TJ Walker offers practical guidelines for how to dress for television and video appearances. He emphasizes consistency between clothing and one’s professional/persona (avoid confusing viewers), and gives technical advice about patterns, colors, and lighting (avoid small/complex patterns, caution with bright red, pure white, and all-black outfits) while noting these are flexible rules-of-thumb illustrated with examples.
Chapters
So what's the best way to dress? If you're going to be on television or on video, whether you're a guest on someone's news program or your own video, there's no one best way. There are some guidelines I want to give you. The number one guideline is are you wearing something that doesn't confuse people and helps them figure out who you are, what you're about? Is it consistent with your message and what you're about to? So if you're a dairy farmer, wearing a business suit may look a little odd. Even though you may be a business person running a 10,000 person farm, it still is confusing to people. If you are a value, traditional value investor mutual fund manager and you're wearing flip flops and a tie dye shirt, that can be confusing to people. But if you're a musician, flip flops and a tie dye shirt may be a hundred percent with what you're about. So you need to ask yourself, who are you? What do you want people to think of when they see you? They shouldn't be confused. I sometimes work with bankers and they'll wear traditional conservative suit. But I also work with fashion designers. They don't want a boring suit. They need something that demonstrates their color, creativity and their latest fashions or artists. Artists don't want to look bland and boring. You have to figure out what works for you. Now, if you're in a lot of organizations, a government agency, something that isn't particularly in the arts, chances are you don't want people focused on what you're wearing. You want something that is somewhat traditional for business in your area. It may be a suit and tie or a woman's business suit. It might be a business casual look, but it's not calling a lot of attention to itself. There are some things I would avoid if you're going to be on video. Stripes can jump around, dance around. Remember, you have to think about how does this look not just on a big high definition TV screen, but a computer monitor. Also, how is it going to look on someone's cell phone when they're watching? Certain things can look great on a high definition television, but on a cell phone, if they're watching it on YouTube can just get blurry. So that's the problem with stripes, unless they're particularly bold. Other things that cause problems, patterns, small patterns, paisley, herringbone, they just jump around, they get blurry, it gets fuzzy. I would avoid small, complex patterns. Certain colors are a problem. Bright red can do. We call bleeding. You're moving and it's still sort of over here. Pixelating pure white can be a problem unless it's your own production like mine. And I want a clean, simple look. But if you're wearing clothing with white, a white shirt can make it harder to properly light your face because the. The camera will think the white is light and it will darken other things. So in general, I would avoid wearing white clothing. All black can be a problem. Now, you may be looking at me saying, well, that's all black. This has black in it, but it has a lot of white in it too. So there's still contrast. You can kind of see where my arm starts, my body stops if you're wearing a pure black outfit. Unlike in real life, where black can have a slimming effect, black can make you look heavier on video because it all blurs together. It's harder to light, and you can look like just sort of a blob from the neck down. Plus, it's more likely that you blend into the chair because so many chairs are black. So in general, I would avoid black on tv. Keep in mind, these are general rules of thumb. It's not the end of the world if you're out somewhere and someone wants to do an interview with you and you're wearing black. It's not the end of the world if you're wearing a white shirt. Former presidents Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan to US Presidents typically always wore white shirts when they were in the Oval Office. Didn't seem to hurt their careers. So keep in mind these are general guidelines that will give you a little extra edge, but they're not ironclad rules.
