New Women's Dress for Success

Rating:
Summary: Does appearance honestly mean more performance these days?
Review: This book is reasonable in its assumptions, and I believe that it really would help some women with their careers. But who really wants to read something all about appearance? Our society is superficial enough, and there is no reason to make it worse by devoting one's time to reading this book. Molloy should write something about helping people to find themselves rather than the appropriate shoe. And I cannot believe that someone wrote a novel entitled "How to Date Young Women : For Men over 35," and that one of Molloy's books is being sold with it as a special deal. If I was Molloy I would hate to know that someone laughed at me the way that I did when I read that.

Rating:
Summary: This book needs taking down a couple of pegs.
Review: This book promises a lot, but when you strip it down to bare essentials, it's actually pretty crappy. It is full of sexist and size-ist stereotypes and while these of course exist in the real world, it is people like him who perpetuate such paradigms. If you want to be talked down to by a full-of-himself self-tagged style consultant who thinks filling a whole book with the same tired points recycled in different ways is good advice...then go ahead

Rating:
Summary: New Women's Dress for Success
Review: This book though a quick read was not interesting nor informative. The whole book is simply composed of thouhgts of John Molloy's that he contantly states are proven because of tests and statistics run, but they are results are never told in numbers. For all I know, Molloy's conclusion could be true but the percent may be 51% to 49%, which in the whole scheme of things is true but not really. If Molloy would have added the numbers and more specifc details of what the tests run were, his points may have had a little more validity. Not to mention, the whole book is a generalizations of what a typical buisness person would think of his workers dressesd in a certain way. Not all buisness people may react the same to every style of dressing. Molloy also discuses the effects that being overweight has on a person in the workplace. Molloy's basic statement was that overweight people will have the hardest time getting promoted becasue of their weight. This I found to be totally outrageous and I would love to know where the proof is for this one. Molloy seems to simply assume this because only blank percent of overweight woman are in high paid professions. This may be because overweight people have low self confidence, but I do not bleive that this issue was chekced into or addressed by Molloy. It seems that also of the time Molloy states facts but may not look at the lurking variables which could have affected his tests. These are my main reasons why I did not enjoy this book or find it valid in any sense.

Rating:
Summary: Dress for success?
Review: This book was informative and interesting. However, the entire book could have been summarized into one chapter. The first chapter was very interesting. Some of the tips that Molloy described were indeed useful and perfectly logical but gradually, you will start to notice a pattern in Molloy's advice for dressing successfully. From then on, the book becomes repetitive. Unless you are a researcher seeking details, evidence and facts about the way women should dress, reading this book will gradually become a tedious task. In addition, the style of dressing that Molloy describes is outdated. The illustrations in the novel represent the attire of women from the 70s or the 80s. Overall, I thought the information in this book was mostly common sense but I would recommend others to read maybe the first two chapters of the novel. I believe that the information contained in those first few pages will be extremely helpful for women in the working world.

Rating:
Summary: Out of date, but still some useful points
Review: This is a great book if you want advice on how to make sure your clothing does not stop you getting ahead in a formal and old fashioned work setting. It badly needs updating/rewriting for the 21st century and would now be a waste of money if you were only looking for advice on "business casual" or "dress down" clothing.

Most of the book deals with formal work wear and there is very little research on business casual. The information that appears is now 5 years out of date. For example, I would really like to know whether it is still a bad idea to wear pants to work. My observations suggest that the rules have changed since 1995 and that most if not all business casual skirt outfits look wrong -(what do you wear on your legs?- hosiery looks silly and bare legs are inappropriate at work), but whether the minds of the (male) decision makers have also moved on is another matter.

Some readers have described the book as sexist. It is not. It describes accurately the sexist attitudes of those who will be judging their female employees' attire and I was grateful that it did so.

Rating:
Summary: Offensive to Women
Review: This manual is not about how a woman should dress for success. It is about how a woman should dress to get approval from her superior, who is assumed to be a male. It only gets worse when the author states that designer handbags are an obvious choice for the businesswoman because they give her the authority to be placed on the same level as a male. In another chapter, the author writes that if a woman has a feminine voice and physique, that a black suit is almost always successful in gaining the acceptance of a man. However, it goes on to say that if the woman is in any way unattractive, the black suit tends to "turn men off". My first reaction was, when was this book published? To my dismay, I discovered it was in 1996! I simply can not believe that books such as this are allowed to circulate in a corporate environment. Women have struggled long enough to gain acceptance in a culture dominated by males, and we certainly do not need the men of this culture telling us how we should dress.

Rating:
Summary: sexist? not really
Review: well, quite a lot of people hate this book because it's sexist. however, it's not the author's fault; it's our society's fault. no matter you admit it or not and like it or not. this is the way our society works. You can say the tips in the book are sexist but they're ture in the real world. all the results are from the excellent research done by the author for over 30 years. This is really a book for success

Rating:
Summary: A lesson in being attractive...by Darcia
Review: When I began reading, the book seemed very dry and boring. Molloy certainly does not write to be lyrical or entertaining. However, I actually found some great advice in his book. I plan to go into law, so all the advice about suits and colors to make people listen to you and cooperate with you were very interesting. I never knew most of it. I especially like how he "disproved" the idea that looking beautiful or sexy makes a woman successful. I would recommend this book to people who are concerned with getting good jobs and promotions, and are looking for specific advice on how to improve their image.

Rating:
Summary: Job-Hunting? Buy It! Read It! Use what works for you!
Review: Yes, this book is definitely written by a sexist. But, the tips, especially no pants, limited brights and reds, always wear a jacket, appear to be right on target in today's corporate world for women. His insights into "casual day" were right on the money. Colored illustrations would have made this book an 8 or 9. I used the tips and received a GREAT job offer in a major city.