This November we will miss the annual Look The Business event, hosted by THE GLOSS. With all physical events on hold for the foreseeable, the business networking calendar is a tad bare. Gillian Keating, partner at Ronan Daly Jermyn (and co-founder of iWish, the organisation that encourages young women to pursue careers in STEM) believes a virtual experience is no replacement for the real thing: “You cannot reproduce the buzz, the excitement, the connections that people make when they are in a room together.” Entertaining clients, and forging a bond, is easier in person too: ”You can build up a rapport at a quality networking event when there are ten of you around the table, you can have a proper conversation and get a sense of the real person.” Dressing up for events is both motivating and energising, according to Vodafone’s Anne O’Leary. “You put your best foot forward with your “armour” on – and you get energy from other people.”

While we will miss the fun and fashion of Look The Business in person this year, do continue to visit this channel for stories, news, inspiration, information and details of future events including Look The Business, our Investment Dinner series and Wine Dinners, as well as online events and courses. If you would like to contribute or comment on any of the content, or suggest stories we might cover or women we might interview, please email [email protected].

So LTB20 is postponed but it will be back. As the capital’s biggest, most glamorous business networking and fashion event, Look The Business has for 14 years played host to influential women in all business sectors from banking, broking and law to recruitment, media, consulting, property and retail. More than 500 companies are now represented, with firms entertaining colleagues and clients. It is unique. As Gina Miller, transparency activist and guest speaker at LTB19, said: “Nothing like this exists anywhere else.”

The idea behind the event was first formed when we launched THE GLOSS Magazine mid-boom in 2006. The magazine’s first issue hit the newsstands in September of that year, and THE GLOSS editors began to be snowed under by a deluge of invitations, most of which we had to decline. We couldn’t get the magazine to press or meet our deadlines if we accepted these tempting solicitations to party all day. The country was in the grip of charity event mania. We observed that all the events that involved fashion (charity balls, catwalk shows) were aimed at a small group of so-called ladies of leisure. A typical invitation would entail a champagne or cocktail reception, followed by a long drawn-out lunch or dinner interspersed with raffles and auctions, speeches and thank yous, preceding a fashion show (with clothes irrelevant for women in the workforce), all this lasting six or seven hours. Who had the time?

Those who had jobs to do or offices to attend were effectively ruled out of attending fashion events. As women working outside the home ourselves, and lovers of fashion, we questioned the wisdom of this, for Irish designers and retailers and for the fashion economy in general. Surely it was madness not to cater for the vast cohort of women who were committed to working nine-to-five and beyond, who had busy lives and needed a wardrobe to match? These women had the disposable income to support Irish retail and keep the largely female-dominated workforce in stores and boutiques in a job. And what about fashion and its impact – how it can make women feel confident, how it can be deployed to signal ambition and aspiration, how it can make women stand out or fit in in the workplace. We asked the question: How could we combine business and fashion in a positive way?

In 2007, in the male-dominated upper echelons of business, it seemed curious that while the world was obsessed with how women looked, women themselves often considered it trivial, shallow and vain to focus on their working wardrobe. We set about designing an event for time-pressed women who wanted to access fashion in a purposeful way, combining the opportunity to do business and network. It would take place straight after work and end on time to facilitate an early start the next day. It would be glamorous and upbeat but relaxed, in an elegant environment, in which to entertain clients and colleagues. It would move at a pace, with insights and inspiration from thought-provoking speakers who we mightn’t have heard from before, or at least not on the topics we wanted to talk about: how authenticity and true self-expression are liberating, why building resilience and strength as individuals leads to support for other women and those coming behind us. The networking aspect was key: In order to make things happen, women needed to have conversations, spark opportunities and create change.

In 2007, the percentage of women on boards of listed companies put Ireland in 23rd place out of 34 countries, now we are in 17th place, and women now hold an average of 31 per cent of board positions in Irish companies, according to a study published by EY in April this year. Among them, of course, Anne O’Leary, appointed Vodafone Ireland CEO in 2013, who has enthusiastically championed Vodafone’s sponsorship of LTB since her appointment as Enterprise Director at Vodafone in 2010.

THE GLOSS is proud that LTB has played a part in the national conversation about women taking their rightful place in the world and we are grateful to all the women along the way who have helped us do it.

Jane McDonnell, The Gloss Magazine, Helena Morrissey, The 30 per cent Club, and Anne O’Leary, CEO Vodafone at Look The Business 2018

THE USP OF LTB

As well as always serving decent (real) champagne, LTB has some unique features: WHO’S WHO: LTB attracts the most powerful women and the top firms. TABLE-HOPPING: It’s worth casting around – you will meet everyone. GREAT SPEAKERS: Interesting, inspirational, thoughtful: no vested interests, no awards. THE DESIGNER HANDBAG DRAW: Attendees’ business cards are collected and guests showered with amazing gifts from Boodles diamonds to five-star trips, iPads, coffee machines and shopping splurges. LONGEST CATWALK: The LTB runway is so legendarily long the models love it and everyone gets to see the fabulous fashion. DESK TO DINNER: Great looks to take you from office to cocktails. GLOSSY GOODIE BAGS: No-one leaves empty-handed.

Anne O’Leary, CEO Vodafone

TALKING POINTS

Brilliant and inspiring speakers, successful fashion-aware women in their own right, have addressed themes like the self-investment principle, being true to yourself but embracing the culture of your work environment, the importance of self-expression and freedom … From redoubtable New York tech entrepreneur Cindy Gallop, to feisty media mavens Janet-Street-Porter, Sally O’Sullivan and Eve Pollard (the first female editor on Fleet Street), to 30 per Cent Club founder (tipped to be the new governor of the Bank of England) Helena Morrissey, clever, thoughtful designer and business owner Anya Hindmarch and the FT’s Lucy Kellaway, inspiring Tiger Mom Professor Amy Chua, Heather McGregor (aka Mrs Moneypenny) who flew her own plane to attend the event, to wicked Mariella Frostrup and comedian Kathy Lette, the roll call of LTB speakers is rich and various. When actor Richard E Grant joined us, and saw the scale of the event and the glamorous female audience, he admitted that he was more nervous than he has been at any other event in his life … including the Oscars.

DESK TO DINNER

The fashion at LTB has a purpose: to make women feel strong, confident and happy in their own skin, while appropriately dressed for work. In 2007, we put models on the LTB catwalk wearing T-shirts with empowering slogans driving home the message that instead of blending in, women should feel good about standing out in the workplace, confident in their femininity and their fashionability. In 2019, that message has been received. Irish designers like Louise Kennedy and Lainey Keogh, businesswomen in their own right, joined with other female-led fashion brands in Ireland like Samui in Cork, Avoca, Magee 1866, Electra and Khan to put colour, shape and glamour into our working wardrobes, from desk to dinner. To view the LTB19 fashion show, visit GLOSSTV.

Cindy Gallop, LTB10

Gina Miller, LTB19