How do women of all back­grounds step up their con­fi­dence and se­cure the jobs of their dreams with­out break­ing the bank to put their best foot for­ward?

You’re qual­i­fied, ca­pa­ble and ready to move on up in the world. Your im­pres­sive re­sume just land­ed you an in­ter­view that would make your par­ents gush with pride and your friends cel­e­brate with you! Now that you’ve fin­ished do­ing the hap­py dance in your head, the anx­i­ety starts to creep in be­cause there’s just one thing that’s stand­ing be­tween you and the job that’ll se­cure your suc­cess­ful fu­ture. What will you wear?

Dress For The Job You Want, Not the Bud­get You Have

Dress­ing for the job you want is eas­i­er said than done when you’re work­ing with a lim­it­ed bud­get. Women of­ten dress ac­cord­ing to the bud­get they have. With new grad­u­ates en­ter­ing the work­force, and dis­placed women re­turn­ing af­ter a post-pan­dem­ic break, many are chal­lenged with find­ing ap­pro­pri­ate cloth­ing for the of­fice at the low­est cost pos­si­ble. With­out com­fort­able and suit­able at­tire to en­sure they put their best foot for­ward in the in­ter­view, women of­ten bat­tle self-con­fi­dence is­sues which can se­cret­ly sab­o­tage their in­ter­view suc­cess. So, how can women con­vey to re­cruiters that they’re the best fit for the po­si­tion by dress­ing for the job they want, with­out break­ing the bank?

Where Am­bi­tion Meets Af­ford­abil­i­ty

En­ter Suit Me Up 2023–the most an­tic­i­pat­ed event of the year by the As­so­ci­a­tion of Fe­male Ex­ec­u­tives of T&T (AFETT) where am­bi­tion meets af­ford­abil­i­ty. Every year, hun­dreds of women from all over Trinidad and To­ba­go gath­er in one lo­ca­tion to shop pre-loved, bare­ly used cloth­ing from cor­po­rate women who have do­nat­ed items from their wardrobe. With high-end suits and for­mal gowns priced at $200, dress­es at $50 and blous­es at $30, these items are lit­er­al­ly a steal of a deal.

More Than Just A Sale

This is more than just a re­al­ly good sale.

This is a rev­o­lu­tion stitched with com­pas­sion and tai­lored with hope, be­cause each piece of cloth­ing comes with its own per­son­al sto­ry of a woman who has gone be­fore to pave the road for oth­ers.

There is a sym­bol­ism of both the clothes do­nat­ed and clothes pur­chased. The women do­nat­ing rep­re­sent eas­i­er ac­cess to a way for­ward. The women pur­chas­ing ac­knowl­edge the bea­con of sup­port and sis­ter­hood to make their jour­ney eas­i­er–to one day lend a hand to the women com­ing be­hind them.

Tai­lor­ing Self Con­fi­dence One Out­fit At A Time

For women, out­fits are not sim­ply gar­ments. Our wardrobes rep­re­sent tools of em­pow­er­ment where each blouse, skirt, dress or blaz­er is a con­fi­dence boost­er wait­ing to be worn. We stand a lit­tle taller, and speak a lit­tle stronger, all be­cause of the right out­fit. So, what we wear is not about fash­ion, it’s about self-be­lief. And it on­ly makes sense that since AFETT’s in­cep­tion 21 years ago, to cre­ate more eq­ui­table op­por­tu­ni­ties for women in the work­place, that pro­vid­ing ac­cess to qual­i­ty cloth­ing is made a re­al­i­ty for every woman, re­gard­less of her bud­get.

Build­ing A Com­mu­ni­ty Of Em­pow­ered Women

Women who have ar­ti­cles of of­fice wear in ex­cel­lent con­di­tion, that will most like­ly nev­er be worn again, are in­vit­ed to join the mis­sion to sup­port women now climb­ing the cor­po­rate lad­der by drop­ping off their do­na­tions at au­tho­rised lo­ca­tions found on AFETT’s Face­book, LinkedIn and In­sta­gram pages.

Women who are ready to stock their wardrobe with pow­er­ful pieces that boost their con­fi­dence in­ter­nal­ly and present their best selves ex­ter­nal­ly are in­vit­ed to take note of the date, and fol­low AFETT’s so­cial me­dia pages for more up­dates on this ca­reer-boost­ing ini­tia­tive.

WE give our full sup­port to em­pow­er­ing ini­tia­tives such

as this one, en­abling our sis­ters to thrive!

~ Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

This year, Suit Me Up takes place on Oc­to­ber 21, 2023, at the new­ly ren­o­vat­ed hall of the Bish­op Anstey High School, Port-of-Spain, from 9 am to 4 pm, and for the first time in To­ba­go on No­vem­ber 4.

There will al­so be ca­reer de­vel­op­ment work­shops on the day prepar­ing women for en­try or re-en­try in­to the work­place.