The same line comes up with almost every woman who runs something. "I walk into the room and they look straight past me."
Not because she is quiet. She is often the person in the room with the most experience.
Then a psychologist sat down with us on the podcast and named the part nobody says out loud. The room has already made up its mind before she speaks.
What they see first is yours to decide. Colour, cut and finish, picked on purpose for the rooms you walk into.
We handle fit through how a jacket is built, never through your body. The whole question is what people see first, and who decided it.
The first impression is the only part you control.
Dr Clinton Schultz is a psychologist. He speaks in a different room almost every week, so he has thought hard about what he can and cannot change.
His answer was flat. "what you do control is how you present yourself so that you increase the opportunity for influence."
He cannot make a room care. He cannot pick who walks in, or who only came for the food. He picks how he arrives.
Some rooms get his ochre, loud and proud about where he is from. Others get formal.
His reason, in his words: "it may be that I have to dress more formal, because as you said, you're more likely to be accepted by the wolves if you reflect the wolves."
A woman walking into a room full of powerful men is doing the same sum, with more riding on it.
How firm. How soft. How much colour.
Colour is not decoration. It changes how people feel.
Most people treat colour as taste. Clinton put it inside his own field.
"from a psychological perspective, we, we absolutely know that different colors invoke different states of, of emotion."
Then he went further. "if we dress in certain colors or in certain ways, that that has the opportunity to influence people's emotional state in certain kinds of ways".
Ten years of my work, backed by a man with no suits to sell. Colour, fit and style. Three things, one job.
The jacket he wore on the podcast was ours. We chose it for him after a short talk when he arrived.
He said it fitted both who he is and the conversation he was about to have.
A soft colour says come closer, listen if you want. A deeper one asks for the decision.
Same woman. Two rooms. Two sentences.
Your colours are not a guess. Your skin tone and your contrast cut the whole wall down to five or six that work on you.
Fit decides whether they listen.
A jacket that gapes at the collar tells the room the clothes were not chosen for her. One cut for her says the opposite before she opens her mouth.
Women say the same thing to me, almost word for word. "I want the respect of the room without being the centre of attention".
That wish is a problem of construction, not of personality. Soft tailoring. A jacket that moves with her instead of holding still.
The other worry comes up as often. A suit will look too hard, too much like a man's.
I had that fear before I wore one. "I didn't used to wear suits… I thought it was too harsh, too masculine."
So I designed our women's line to answer it. The softness lives in the construction and in the way the cloth moves.
Made to fit you, not the other way around. Off the rack starts from an average. A suit cut for you starts from you.
Powerful comes first. Beautiful is what they say out loud.
Avril wore her first suit into a room in Los Angeles. What came back had very little to do with the suit.
Her words: "I walked through the doors differently and people were approaching me and telling me that they liked what I was wearing."
Then the line that matters. "They were interested in listening to me."
She felt powerful first. The compliments landed second. What people noticed was the way she came through the door.
Clinton had a word for the part that happens inside you. Clothing that fits well gives you the feeling of being held, and we have been chasing that feeling since we were babies.
The change is small. It moves everything. "I am always being underestimated" stops being a thing to put up with.
The first impression becomes something you write. It is the one part of that room that is yours.
One suit is enough to start.
Begin with one suit cut for the rooms you are in now, then build out from there. Our guide to women's custom suits in Brisbane walks through how those calls get made, and the women's line shows the finished pieces.
The woman the room looked straight past is still the one with the most experience. All that changed was what they saw before she spoke.
Frequently asked questions
Will a tailored suit make me look masculine?
That was my own fear before I ever wore one. The answer sits in the construction. Soft tailoring and cloth that gives with you stays feminine, where a stiff jacket never does.
Will anyone comment on my body at the fitting?
Never. Not a flaw, not a compliment. We talk about how you want to feel and the rooms you are dressing for.
Does colour change how people respond to me?
Yes, and the proof is not only ours. A psychologist on our show backed it from inside his own field. Your own five or six colours come from skin tone and contrast, never from a trend.
Is made to measure worth it over fixing a suit I own?
An alteration fixes one thing at a time. It cannot move where a collar sits or change how a jacket hangs. A suit cut for you is built as separates, so a few pieces make many looks and last for years.
How many pieces before I stop saying I have nothing to wear?
Fewer than you think. A jacket, a trouser and a vest in one cloth give you a week of outfits. A few matched pieces do more than a wardrobe of things worn once.
Decide what the next room sees.
A consultation is colour, fit and style advice. Judgement off the table. Book yours with House of Falcone and the next room will see what you decided.
Dress for who you are becoming.
Angela Falcone