Because the economy and the shrinking job market been so much on everyone’s mind, I’ve written about the important of a professional image for job seekers, and the powerful boost to not only one’s image and also one’s self-confidence when one wears appropriately professional jewelry. Today I’d like to share some observations about women professionals who are successful in the corporate world.

This past weekend, I did a trunk show of my vintage costume jewelry collection (my long-time hobby) at Master Design Clothing, a local Los Angeles area designer and retailer of exceptionally fine tailored professional women’s apparel featuring the kind of details (bound button holes, French seams) that even my aunt, an accomplished seamstress and arbiter of quality, would have approved. This is the kind of quality, classic apparel that successful professional woman can rely on to look polished.

Chunky necklaces have been popular for several seasons now, and many women in the world of politics, such as Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, choose short necklaces to accessorize their business suits. At the same time, many chic professional women of Southern California prefer to wear statement-making brooches on their tailored jackets. These women are judges, attorneys and corporate executives taking a very traditional approach to style in adding a pin to the lapels of their blazers. Perhaps no one personifies this style better than the former United States Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who was known for wearing message brooches with her tailored skirt suits.

I think it interesting that some women who can readily afford fine jewelry and wouldn’t think of wearing a necklace or bracelet of faux gold, gravitate toward costume jewelry in brooches. One reason seems to be the lack of availability of brooches at fine jewelers.

There’s a fresh focus on traditional tailored women’s wear as the days of universal business casual dress fade into memory. Business suits are back, and this is no fad. This shift in business fashion is great news for jewelers as short necklaces and brooches are almost requisite finishing touches to classic business wear.

JCK