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Britt Lintner, 38, works in hedge-fund sales in Mayfair. And she runs her own dress design business on the side. As you do - or you do when you are as extraordinarily focused and fast-talking as she is.
"Good clothes open doors," she says. "If you're dressed for the part it makes your job opportunities easier."
It's easy for men, she says, they have a uniform - the suit.
"There's a fine line women have to walk and you can only know it by working in your industry. If you cross it and you're female - if your shirt is too low-cut or your heel is too high - then you're not taken seriously."
But Lintner doesn't just want to help herself get on at work by looking good - she wants to help other women, too.
Which is why every year she donates a large proportion of her wardrobe - mostly her own designs ("my stuff is a bit Jil Sander, a bit Calvin Klein, a bit Coco Chanel") - to an unusual charity.
Dress for Success kits out disadvantaged women in outfits for their first job interview and gives them advice and support. It dresses more than 500 women a year and has impressive connections.
The clothes come from individual donors (often City women), "suit drives" in FTSE 100 companies and direct from retailers: this year Gap, Next and M&S all donated stock. And Burberry handed over a consignment of "fantastic coats".
Today, Harvey Nichols shows its support. The entire store is open for an invite-only late shopping evening between 8pm and 10pm on behalf of Dress for Success.
Nine hundred guests will benefit from 10 per cent off everything, plus the store will be donating 10 per cent of all sales on the night.
The place will be awash with champagne and canapés and there will be free make-up and perfume demonstrations.
Harvey Nicks' lavish gesture fits the charity's glitzy heritage. Set up in New York in 1997, Bobbi Brown and a senior vice-president of Ralph Lauren are on the board in the US.
In a decade they have helped more than 450,000 women in 90 countries.
In the UK, Nicola Horlick and Betty Jackson are patrons.
Jackson says: "Dressing for work is a huge self-esteem issue. If you feel inappropriately dressed, you just feel shocking. You feel embarrassed and stupid."
Lintner agrees: "If I'm not dressed properly then I don't feel I can do my job properly."
But how can a charity like this thrive in a recession? "If anything, people seem to be more conscious of people who can't get a job and what that must be like for them," says Juliet Hughes-Hallet, a one-time fashion assistant at Vogue who now heads up the organisation.
Interestingly, she says despite redundancies and a depressed job market in the City, Dress for Success has been busier than ever this year.
Every autumn it runs "suit drives" in the City at places such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Clifford Chance and collects dozens of outfits, everything from Jigsaw, M&S and Hobbs ("We get a lot of those from the City," says Hughes-Hallet.
"Those labels are our life-blood") to Armani and Prada. "We don't take anything that we wouldn't wear ourselves," she adds.
The number of women referred to Dress for Success by other charities and by the JobCentre is also increasing.
"At the moment you really need to be firing with both guns to get a job. What we do is more needed than ever because it's so hard for anyone to get a job," says Hughes-Hallet.
Women usually come to see the charity to be dressed the day before their job interview (which must be in place before they can get help from Dress for Success).
They also give tips on hair, make-up, how to answer questions and how to put yourself across.
As Hughes-Hallet says: "When you walk in the door to the interview, 50 per cent of the employer's mind is made up."
The first impression is a lasting one. And this is perhaps even more difficult for women, especially when it's hard to read office dress codes and wearing a suit can now look dated and try-hard.
Earlier this year Maureen Rice, editor of Psychologies magazine, complained that she was sick of seeing young women turning up for work with bra straps showing, "spray-on" dresses and acres of cleavage.
At the last round of job interviews she had employed a nice man in a suit.
She added: "The way we dress has a huge effect on the way we perceive ourselves and on the way we're perceived. Sadly, the two don't always match up."
Michelle Obama meeting the Queen in a shift dress and cardi helped. (Betty Jackson approves of this - see her tips, above). But it's still a minefield. Can you show upper arms or not? Some offices tolerate jeans (all the girls at Vogue House are in jeans at the moment) but you can only get away with them if they're dark-coloured ones. In other places, you really do need an old-fashioned Next-style jacket and skirt or you will look too rebellious.
Lintner is steely about her advice for dressing in the City: "It has to be minimalist. Lots of black and white, navy, muted colours. You can get away with red, green or purple but only if they are deep hues."
At Dress for Success, the staff evaluate you in a variety of outfits with your job interview, organisation and figure in mind.
It's a brilliant way of getting an objective outside opinion, especially if you are feeling nervous and lacking in self-confidence.
Their success rate for candidates getting the job at next-day interviews is just over 50 per cent - an amazing figure considering that this is often a first interview for women who have not worked for years and may have had all sorts of problems in life.
The majority are single mothers who have never worked before or asylum seekers with a long record on benefits.
Others are recovering from mental health problems, some are ex-offenders, some have had problems with substance abuse.
Helping them to change their appearance really does make them put their best selves across.
Anuja Jadhav, 26, who lives in Docklands, started a new job as a sales assistant in the Charing Cross branch of M&S Food last week.
She arrived in the UK from India last year for an arranged marriage and found it almost impossible to get a job.
She would have worked at anything, she says. "I applied for receptionist jobs, admin posts, everything. No response. The recession has caused a lot of problems."
Finally she was referred to Dress for Success by an employment charity. She jokes that she only got her new job because of how she was dressed: Next suit, Gap shirt - all from Dress for Success.
"I thought I should dye my hair and wear a lot of make-up. But they said: 'It's an interview, not a party.' They gave me small instructions, very clearly. In my interview comments, everyone said: 'Very smart.'"
She has just been kitted out with a second set of clothes to tide her over until her first pay packet.
Memory Sachnikonye, 43, an asylum seeker from Zimbabwe ("I left my country because I was not safe," she says quietly), is another success story.
Once an executive IT manager, here she was on benefits for five years: "You can't apply for a job while you are seeking asylum. Everything is taken away from you and you lose your self-esteem."
She is a co-ordinator at the UK Community Advisory Board. For her interview she had a jacket from Austin Reed, shoes, trousers and blouse from M&S. "Before I started work I was living on £30 a week.
"So these were clothes from shops where I would never have dreamed of shopping. It's amazing what a good outfit can do for you. The feeling as a woman of wearing something that really suits you It gives you that extra self-confidence."
Betty Jackson remembers the woman who inspired her to join the organisation: a political refugee who had ended up with a job as a secretary at Buckingham Palace.
"It's about empowering women," she says. "I was blown away by it because it's not just about the clothes, it's about self-esteem."
Tanya Tribe, 45, a single mother from Holland Park who has just retrained and got her first job as a chauffeur after not working for 16 years, agrees: "The thought of going back to full-time work was petrifying."
She was given a Boden dress, Wallis skirt, Zara jacket and, miraculously, a brand new pair of size eight shoes - "I have big feet and I can never get shoes. Dress for Success makes you feel special and that's so important.
"Now I'm earning money I'm on the right track to collecting little pieces to look smart in. I think I could do a perfectly good job looking scruffy but with a suit or dress you just look the part.
"Also," she adds, laughing, "for the first time in a long time I look hot."
This makes sense, says Lintner: "I know it sounds silly - it's just clothes. But it's amazing how when a woman feels good it transforms her whole presence."
Betty Jackson's tips for looking good at work
• It's less to do with fashion and more to do with clothes that fit. Simple is best.
• Sometimes you go into a shop that sells cheap things and you're drawn to the flashiest and most colourful. If you want longevity, remember: you might not want that bright print every day. You want something sober which you can make look different every day.
• The age of power-dressing is softening. I don't think it's necessary to dress like a man. Don't feel you need to wear a jacket and trousers or a jacket and a shirt. A great dress with a cardigan over it is a modern way of looking powerful.
• Keep it simple and comfortable. It's hideous if you're uncomfortable and you need to adjust your skirt or trousers. You function better if you're relaxed and feel good in what you've got on. That means not too tight, not too short, not too long, not too complicated.
• A dress is great because it just does the whole thing. It's the answer at the moment.
• If you do want to wear a jacket, choose a square-shouldered one because that shape is in fashion.
www.dressforsuccess.org
Reader views (10)
As a volunteer at Dress for Success, I was very sorry to hear about the client who was so unhappy about her outfit that she cried when she got home. Our aim is always to work together with the client in choosing an outfit that she is comfortable with, rather than to just 'give' clothes - it sounds as if unfortunately we were not successful on this occasion. On the subject of self-confidence: long-term unemployment or repeated failure at interview is bound to be detrimental. However many of our clients do have confidence in their ability to do the job - they just can't afford suitable clothing. This is about feeling that you 'look the part', not about fashion.
- Beth, London
I went to Dress for Success for help. They gave me a £6 jacket from Primark that didn't fit, a shirt with a well-worn, stained collar and underarms, and another shirt that didn't fit. There was no way I could wear these things for interview.
I don't know where all the good quality, new clothes you describe go. I wasn't offered them. I actually cried when I got home, I think it was because I was relying on Dress for Success to help me and I was so let down. I've had a declining income over a long time because of serious illness, and I had nothing smart enough to wear to interview that still fitted me. I'm left with the impression that City women on huge salaries may be taking advantage of these shopping evenings to splash some caah for themselves in comfort and do some networking. Fair enough for them, but please don't make them out to be helping others. It looks as though they are not donating decent clothes in exchange, but taking along stuff that is no longer wearable, or buying something cheap (like a £6 Primark jacket) for their contribution. Dress for Success, I also discovered, have had a grant of more than £300,000 from the Lottery Fund. It seems a lot to spend to dress 500 women a year? Plus all the supposed donations? That money could have bought an awful lot of decent outfits, surely. Decent clothes that you could at least borrow for interview would be a better option than being given obviously cheap and worn out things.
- Jobless, London
Perhaps better skills and not shoes would be more appropriate.
If your self esteem is linked to what you wear then you surely have problems that go far beyond being solved via this initiave.
- Hansel, London
As a volunteer for Dress for Success I would like to comment on some of the other readers' points. Dress for Success are not trying to "marginalise an entire gender". Readers need to understand that some of the clients who are referred to Dress for Success are unemployed, homeless, in prison or have low self-esteem after long periods of unemployment, personal or health issues. We work with over 100 different referral Agencies and reach women from all backgrounds, our aims and objectives are to empower women to achieve their full potential. We are fortunate to be able to give our clients back a sense of self and help them to hold their heads up and achieve their full potential. Not to mention looking fantastic as they do it!
- Leanda, London, UK
Is she single?! ;o)
- Frank, Home Counties, England.
Hansel, Jon. I think you've missed the point. This isn't all about dressing the part, its about the self esteem and confidence it gives women who have been out of work and 'felt' unemployable for a long time. This is a great concept that has worked well for a number of years and continues to be successful. Well done Dress for Success.
- Sharon, London
Far from "marginalising women to look trendy to do their job properly" I think you'll find that this isn't about "dressing up" women in the latest designer gear to get or do a job. These women often have no money to buy any clothes, or have been out of the system for so long they have no idea what the dress convention is in the workplace. Wearing clothes that fit properly and are appropriate for the role is a simple thing that we take for granted every day - for these women it is a massive confidence boost that helps them feel a part of the working community. So for once, maybe people should start thinking about how these women feel about themselves and how this comes over in an interview rather than being all about superficial opinions of others.
- Ali, London
Great way of marginalising an entire gender is to point out that one of the key factors of their achievements can attributed to the clothes that they wear. Next week - Prepare your hair for a place on the board!
- Hansel, London
Not sure how this improves the perception of working women if "If I'm not dressed properly then I don't feel I can do my job properly." sounds pretty airhead to me. It is just as easy for a woman to buy a suit as a man, they don't HAVE to worry about being fashionable, let's face it most men are most definitely not.
- Jon, london
What an utterly brilliant idea. At the risk of increasing the bidding against me and losing the odd peice, I'd recommend women who need to dress for less to look on Ebay, where there are tens of thousands of designer items which are new, seconds or barely worn for under a tenner (or even a fiver) including postage. Especially good for 'finishing' accessories like leather handbags, shoes etc. to complete an outfit. It works well if you look for items from mail order companies as their fit is more reliable, or from a shop where you know their clothes suit you 
- Roz, France
