Dress for Success - Overview

Dress for Success was founded in 1995 by Nancy Lublin shortly after she graduated from Brown University. The primary objective of this organization is providing disadvantaged women with employment assistance services and workplace-appropriate clothing, and they've done this in nearly 150 cities in 20 countries. So far they've worked with over 850,000 women. I think that this is a fantastic organization because there is a distinct double standard in the way that men and women are expected to dress for the workplace. It's very easy to be a man and simply interchange pieces in the shirt + tie + dress pants equation, but for women, there is no such simple equation. Workplace-appropriate attire can range between all sorts of different styles at varying degrees of formality. Dress for Success does a great job of helping to level the playing field that begins as a very slanted one when it comes to entry-level positions in the business environment. The organization currently relies on donations for clothing, and receives its clients via referrals from other community outreach organizations.

In social media, Dress for Success goes out of its way to associate itself with other successful women, seemingly as a way to encourage donations, associating its services facilitating success with women who have had a great deal of it. This is admirable if it helps lead to more donations, but it really is a shame that none of their social media outlets focus on the people they help. Their Instagram account has some mentions of people that have benefited from the organization, but this seems fairly low considering the number of 850,000+ women that they say they've worked with on their website, and the amazing places that they work. Dress for Success is involved all over the world, including places like Nigeria, Burundi, Jamaica, and India.

Dress For Success Video Post

Final Video Reflection on Dress for Success Lexington

Here is the link to my Video Reflection of Dress for Success: https://youtu.be/RUA2Rb8RSKU

Analysis of "The Skill of Self--Confidence"

I watched “The Skill of Self-Confidence” by Dr. Ivan Joseph. I initially chose to watch this presentation over others because of the one key word in the title: confidence. One of Dress for Success Worldwide’s main goals is to instill confidence in the women with whom they work with. This goal, however, is not being reached at Dress for Success Lexington. Analisa mentioned several times that when a women who previously has worn hand-me-down, ratty, torn, or dirty clothing, a well-fit suit can give them the confidence boost they need to believe in themselves and their abilities. She also told us that confidence plays an essential role when looking for a job. On the other hand, it does not seem like Analisa nor Sue build up their client’s self-confidence outside of giving them new clothing. I think Analisa and Sue can learn a lot from this TED Talk.

After I watched this speech, I realized Dr. Joseph reiterated how important self-confidence truly is. He began his TED Talk by telling a story of when he was a soccer coach. He explains that parents used to ask what he was looking for in prospective athletes, and he would ask what the players do really well. The parents assumed he wanted them to delve into the specific soccer skills the players had, but he reassured them that that was not what he was looking for. Dr. Ivan Joseph clarified that self-confidence is the most important thing a player, or anyone, can have. Joseph then defined how he personally defines self-confidence. He said it is the belief in yourself to accomplish any task no matter the odds, no matter the difficulty, and no matter the adversity. He went on to say that he intentionally called self-confidence a skill because he believes it can be trained. I think this definition is very similar to what Dress for Success should have as well. Many of the clients of this organization have endured unimaginable hardships. Nonetheless, with a little bit of help, through training and education, it is a reachable skill to obtain. I have witnessed both Analisa and Sue talking poorly about some of their clients and I think they should be the ones advocating for them. DFS may believe self-confidence is what makes the difference between reaching success and failing, but they need to do more to actually implement this.

Dr. Joseph then went on to tell various different stories, but there were two common themes present. The first was that if you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will. He used Mohammed Ali as an example. Mohammed Ali used to say to himself “I am the greatest, there is no one better than me.”

 

This is important because even one of the best boxers in the world needed to reassure himself every once in a while that he is great. Dr. Joseph says that if he believed he was the greatest, then he was the greatest in his mind and that is what is important; it is all about perception. I think this is also very relatable to what DFS should tell their clients. Many of their clients are not able to tell themselves how great they truly are before they walk in the door, however, with the help from the volunteers, Sue, and Analisa, they should be able to after they walk out.

The second theme of his stories is aimed at the teachers and educators, so in the case Analisa and Sue. Dr. Joseph says it is more beneficial to look at and praise the good, rather than focusing and emphasizing the bad. I believe this is an important lesson for Sue and Analisa to learn. Sue once told me that a client walked in and had a mustard stain on her shirt. Sue publicly confronted the woman and told her how atrocious it was of her to go out in public with a stain. Instead, she should have told a different client how professional she looked in her clean clothing. This way, she would have boosting the second client’s self-confidence without being a detriment to the first client. The employees of Dress for Success Lexington can really learn a lot and really help their clients if they begin to implement the strategies that Dr. Ivan Joseph discussed in his TED Talk. Here is the link to the TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-HYZv6HzAs

Blue rain jacket with the white script monogram

On a cold, rainy day, I do what all college students do, I throw my pillow at my alarm and then glare at my roommate who made the poor decision to wake up in a good mood. However, what I’m really getting at is that after I’m done crying, I throw on some boots and my rain jacket. My rain jacket came from my best friend’s aunt who owns her owns store and sells hundreds of these same jackets for a pretty penny. My jacket was given to me as a present after I graduated from a beautiful school that gave me 13 years of private, Christian education. I wear my jacket to my jobs that I wake for granted, to my friend’s homes in the fancy neighborhoods, to my home filled with a family that supports me more than I deserve.

Today I learned that my jacket is not the only one of its kind. Charmayne has the same jacket. Her rain jacket is blue with the script monogram just like mine. But, unlike me, Charmayne doesn’t have unnecessarily expensive clothes on underneath her jacket- she wears sweatpants and a t-shirt. Unlike me, Charmayne doesn’t wear her jacket to her job- she wears it to the main office where she has been searching for a job for months.

I walked into the office and was greeted by Charmayne’s wonderful smile and a cheerful inquiry about how my life has been since she’d seen me last. I haven’t been able to work with Charmayne at all, but occasionally whenever we go in she is there trying to complete a job application for one of the many jobs she has applied to. Today she was thrilled about the fact that we were wearing the same jacket; she asked questions about where I got it and continuously mentioned how cool it was that we were matching. She told me about how she had saved up for it and found a little boutique that would make it a little cheaper for her. I’ve never felt as completely idiotic as I did sitting there in that moment, I realized just how fantastic my life is compared to what it could be. Here are 2 people in basically the same outfit, leading terribly different lives, one appreciating every opportunity she has, and the other taking everything for granted without a second thought. I’ve never struggled with finding a job and most of the time I take mine for granted. My family has everything we could ever really ask for and more; I have everything I need and I rarely take a second to stop and appreciate it.  

I don’t know Charmayne, I don’t know what her life has been like or what it will be like in the future. I don’t know where she lives or if she has family to live with; she never mentioned herself or her life in our conversations, the focus is always on the person she is talking to. Though I know absolutely nothing about her, and I’ll probably never see her again, Charmayne is what made Dress for Success worth it. That moment where I recognized just how blessed I am made all the filing and sorting worth it.

Becoming a filing pro

The filing process at Dress for Success went swimmingly today. After many days of volunteering, Nikki, Jordan, and myself are now pros at Analisa’s nonsensical filing process that I have a terrible suspicion she came up with about ten minutes ago. With Analisa’s help I have begun to recognize the true importance of organization- she lacks it something awful and I can now see the dire need for it. If one accepts the help of a group of young volunteers, one should have actual things for those volunteers to do other than busy work. I mean honestly, all day all I do is busy work, and the last thing that I want to do is continue the vicious cycle of busy work at my volunteer organization of choice. At this point in our volunteering process I’m getting bored with the surprised look on her face whenever we show up at the front door. At first her absentmindedness was kind of fun and not a problem, now it’s annoying and getting in the way of my whole-hearted volunteering. Basically so far we have nothing to show for our weeks of volunteering; we’ve met no clients and done nothing outside of filing and sorting clothes. Don’t get me wrong, I realize that us sorting clothes is probably a big help, but it’s still really annoying that this is all we’re doing every single time we come in. I mean, as much as I love sitting amongst piles of donated shoes and tattered dress pants, I would’ve loved to work with actual humans much more. High class goodwill is fun but human interaction is probably more fun.

What I thought I'd be doing with Dress for Success

Dress for Success was my first choice for the service learning organization project, and something that appealed to me from the very beginning. After reading the description of the organization, I was thrilled that I had an opportunity to volunteer at a place with such an outstanding focus and interest in women. My interest in the subject of equal job rights and opportunities for women added to my interest in this organization. This whole experience was going to so great and empowering; meeting women who were working their way from the bottom was going to put everything into perspective.

I had no idea what exactly we would be doing during our time volunteering, but I for sure thought that it would maybe have something to do with helping clients. I figured we would at least be able to meet clients.

I assumed that my group would be meeting with all sorts of women with all sorts of backgrounds. I assumed I would learn about the processes of helping a person help themselves out of poverty. I assumed I would hear stories and advice. I assumed I would at least of some contact with the people using the resources of the organization.

Don’t ever assume.