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How do you dress for the life and legacy you actually want?
In this powerful and personal episode, Monique is joined by costume designer, educator, and style visionary Pamela Shepherd, as they unpack what it really means to show up in your full presence. From dressing bodies to shaping identities, Pamela reveals how style becomes a strategy for visibility, authority, and self-reinvention, especially for Black women in leadership.
Tune in to hear how Pamela navigated her leap from tech to fashion, what it takes to embrace your own definition of “executive presence,” and why asking for help is the real flex. Together, they explore fashion as liberation, style as storytelling, and the magic of taking up space without apology.
If you’ve ever questioned your image, doubted your voice, or wrestled with how to be both authentic and visible, this episode is your call to reimagine what success looks like from the inside out.
GUEST INFO
Pamela Shepard, Costume Designer and Stylist | Website | Instagram | FlowWood Costumes (Launching soon!)
GEMS DROPPED
“For those of us who are designing our ambitions and creating futures that maybe we don't have an example for in our household. Who are you not just asking? What doors are you not just knocking on?” - Monique R. Shields
“Because I work so collaboratively, I'm often working with different groups of people. And because the work requires your expertise and your expertise and your experience and your experience and your experience, I think that it further helps me to develop the muscle when it comes to leaning on others for what I don't know. It's not indicative of weakness or lack of ability or really anything. What it's indicative of is curiosity.” - Pamela Shepard
“One way that you signal to yourself and to the world that you take yourself seriously is by asking for help, by actually leveraging the relationships that you have poured into. And it doesn't take that many. You don't have to know the world. You start with who you know, and then you, again, you don't know who they know and who those people know.” - Monique R. Shields
“If I were talking to someone about fashion, I think my first question would be, where do you spend most of your time? Is it in an office? Is it at home? Is it in transit and traveling? Like, what does the look of your life look like? Because I think that sometimes we feel compelled to have all the things. Our lives don't really call for all the things.” - Pamela Shepard
“There is part of the work that is just listening to people, checking in with people, seeing how they're doing, and listening to what they're saying, because I think that can help inform, the decisions of the pieces we're choosing and moving forward. And so just encouraging people to be brave and trying to put on the things that embody how they see themselves.” - Pamela Shepard
“Your clothes are not going to give you executive presence. They can be a reflection of the presence that you already carry, that you already exude, but the clothes can't give it to you .” - Monique R. Shields
STAY IN TOUCH
Come and follow me on Instagram @moniquershields and I would love your feedback so send an email to ambition@moniquershields.com.
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