From the author: All articles in this series are chapters of my book “Public Speaking. Workshop”. If you are interested in this topic, then you can find all the previous chapters on this site, and subsequent ones will be published here a little later A well-groomed appearance is a necessary component of the image of a public person. Look around, all successful people always take care of themselves, it’s simply impossible to do without it. There is a widespread opinion (here on the B17 forum, and in articles I have encountered this opinion more than once) that the internal content is much more important than the appearance. But I think that the very comparison and putting these things into competitive relationships, reasoning about what is more important, is fundamentally wrong. It is quite possible to combine both. These are not mutually exclusive, but complementary things. I will talk here about appearance specifically in the context of a public speaking or interview, but the same laws of perception apply in a psychologist’s office. Even if you have a fine mental organization and excellent oratorical abilities, but you dress incorrectly or perform in dirty shoes, wrinkled trousers or with creases in your tights, you can consider your performance a failure. I assure you, the audience will remember first of all the arrow on your tights or dirty shoes, and not the essence of your report. When you stand on stage, all eyes are directed at you, you are, as it were, under a magnifying glass. And even minor negligence or sloppiness in your appearance, which you may allow yourself to admit in everyday life, can be very noticeable and significant on stage. Your appearance should work for you, subtly emphasize and complement your inner content. Lack of attention to your appearance is a sign of a disregard for not only yourself, but also your interlocutors and your audience. But, at the same time, your appearance should not “run ahead of you” and be brighter and richer than the situation requires. A designer friend once told me that a perfectly executed renovation is one that you simply don’t notice, it doesn’t bother you in any way, but you feel good and comfortable living, thinking and creating in this room. This is only partly correct, but it still gives great pleasure both in a year and in five years to look at the exquisite renovation and receive aesthetic pleasure. I think we can draw an analogy with the image and see that the same applies to the “design” of the appearance of a public person. We should mostly listen to it and not just see its façade and design, although the design should be of high quality and aesthetically pleasing. Nothing in his appearance should stress or irritate us. To do this, from the very beginning of the performance, he must give the impression of being well-groomed, respectable and that he can be trusted. This is achieved with the help of successful makeup and correctly selected clothes. And then, one can consider the ideal situation when people generally stop paying attention to how he is dressed, and only begin to carefully listen to the speech he makes. Despite its apparent simplicity, this is quite difficult to achieve. So that your clothes and shoes do not bother others, they should, at a minimum, not interfere with you. Shoes should not pinch, and the skirt should not twist. Never wear newly purchased new clothes and new shoes to a performance or interview, if you yourself are constantly thinking about how the new trousers look on you, the performance will lose significantly. In the following articles I will talk about various details of the external image: about the suit, about the hairstyle, about the makeup. If you still have the question of what is more important, internal or external, then perhaps you will not need the following articles. If you choose, choose internal. But if you have the strength, enthusiasm and desire to express respect for your audience, as well as self-love, then I hope that the following articles will be at least interesting for you, and at most useful. Thanks for your feedback!