Katie put the blush on and the bride said, "Whoa, that's a lot."
So Katie took a photo on her own phone and turned the screen around. Her phone is a worse camera than the one at the wedding. The blush had already gone.
Katriona Allen does hair and makeup for brides, for the stage, for film. She has watched this play out for years.
So when it's on camera, the first thing to disappear are your eyelashes and your eyebrows.
The strongest thing on a face in person is the first thing to go on camera.
Your clothes do the same thing. And a founder's clothes get seen in more places than her face.
The mirror sees you closer than any room will.
Look at where you decide what to wear. An arm away from the glass. Your own light, usually straight above you.
Nobody else meets you there. Not the client across the table. Not the forty people who turn around when you stand up.
A founder said it to me plainly. "I look fine in the mirror and wrong in every photo."
She was not imagining it. The mirror is one viewer, and the suit has four other jobs.
Ten steps back. Under lights that drop from above.
Through a camera. And in the photo somebody else picks for the website.
At ten steps back only the lines are left.
Detail goes first. The buttons, the small turn of the cloth, the part you spent longest on in the shop.
What carries is the line. Where the shoulder sits, where the jacket ends, where the trouser stops.
One colour family holds together as one clean shape at distance. A light top over a dark bottom cuts the whole look in half across a room.
Busy cloth goes strange on camera. None of this shows up an arm away from the glass. All of it shows up in the photos.
The attention belongs on what you are saying.
Katie's brides and my founders have the same problem. Here it is in her words, about the women she sends onto a stage.
they always have to think about how to stand out but then also don't look too much
A founder put the same thing to me another way. "I want to stand out without it being the loudest thing about me."
When the clothes are the loudest thing, the room talks about the clothes. When the fit is off, the room settles on something else and nobody tells you what.
Either way the attention lands in the wrong place. You came to be taken seriously, and often you are the only woman in the room while it happens.
Hundreds of women were fitted before your suit was made.
Bruno builds the men's side. I build the women's. Same studio, same thinking, different shapes.
Our women's line did not start as a drawing. Bruno said it plainly on the show. The line is "based on practical data".
Hundreds of women came through fittings first. We studied how those suits worked and built one line out of what we found. The two of us still sit in every fitting.
Most women arrive with an answer already in hand. "This is what looks good on me. I've worked it out already."
She is right about what she likes, and her taste is where we start. The mirror cannot show her the other four views, and that part is mine to work out.
Fitted does not mean tight.
Women tell me the word fitted makes them nervous. Every fitted thing they own pinches. The market even has a phrase for how that feels: "a fraud in a blazer."
Tight means something else in a tailoring room. Tight to us means you are still comfortable in it, and it still holds a shape.
Comfortable but polished is the normal result, not the lucky one.
Nobody talks about your body at a fitting. Not once. What we talk about is how you want the suit to feel.
I did not wear suits for years. I thought they were too harsh, too masculine. A softer shoulder and a better cloth changed my mind, not a different me.
The photo comes back six weeks later.
You will not pick the frame. Somebody else will, and it sits on an event page for years after.
For a long time the only test was the mirror, and the call was yours alone. The better test is what holds at ten steps, under the lights, and in a photo you did not choose.
That is a question about the lines of a suit. Somebody can work those out for you.
The change is quieter than women expect. You stop checking yourself in shop windows. You stay in the conversation instead of pulling at a jacket.
That is the half you feel. The half the room hands back is what I call the respect of the room, and it lands before you speak.
Katie hands over a phone so the mirror stops having the last word. Ten steps back does the same job for a suit. The women's custom suits guide walks through how the colour and fit choices get made.
Come and see your own lines at that distance, with us in Brisbane. That is what a women's custom suits consultation is for.
Frequently asked questions
What should a woman founder wear to be taken seriously?
A suit cut for you, in one colour family, with a clean shoulder line and a hem you chose. At ten steps back that line is all anyone gets. Cloth and buttons matter later, in the photos.
Does it have to be a black suit?
No. Black gets picked because it feels safe. A black suit that does not fit you is a cape to make you disappear, and a deeper warm colour often carries further across a room.
Is a fitted suit going to be uncomfortable?
No. Women's clothes are so often made to pinch that a fitted suit you can move in sounds made up. Tight in a tailoring room means it holds a shape while you stay comfortable in it.
How do I know what works on camera and on stage?
Ask somebody who has seen it from the back of the room. Katie answers that question with a photo on her phone. For a suit it is the lines that survive the distance, and those get decided before anything is cut.
Can one suit cover a board meeting and a stage?
Yes, when it is built as separates. The jacket goes with other trousers, the trousers go with a shirt. Same suit, different energy.
Wear the lines. Dress for who you are becoming.
Angela Falcone
House of Falcone