Blog Posts by ForbesWoman

The idea of women wearing men's fashions dates from the 1930s and 1940s and remains just as de rigueur today. It's about time men's labels cottoned on.

By Leah Bourne

Menswear for women is an enduring trend in fashion--perhaps best typified by Annie Hall, the androgynous bohemian (played by Diane Keaton in the movie by Woody Allen) whose look was very clearly borrowed from the men's section. That may have been in 1977, but the idea of women wearing men's fashions dates from long before and remains just as de rigueur today.

Stylish women have long shopped Savile Row for made-to-measure tailored shirts to pair with everything from Carolina Herrera ball gown skirts to ripped vintage Levi's. And the menswear trend has made it onto the runways as of late--Dolce & Gabbana played with the tailored tuxedo jacket on the fall 2010 runway as did Diane von Furstenberg.

In fact, some of the most storied and beloved women's brands in the world actually started as men's brands: Think Ralph Lauren

How you can learn from your most embarrassing workplace gaffes.

By Meghan Casserly

When I started in the production department at Forbes, I was eager to get a happy hour tradition started with all of the 20-somethings in my group. So one Friday afternoon I sent a hasty e-mail to about 10 co-workers saying, "Our bosses have left the building! Let's meet by the elevators at quarter to five and get to the bar before it's crowded!" Unfortunately, one of the recipients of the e-mail was not the circulations assistant, but the chief financial officer of Forbes Media.

I was mortified--and fairly certain I'd be fired for conspiracy to leave early. Thankfully, our CFO has a sense of humor and I'm still gainfully employed at the company four years later.

"Everyone makes mistakes," says Barbara Pachter, author of New Rules At Work. "We know nobody's perfect and we shouldn't expect ourselves to be," she says. The pertinent issue here is that if you can get over your slip-up, the rest of your

Some career-minded women are freezing their eggs so they can continue their climb up the corporate ladder.

By Camilla Webster


Some game-changing fertility technology is promising to let your baby-bearing clock tick well past the witching hour. Extend Fertility Centers, an egg-harvesting, freezing and storage company, can't put an infant in your crib, but it promises to keep your eggs safe until pregnancy becomes an option. An ambitious young businesswoman can now jockey for the corner suite while putting her future family on ice.

We spoke with a financial-services executive we'll call Hillary, to conceal her identity, about her decision two years ago, at 39, to have her eggs harvested and stored at an Extend Facility center. She learned about the egg-freezing technology through an obstetrician friend and used $20,000 of her Wall Street bonus to go through two cycles of the procedure. She now has more than 20 eggs at the ready for use when the time is right. "You're 23, and you look

They're celebrities, yes, but a handful are leveraging their television success into entrepreneurial gold.

By Jenna Goudreau

First came The Real World and Survivor, followed by The Apprentice, American Idol, The Bachelor, Rock of Love, Fear Factor, Dancing with the Stars and all those Real Housewives, among dozens of reality TV shows.

And then there's Kim Kardashian. She's a reality TV celebrity, yes, but that's just half the story. What she's done, and is doing, is leverage her television success into entrepreneurial gold.

The 29-year-old star became a household name after her family signed on to E!'s Keeping Up With The Kardashians in 2007. With a ballooning fan base, she quickly became known for her style and sex appeal. It didn't take long for her to transform that notoriety into a strong business brand.

10 Reality Stars Turned Entrepreneurs

When Kardashian enters, her high heels are followed by a clingy olive mini-dress, a voluminous mane of long black hair and a posse of

If there are institutions that consistently produce winners--say, Harvard among universities or Goldman Sachs for investment banking--Victoria's Secret would be that institution for the modeling industry. The $5.6 billion brand has churned out dozens of supermodels. Everybody knows their faces, their bodies, their names, and some have graduated from modeling into credible acting or entrepreneurial careers. A notable few, such as Gisele Bundchen, Heidi Klum and Tyra Banks, have done so with astonishing success.

While other fashion and beauty brands have produced famous models, they tend to remain just that. Models. In recent years, those companies have also tended to hire prized Hollywood talent: Rihanna and Drew Barrymore (CoverGirl), Eva Longoria and Scarlett Johansson (L'Oreal), Keira Knightley and Audrey Tatou (Chanel) and Jessica Alba (Revlon), thus undoing an important training ground for any supermodels-in-the-making.

Victoria's Secret has refused to buy into this trend,

If anything can shatter the glass ceiling, it's the Internet.

By Diane K. Danielson

Most women are terrific social networkers but are bad at using their skills for business and/or leveraging their networks. Wait. What I meant to say is most businesswomen and female politicians are not using social networks to their economic and/or political advantage.

Why the change of heart? Because there are women out there making money, building followings and even forcing corporations to change. These women are often called "Mommy Bloggers" or "Work at Home Moms" and I want to salute them.

I've spent the past seven years trying to get businesswomen to embrace the power of the Internet and social networks. I started blogging for the career pages of the Boston Globe back in 2003 because I felt women were underrepresented. I built the first social network for businesswomen back in 2005, to give women a competitive edge. Unfortunately, it was an "if you build it they will come" moment that didn't

The hardest part is moving past the hard feelings and rebuilding your ego. Here's how.

By Kari Molvar

Working for a toxic boss--the type that bullies you, criticizes everything you touch and makes you wish for an invisibility cloak every time she walks past your office--is not a person you can easily forget. Or get over, even weeks or months after you've parted ways.

Being subjected to a constant stream of negative feedback takes its toll and grinds you down to the point where you eventually begin to believe: Wow, maybe I really do have zero talent. Maybe a child could do my job better. It's called buying into the brainwashing.

Cut to the point where you come to your senses. That is, you were fired or you quit. Regardless, the hardest part is moving beyond the experience and rebuilding your ego so you can walk into your next job and not feel like you have a kick-me sign on your back or a deer-in-the-headlights mentality every time you get an e-mail from your new boss.

Tips For

Want to be treated better at work? The key is increase your popularity on the office social circuit.

By Alexandra Levit

In high school didn't a part of you always wonder how the cool kids did it? Popularity remained an enigmatic aspect of human existence that ceased to be relevant once we threw our caps in the air … right?

There are scores of research studies on popularity in schools, and most have indicated that popular children are viewed as better students and make and maintain friendships more easily. In 2009, however, organizational psychologists Timothy Judge and B.A. Scott at the University demonstrated that popularity plays a significant role on success in the workplace.

They defined popularity as being "accepted by one's peers" and conceptualized it as a function of both an employee's personality and the situational position within his group.

As a result of studying two samples of employee populations, Professors Judge and Scott reported that co-workers reliably agreed