A Touch of the Outré

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I’ve just been giving some advice on what I call the psychoimagistics of ‘business chic’. Despite the credit crunch, this involves far more than being well groomed and smartly dressed. It also involves carrying certain talismanic objects and carefully deploying them at meetings. The magical objects can include:

• A leather portfolio
• A luxury pen
• A voice recorder
• A tablet PC
• A BlackBerry or other smart, email-enabled business phone
• A Moleskine, Red & Black or similar upmarket notebook

Of course, it is essential that you interact smoothly and professionally with the objects. There must be no fumbling with the laptop’s controls or finding your Mont Blanc is out of ink or the recorder out of batteries. In this as in so many other areas of life, one must strive for graceful elegance and eschew clumsy cackhandedness.

You are not simply marking out your territory and seizing control of part of the meeting space; nor are you just displaying symbols of your success, although this is important and, hence, the need for luxury items; you are showing your mastery of the world of business. The idea is to imply techno-efficiency and that you are wired into the Zeitgeist.

Thus far so good, but you need to go a step further. You also need to transcend the talismans and to display a certain disdainful aloofness from mere business gadgetry and processes. In psychodynamic or - as I prefer - psychoimagistic terms, you need one distinctive mark of personality or even of mild eccentricity – a tiny touch of the outré.

This touch is a restrained and subtle gesture towards a subversion of the talismanic world, or microcosm, you have yourself generated. The touch can be a carefully cultivated insouciance but more generally will be a negatively charged talisman. We are not talking vulgarity here. No comical socks, cartoon ties or – heaven forbid – tattoos. An elegant silk bow tie or expensive pocket watch might suffice for a man; a slightly over-the-top pair of glasses for a woman. Another option might be to ‘accidently’ display a magazine or book on some slightly recherché subject.

For some unfathomable reason, my sister had an uncontrollable fit of the giggles at this point. Reflecting bitterly that a prophet is rarely revered in his own country, I took a thoughtful snort of snuff, dusted the spillage from my well-worn yet chic combat vest and gathered my coffee besmirched index cards. I wonder if I should offer up-market courses in business deportment & style. I might follow in the steps of such luminaries as Professor Cosmo Saltana and Dr Owen Tuby. My time might finally have come!