Habitat for Humanity, it's always going to be 'off brand' to encourage a jeans and t-shirt day at work. Over and over it has been proven; casual day dress = casual attitude about productivity. My question to all of this was, how was the service? Casual?
However, this brings up the point of what people wear when they fly. Having grown up with a mother that was a travel agent it was unthinkable to travel in sweatpants. Sure, comfort is important on a long flight but consider this:
- It may be 5:30 a.m. in Seattle when you leave for the airport but it's past mid-
day and almost cocktail hour when you arrive at the Le Parker Meridien hotel in mid-town Manhattan. Looking like you are taking out the trash is going to make you stand out tremendously in an uncomfortable way. - You never know who your seatmate might be. How many incredible stories of business being done, connections being made, hook-ups (let's be honest), have we all heard of taking place on an airplane.
- Don't even think for a minute that you have a snowball's chance in hell of getting upgraded looking like a tired slob. One of my favorite articles about this subject is written my Christopher Elliot a consumer advocate for travel, "Honor Your Flight Crew Wear a Tie When You Fly".
The two most important take-aways I like people to have when attending one of my presenations that apply here are:
- If you are your own brand then your wardrobe is your logo.
- Be intentional - if you aren't taking your brand seriously why should anyone else?
