How to Dress for Work With Cassandra Sethi

There’s always been a divide between how you dress off the clock and how you dress for work. My guest today, Cassandra Sethi, can help you create an authentic style for your return-to-work wardrobe. She is a personal stylist, image consultant and the founder of Next Level Wardrobe .

Cassandra is on a mission to help successful professionals like you and me systemically get a great style. In this episode, Cassandra and I talk about why everyone deserves to love how they look, how to start upgrading your wardrobe and how to do it without breaking the bank.?

She’s been in the fashion industry for over 25 years and worked with companies such as SoulCycle and Equinox until she started her business five years ago. Next Level Wardrobe is dedicated to assisting people in systemizing their wardrobes and style.?

“For every single client, we implement a proprietary styling system that I created called ‘The Next Level Wardrobe Style System,’ where we focus on three key areas of a closet. So we dive into those areas. For every single one of our clients, we use that framework, and we amend the system to them,” Cassandra says.

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Expressing Your Style and Creativity

I believe you deserve to look and feel good in your body. Cassandra and I talked about this when I went through my own fashion journey. My body changed with my psoriatic arthritis diagnosis and COVID. Finding a style I felt and looked good in was rough.?

Cassandra has seen similar struggles from many clients. She says it all starts with your closet and how you feel about your clothes. “I believe no matter your age, your body type, your background, you can control your style, and you deserve it, as well,” she says.

That’s why Cassandra encourages people to take control of their closet — clean it out, get a stylist or just start by wearing that one item you’ve been putting off.?

Closets are “the epicenter of great style,” she says. But if you don’t have the right wardrobe for you, it’s easy to become frustrated, bored, even overwhelmed. And that’s not the point.?

“Style is actually meant to be fun and meant to make you feel good. And so you got to control the closet,” Cassandra says.

Envisioning Your Style at Work

When I began working with Cassandra, the first thing we did was look at my closet. This seemed like a small step but was actually huge in getting to the root problem. There’s also a mindset aspect to examining your closet.?

“I would say step number one is, ‘Be really honest with yourself.’ And that can be really hard to do sometimes, but one exercise that can help you to be really honest is to create a vision for your style,” Cassandra explains.?

People get fixated on what brands to buy, clothing items with stain and other concerns that prevent them from envisioning “a bigger style vision for themselves.” You can map out your vision in many ways, but Cassandra says you can’t go wrong with a Pinterest board.?

“Spend 30 minutes on Pinterest, create that board, pin, pin, pin, pin, pin outfits, color, specific pieces you like. The only rule is you cannot say, ‘Oh, I can’t wear that because (fill in the blank).’ So this is not an exercise of can’ts. It’s a vision exercise,” she says.

Expanding Your Budget Without Breaking the Bank

Your Pinterest board is “your North Star of what to keep in mind as you go into that closet. And it makes it very black and white of what you should keep and what you should donate from there.” That said, people can get stressed out by how much they’ve already spent on clothes or how much more they think they need to spend to upgrade their wardrobe.?

Cassandra’s system is designed to help people expand their wardrobe and stay within their budget. First, clean out your closet.?

“You have to do a very honest and thorough closet edit. Because in the edit, if you have items that still fit you that are in line with your personal brand, let’s use them,” she says, “And then we segue into the first step within the framework, which is to identify your essential pieces. So what are those essential pieces you need in your closet year-round to make outfits?”

The next two steps are to get the right balance of color and the right fits.

“So we don’t want it to be too dark. We don’t want it to be too light. We want right in the middle. And then the third is to identify the right brands and fits for you,” Cassandra explains.

All of this requires time and effort, especially when it comes to trying on items. “You have to put in a lot of time and energy and resources to create that foundation,” she says. “But once you do, you have it, and that is your way forward.“

Click-to-tweet: “I believe no matter your age, your body type, your background, you can control your style, and you deserve it, as well.”– Cassandra Sethi, stylist, image consultant and founder of Next Level Wardrobe. Listen in to the latest episode of #PunkRockHR !

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