Art of looking like a banker

This is the advice of image consultant Laurel Herman. According to Herman, hair sprouting from noses and ears is out, as are beards and stubble. Wild eyebrows are a definite liability.

Herman is one of an army of image doctors available to assist the overworked and sartorially neglectful investment banking profession. She claims to have spruced up bankers from HSBC and Morgan Stanley, to members of Women in Banking, the networking group. Dishevelled bankers are big business: rival image tweakers at Image Matters and Reach, a Paris-based consultancy, count Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan among their corporate clients. Others, such as Irene Nathan and Barney Tremblay, counsel financial services staff privately.

William Arruda, a Reach consultant, said banking is an industry where image counts: "It's an important component of success. Banking is about power, confidence, presence and visibility. You need to project that."

Employers are most likely to despatch junior staff for an image upgrade. Herman said she worked with young women at HSBC in need of extra gravitas. Arruda said he is about to work with up-and-coming leaders at JP Morgan in New York. They will be tutored on subjects ranging from personal grooming and posture, to the nebulous art of unearthing their personal brand.

Bankers who have sampled the services of image consultants are unwilling to discuss their experiences on the record. But plenty came forward to praise their efforts anonymously.

Carol, a London fund manager, who visited Irene Nathan, said her new image had a noticeable effect: "I was dressing very formally and didn't look relaxed or approachable. Irene taught me to look professional and feminine at the same time."

Buoyed by these testimonials, I decided to test the skills of an image consultant myself. Herman, whose London-based business is called Positive Presence, promised to transform this dishevelled journalist into dapper banker.

Having a makeover is similar to employing a cleaner: there is a temptation to do some preliminary work to make your appearance less unkempt than it really is. I resisted the temptation. But when I arrived at Herman's discreet Belsize Park studio, she was undaunted. "You're not how I imagined from the telephone," she proclaimed. What had she imagined? "A nice school teacher."

The unruly eyebrows were first to go. Next was the Chrissie Hynde-style hair. I was made up and pruned by Jacqui, a Positive Presence consultant and hairdresser. "Bankers like easily manageable hair," she said.

I was expecting some negative comments. But the women - there were no men apart from Herman's son and some IT consultants - were full of praise. I had good eyes, pleasant cheek bones and it helped that I am tall with dark hair: "People tend to make positive assumptions about people who are dark and have a good build."

What about my non-white teeth, unmanicured nails, Old Testament footwear and tendency to adopt a round-shouldered posture when seated? None of this mattered, according to Herman. "I focus on the good things. It is not my intention to make people feel terrible," she said.

This is just as well: Herman and fellow consultants say image consulting is more than just skin-deep. Barney Tremblay, who works from a studio in London's West End, said an image consultation often ends as a coaching session, as customers address the issues underlying their presentational defects.

Fortunately, there was no attempt to probe the internal factors underlying my appearance. Instead, Herman revealed the principles underlying her technique: "People make judgments on the spur of the moment. There is an image in people's minds of how a banker should look: polished and smart. If you don't look like that, you will need to work harder to prove yourself."

I certainly looked polished and smart by the time Herman's team had finished. But I felt slightly ill at ease as a highly-preened banker. Nonetheless, according to Herman's criteria I was a success: photographs of me as a top financier are apparently to be stored for use whenever generic images of a banker are required. People wondering how to look like a banker: see the photographs above for reference.