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Comment by ChrisMarshallNY | Hacker News Reader

One of the tricks I was told, in public speaking, was to have an eye-catching shirt.

That's one reason so many public speakers have Hawai'ian shirts. Women can also wear monster-high heels, as it makes them easier to see (It's not a "sexy" thing; it's a "see me" thing. There are some very conservative women's shoes, with very high heels).

I'm not a particularly good public speaker (but I've done a fair bit -why is everyone asleep?), so I need all the help I can get. I have a number of them.

I have a friend that has a .sig that says "Speak softly, and wear a loud shirt."

He has a lot of loud shirts.

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My favorite is Philip Wadler - during a Strange Loop talk[0], all of a sudden he tore his shirt, showing his "lambda man" suit underneath.

[0] https://youtu.be/IOiZatlZtGU?t=2014

Let's not dismiss a more humane explanation: if you know someone likes to wear fantasy shirts, every birthday present is easy to choose!

Brightly colored shirts also show up better on video. It's quite surprising how drab normal shirts look on Youtube.

Pro tip: Never wear a grey sweater.

I always wear gray sweatpants, a gray hoodie (you might call it a "jumper") with the hood up, and dark sunglasses for the sketch creeper Unabomber look.

Colors show up on video much differently than real life, so it's good to see how it looks on screen.

my problem with that is that some speakers pick distracting shirts (the worst offenders have text on their shirt which I cannot help but try to read instead of listening to them).

how long does it take to read a shirt?

Pretty long if it's just too far or too small to read. :)

> One of the tricks I was told, in public speaking, was to have an eye-catching shirt.

Why though?

Keeps your attention on the speaker. It's helpful for speakers that don't have "presence" on stage. Content alone is not enough.

It's always infotainment. Jokes, personality, energy, looks, and maybe content.

Interestingly, I was in The Wine Room, Palo Alto about 2011 hanging out with a business partner. I see this dude who's drunk af leaning against the window. He gets up, stumbles over to me, and says "Tell me a joke." I gave him the worst joke I could think of recycled from a girl I met the day before. The reasons is it was Guy Kawasaki and he always needs fresh jokes for public speaking, so crowdsourcing is one way to accumulate them. Oddly enough, Garage Ventures used to be above Nola's across the street from The Wine Room before it went over to 1 First St 2nd floor above my client's office in Los Altos.

> speakers that don't have "presence" on stage

That's me!

Nawh, you can learn it all. It's a skill. Join Toastmasters and they'll help you develop it.

Well, I’ve been involved with an outfit that involves fairly regular speaking gigs (from just a couple, to a couple hundred) for 40 years.

I’m not consistent, so I’m not on anyone’s shortlist for keynote speaker, which is fine by me.

For classes, though, I practice for hours. It seems to satisfy people.

I understand. If it's mandatory informational or community volunteering, there's not much drive to invest heavily in a particular skill like make speaking production value into quality infotainment.

When it's a skill interesting or essential enough to improve it might be worth for speakers to move around trying different support organizations to get new perspectives, and different techniques and feedback.

If they are too stupid or lazy to pay attention based on what the person is saying..

Heels can affect how your body proportions are perceived.

Shirts definitely can is well. This is one reason aloha shirts become a go-to choice for some men as they get older — the cut can help hide an expanding waistline.

Oh yeah. Horizontal lines look wider, vertical lines look taller, dark shirts hide flubber, and form-fitting shirts when you're overweight look bad.

Speaking of which, I need to lose 40 lbs. to get from a size 40" waist back to 32-34". I wear bright, geometric or paisley button shirts unbuttoned over interesting t-shirts.

Side note it’s so frustrating that larger shirts are cut “slim fit”

If I’m buying a xxl from target I ain’t slim. They do the same with jeans too.

This trick didn't work out so well for the ESA Rosetta scientist guy publicly speaking to the press.

That ridiculous flogging prompted me to reach out to the lady who made that shirt for him and buy one just like it. It is one of my favorite shirts and I get a lot of compliments on it. Support sexy science!

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