Business
SCHOOL
Groom For
Improvement
Looking to
enhance your
brand at
work? Don't
be that guy.
BY JILL COODY SMITS
C.E.O. NO-NO
There's very
little upside
to dressing
down at work.
64 SPIRIT NOVEMBER 2013
I
F YOU DON'T think image is everything, ask Miley Cyrus. In August,
the erstwhile teen idol and Disney
money machine twerked her way to
infamy at the 2013 MTV Video Music
Awards. It's a fine line between cheeky
provocation and global embarrassment,
and Cyrus's calculated attempt to literally shake off her PG persona and, well,
thrust herself into the pantheon of outré
stage performers alongside Britney
Spears and Madonna backfired big-time.
"Reminiscent of a bad acid trip" is how
The Hollywood Reporter described the
preposterous and lewd spectacle. Vogue
tastemaker Anna Wintour pulled Cyrus
off the cover of the fashion bible shortly
after the debacle. And months later the
Twitterverse is still trying to make sense
of what was going on with...the tongue.
Cyrus is too much of a showbiz pit bull
to be chastened by bad press, and in
today's pop marketplace even schadenfreude sell records. But her high-profile
fizzle is a reminder that we're all just a
few missteps away from being knocked
off our own professional pedestal. For
better or worse, we CONTINUED ON PAGE 66
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Spirit Magazine - November 2013