DRESSED FOR THE TOP: What «Ladies First» Gets Brilliantly Right
Sometimes the most important things happen when you slow down. Over the Whitsun weekend in the English countryside, I made a conscious decision to step away from the noise of social media and work obligations and simply breathe. I read, I rested, and I watched a film that has been dividing audiences since it landed on Netflix: «Ladies First«, starring Rosamund Pike and Sacha Baron Cohen, directed by Thea Sharrock.
Let me say this clearly: I loved it.
I loved Rosamunde Pike’s performance in «Ladies First».
Yes, the critics have been ruthless. The reviews have been unkind. But I found myself completely charmed, not despite the film’s unapologetic playfulness, but because of it. «Ladies First» reminds me of the romantic comedies of the nineties and early two-thousands, films that dared to be funny and warm and utterly unashamed of themselves. In a landscape of relentlessly self-serious cinema, there is something genuinely refreshing about a film that winks at you and then makes you think.
The premise is deceptively simple: a swaggering male chauvinist, played with wonderfully committed physicality by Baron Cohen, wakes up in a parallel world where women hold all the power, and men occupy every diminished, overlooked, and underestimated role that women have quietly endured for centuries. It sounds like a comedy setup. And it is. But beneath the laughs lies something that is, when you sit with it, genuinely sobering.
Because the joke only lands if we recognise the truth it is built on.
The film earns those laughs honestly. When the men are womensplained to in board meetings, when someone is called testerical, when the power lunch happens at Burger Queen, when he has to shop at Cockette, and when, in perhaps the film’s most quotable moment, someone declares «he got us by the ovaries.» I laughed out loud. Genuinely. The kind of laugh that reminds you why great comedy, however cheesy, is never a small thing.
The reality is that women remain startlingly underrepresented at the top of almost every major industry. What «Ladies First» does, wrapped in all its glorious cheesiness, is hold a mirror up to a dynamic most of us encounter on a regular basis and simply accept. The question the film poses, the one that stayed with me long after the credits rolled, is whether women would behave differently if we truly held that power. My honest answer: yes, I believe we would. And I think that is something worth celebrating.
But there is another conversation the film opens up, and it is one I find especially compelling as someone who lives and breathes fashion. In this reimagined world, the visual language of power shifts entirely. Clothes become a different kind of currency, and the film understands, perhaps more than it is given credit for, that what you wear is never simply what you wear.
The power of a good jacket: Power Shoulders
Fashion has always been a form of communication that requires no words. Research has consistently reinforced what those of us who dress with intention already know instinctively. A 2019 Harvard Business Review study found that 85 percent of professionals perceive well-dressed individuals as more competent, regardless of gender. Psychologists describe this through the concept of «enclothed cognition,» the idea that clothing does not merely reflect our state of mind but actively shapes it. When you dress with authority, you think and move with authority. The two are inseparable.
Nothing beats a well cut suit in a great hue: Never Seen Together
This does not mean we need to borrow from a masculine wardrobe. That conversation belongs to another era. True power dressing today is about intention. It is a sharp, beautifully cut blazer worn with a silk slip skirt. It is a confident colour when the room expects beige. It is structure and precision and the quiet, undeniable statement of a woman who knows exactly what she is doing before she has said a single word. And let us not forget: we also look incredible in a men’s suit. That is our advantage, and it always has been. We can wear everything. Femininity is not the opposite of power. It is, when wielded deliberately, one of its most potent expressions.
One of my favorite suits in my closet that is inspired by menswear: Istanbul Memories
Ladies First may not be the film the critics wanted. But it might just be the film we needed. It is funny, it is generous, and hidden inside its warm, crowd-pleasing exterior is a question that is anything but trivial.
It is powerful to mix female and male elements: Dream More
What would the world look like if we dressed, and led, on our own terms?
I think we already know the answer.
LoL, Sandra
An unexpected combination of color and cut: Oversized Cool
Changing your appearance is a powerful thing to do: Bang
Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht and Netflix
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With the loveliest hosts Lupe Puerta (The Floorr) and Nyree Tanielian
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With my dear friend Anouschka who flew in from Frankfurt for the occasion.
Lupe and I on the steps of the Bvlgari store on New Bond Street.
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With fashion designer Olga Vilshenko.
Beautiful Bvlgari handbags designed by Mary Katrantzou.