Dress for Excellence

Maintaining that ""an image of confidence and authority begets actual authority and power,'' Fenton, an executive-wardrobe consultant, gears her excellent advice toward upwardly mobile corporate men who don't want an inferior clothes sense to impede their further climb to the top. Her tendency to cheerlead and to toot her own horn is more than compensated for by a primer that reflects the meticulous attention to detail, subtleties and quality that Fenton advocates in menswear selection. Her comprehensive expertise runs the gamut from targeting appropriate business-suit colors (blue, gray and tan), trousers and shirt cuffs, and clothes for the company softball game, to evaluating a suit jacket's fit in eight steps, wrinkle-free packing, handling tailors (including tipping), coordinating shirts and ties, and advising color-blind men as to how best harmonize their wardrobes. Interviews with company chairmen reveal that some top corporations offer wardrobe courses and the services of a tailor on the premises. Illustrations not seen by PW. (November 24)