Formal, or too formal?

This was the question that i asked myself (and others) for the millionth time the day before my ERP presentation. Basically, formal wear for girls include: 1. covered shoes. 2. pants or skirt (if skirt, has to be below the knee.) 3. collared shirt. (not too un-buttoned so it shows your boobs, and not too short. obviously.) 3. jacket. ----------------------------------------------------------- Now in NgeeAnn, jackets are practically aliens in formal presentations. but why? we defintely look smarter. and my friend made a good point. if it were really a business meeting/presentation and you are competing with many others to sell your idea to the company. will the directors pay you any attention if you are not smartly dressed? yes, definitely some people will argue. "if i am good, and my content is good, doesn't matter what i wear what!" ooo-okay. (rolls eyes) however. first impression counts. you can never escape from this fact. imagine a shabbily dressed person coming into your posh office in the nicest part of town to sell you his idea. hell, he'd probably wouldn't be allowed into the building in the first place! (okay, i'm probably exaggerating, but ya, you get the picture.) ----------------------------------------------------------- so anyway, i went to zara to get a black collared top which looks formal for the presention. i didn't end up wearing that though. i wore a sort of funky (i would say) formal wear to present. and i was the only one who wore a jacket. too formal? for my class yes. for NgeeAnn, perhaps. Anyway, i almost conformed to the norms of our school, and almost wore a boring set of clothes to present. Almost. ----------------------------------------------------------- Now for guys: 1. shoes. (no basketball shoes please.) 2. pants. (not too low that it shows the butt, of course.) 3. collared shirt. (not too un-buttoned so it shows whatever chest hair you guys have.) 4. tie. 5. jacket. ----------------------------------------------------------- In NgeeAnn, guys do not wear jackets. they somehow think that their collared shirt would suffice. basically they just don't look very smart. anyway, they somehow make it worse when they un-button their shirts too much, and/or fold their sleeves up halfway; hence making them look like educated(?) bengs. and they don't wear ties. does this really mean that any collared shirt will equal to formal? ----------------------------------------------------------- so according to the 3 years' worth of presentation norms i've seen in NgeeAnn, i have come to a conclusion that we are just not dressing smartly enough! anyway. perhaps i'm just writing this post to justify my wearing of the over-formal suit. bleah. -----------------------------------------------------------