My Image of Confidence
Words by Liz Russell
The suit was a gray wool from Brooks Brothers, bought on sale, but still arguably one of the most expensive things I owned, outside of my house and car. It was, in its way, perfectly boring — no special cut, no frills — exactly how I liked it. I felt like a powerhouse in this suit — competent, collected, efficient — all of the things I hoped the photos from a “Women in Business” photoshoot would show.
Seeing a full body shot of myself wasn’t very common, even in today’s social media age. I was more likely to be pulled into a picture by my shoulders, face crunched against another’s for the requisite selfie, or I was otherwise squished amongst many friends, just trying to make sure some part of me was in the picture at all.
A picture of me in my suit was even rarer. I think it’s fair to say that, unless you work in media, fashion, or film, pictures of you at work are not exactly a daily thing. In my work, I would say it was not only irregular but potentially even frowned upon. As a consultant, it was my job to meld into the background, to make my successes my clients’, and to hold the keys to that success a secret; this was not a daily-selfie-at-work kind of world. My suit was — to many — as secret as my trade.
So wearing it in a shoot seemed like a fun opportunity, a chance to show the working side of me — proof that I actually left my desk on occasion, that the money for this suit had been well spent.
But what I saw when I got the pictures back was… surprising to me.
My smile in these pictures clearly captured my mental state. It was funny and quirky — the look I make when I’m telling a story or have a good idea. It is a look of confidence — the look of someone unafraid to share those thoughts and ideas out loud — and when I saw the pictures, I had no doubt that it was genuinely mine.
See, when I wear that suit, confident is clearly how I feel. I’ve spent 10 years living in suits and in that time, I’ve had a successful career. Suits are my uniform of choice, my superhero’s cape, and, like Doug Funny (or any other animated character ever), I have the same few over and over in my closet — no permutations to over-complicate something that has, in it’s simplicity, served me so well.
But if you told me that my face was photoshopped onto someone else’s body, I’d have ignored the unlikely probability that that body also owned the same exact suit and shoes that I did, and would have vigorously agreed with you. I was, as I looked through each photo, seized by some sort of obverse facial blindness, where I could recognize only the face and nothing else.
Who was this person in this suit?
When I picture “confident,” I tend to picture Jane Sibbett — long, lean, strong. When I pictured myself in certain scenes at work, in the kitchen, or in the yard, this is the woman I saw. Confidence. She was taller. She was sharper.
My actual image, though — confident as I was — was short and stocky. I looked strong, yes, but in a female farmhand kind of way. If I had been tanner, you might have wondered if I’d come in from the field and thrown on my best suit just to apply for another crop loan. Or worse, to plead my case to the DA.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t lovely or that I found short and stocky to be objectionable. I just… this is not what I pictured when I got dressed every morning. The incongruence of it gnawed at me.
I asked my boyfriend for his opinion. “I mean… it’s a picture of you… I’m just not sure what you’re looking for. Maybe wear the suit differently?”
Wear it differently?! It was a suit jacket and pants. There was only so much to be done. He was trying to be helpful — to see the thing that I saw. The difference. The incongruence. But clearly he couldn’t. This — to him — was me. In a suit. Not that abnormal.
So I decided to take his advice. To wear it differently. I tried new shirts. I bought new shoes. I mixed the jacket with other pants, the pants with other jackets. I tried ditching the suit altogether; I tried a slimmer fit, a shorter pant. I even chopped off my hair (maybe my cut didn’t fit my face shape? That could be it…). I felt fine — even great — in every permutation, but still the camera showed me something entirely different than what was in my mind. I couldn’t put my finger on the mismatch. I couldn’t define what felt so very out of place.
So, in a last ditch effort to solve what I saw as a fashion problem, I decided to make a croquis. Pronounced “crow-key,” these fashion drawings were meant to illustrate clothing on a model, to demonstrate what a new design might look like well before fabric was ever even purchased. It was a low-cost way to experiment — exactly what I needed when I felt so off-base with everything I had tried so far.
My lack of drawing skills forced me online. But every free croquis printout somehow showed someone more like Confidence — tall, skinny, definitely a size 0. And this, I had already established, was not me. Where is the short croquis with the athletic build and size AA bra? Seriously?
And then I found it — an online calculator that would use my body measurements to draw… well… me.
I enlisted Brad to help me follow the calculator’s instructions. Stripped down to my skivvies, my pale skin practically glowing in the bright LEDs of my upstairs office, we used an old lipstick to mark the areas of my body we would measure. A deep red smear for my waist. Another for my high hip. Thighs. Calves. Neck. Until I was covered in red waxy lines, all spreading in the microscopic crevices that made up my skin.
Then one by one we measured, diligently counting every dash on the measuring tape because neither of us could distinguish our eighths from our sixteenths.
After an hour, lipstick sufficiently smudged, there it was: my body on paper, 7-inches tall, with square shoulders, no real waist, and calves that rivaled most thighs. This may sound disparaging to you, but make no mistake — this was a moment of pride. There I was on paper — the croquis that no one online would — or could — build without me.
Me.
I printed Me out and traced Me onto cardstock. I cut Me out and added “hair” — a bright brown arch that could have as easily been drawn by a perceptive five-year-old. And I pinned Me to my bulletin board. To bear witness.
I left Me naked for a while; I had yet to determine how to use Me best. I still couldn’t really draw, so fashion drawing seemed a bit ridiculous, but slowly, using Me as my outline, I began to trace some clothes. Only the basics — something that resembled jeans, no-frills sweaters, and even my suit. I colored each in; I cut them out with little paper tabs that would hold them against Me. And after a few weeks, I had a paper doll set — a rather ironic metaphor — of the pieces I most loved, all specifically shaped like me.
In this very weird labor of love, I began to recognize my shape like you might recognize a loved one in a crowd. The straight lines that made up my legs, the rounding of my arms — all of it became as familiar to me as my mom’s face or my dog’s bark. In my paper play, I stopped trying to solve a fashion problem. In fact, I forgot the problem altogether. And now, when I tried to conjure up my image of Confidence, she somehow looks shorter and has hair a lot like mine.
About the Author:
Liz Russell is a disaster recovery consultant by day and a writer and podcaster by night. She lives in upstate NY with her boyfriend, her pup and three chickens that all look alike. Nothing makes her happier than a dozen idea-laden notebooks and a fresh cup of coffee.
👇 Share this post and help other women who need to hear they’re not alone. 👇