I can’t remember a profile of a banker which ever quoted his tailor. But Susanne Craig is perfectly happy ending her profile of Lehman’s Erin Callan with a quote from her personal shopper:
Tina Sussman, her personal shopper at New York retailer Bergdorf Goodman, has started sending racks of clothes to Ms. Callan’s house because the CFO’s schedule is so hectic. Ms. Sussman describes Ms. Callan’s style as "classic and elegant."
Of course, this is entirely Callan’s doing:
Callan is wearing a short crocheted dress with a black belt slung low around her hips, gold hoop earrings, and knee-high caramel-colored high-heel boots. She seems to have rejected the path taken by some of her counterparts, who have erased all signs of their femininity to blend in with the pinstripes. "I don’t subordinate my feminine side," she says. "I’m very open about it. I have no problem talking about my shopper or my outfit."
Clearly this is working for Callan. But it does serve to perpetuate the idea of Wall Street as the home of "hot ladies and bald dudes".
Incidentally, just who are these Wall Street women who have "erased all signs of their femininity," anyway? In Wall Street’s world of hyper-masculine men, simply going the not-feminine route doesn’t seem like a particularly smart career strategy.