Image consultant expert Jill Lowe shares tips and tricks for lasting beauty.
Contributed By Joshua Chang
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| CN PHOTO: Lee Lin Kai |
Jill Lowe, the founder and chief image consultant of the award-winning consultancy Jill Lowe International, conducted elective sessions during CGI-Asia Conference 2010 to teach participants how they should groom and conduct themselves. With more than 25 years of experience providing premium personal and corporate image services, people profiling and communication skills, Lowe shared in a lighthearted and personal manner on the principles of personal grooming and etiquette.
Lowe started the session by quoting from Genesis, that man is created in God’s image. As such, the way in which a man looks and conducts himself will reflect the personality of the God whom he serves. If Christians dress sharp and look smart, they will emulate a God of wisdom and intelligence. On the other hand, if they dress sloppily, they will give people the wrong impression of a sluggish and apathetic God. Men should dress to look like men, and women should look like women, as “male and female He created them.”
Grooming and etiquette is therefore of high importance in reaching out to unbelievers. Lowe then asked the participants to stand up and to carefully observe their standing posture. To the excited amusement of the audience, she elaborated on a simple etiquette concept that people tend to overlook. When one stands, the distance between the feet implies implicitly whether they are behaving like a man or woman. Women should stand gracefully with their feet close together in the shape of a Y, and not place them wide apart. Men should stand firm with both feet evenly spaced from one another.
The way in which a person portrays himself can also cause his value in society to appreciate or depreciate. She shared two success stories of clients who went through her course and as a result, received promotion and success in life. The audience were amazed when they saw the before and after photographs of the two individuals.
Despite the fact that the ladies made up 90 percent of the audience, Lowe invited four gentlemen up on stage to illustrate the next concept she was about to share. She posed a question to the audience; if those four were to be cast in a movie with the roles of an accountant, delivery boy, pop singer and nightclub owner, who would they choose? The crowd then resoundingly allocated each one for each role according to their hairstyles. To further illustrate her point, she invited the “nightclub owner” Lie Ming Wan, 33, to remain on stage as she demonstrated how different hairstyles would imply different characteristics of a person. The audience roared with laughter as she professionally applied gel to his hair to create various looks. The image consultant further shared different concepts of beauty.
“Lusting beauty,” the exaggeration of extrinsic values is often employed by celebrities and politicians alike to impress the masses. “Lingering beauty” is the cultivation of intrinsic values: the fruits of the Holy Spirit that will bring blessings, exemplified by the life of Mother Teresa. However, people should seek most to have “Lasting beauty” which is the combination of both intrinsic and extrinsic beauty.
Due to time constraint, Lowe did not elaborate on how the color of clothing or a person’s style will influence a third party’s evaluation of him. However, the audience was deeply satisfied with the principles that she had shared with them in the short hour.
Korean student Jeon Hyung, 22, felt that the session was very interesting as it used a fresh approach to teach image consultancy in a biblical manner. He felt particularly impacted by the fact that how a Christian presents himself/herself is important to God, and was motivated for positive change.
