Angela Lansbury Speeches and Making Speeches

When you are speaking, standing on stage, in a group photo, or sitting down, it is good to have a distinctive colour costume. Ideally it should co-ordinate with your complexion and hair or eye colour, or lipstick, or hat, matching belt, jewellery and accessories. Many big organizations have a uniform. This enables customers to identify staff. Think of airlines. And Supermarkets. Toastmasters has three colours which you can find on the Toastmasters International website. They sell tee-shirts with their logo. I have a red one. This goes with red lipstick. I should wear a red hair band. A scarf interferes with the logo or text by falling across it. ) I have noticed President and Toastmaster Shan Shan, who I see at many meetings wearing a blue Toastmasters tee-shirt with a button neck. 

I am not a fan of the open button neck. To me this is too casual. fine for the outdoors. I think Toastmasters International should present a more formal and official look. The motto is Where leaders are made. I think a leader should look like a leader.

At a big meeting, when you are lost and need help, directions to a room, or empty seat, it helps to identify the ushers who usher you in quickly.

Yes, you can see spare seats conveniently alongside or left empty in the front row. But the seat occupant might have slipped out to the toilet or to collect a prop or answer a phone call.  

That empty seat in the front row might have a paper on it saying, Reserved for President, Reserved for Speaker. So it helps to find an usher who knows which apparent empty seats won't cause you to play musical chairs throughout the meeting.

A plain colour outfit is a good background for a badge of the organisation, or a card with your name. A lanyard is also neat against a plain background, rather than obscuring a pattern on a dress.

Vietnamese Traditional Dressw

The Vietnamese traditional dress for ladies (and gentlemen - especially on formal occasions such as national days and weddings) is a long split sided tunic, in white, with matching white trousers, and a co-ordinating, and a conical (pointed centre) flattened (low and wide) coolie hat.

But why white! Yes, it looks clean, like a white shirt, like a white apron. 

But what happens when we are eating standing up at a cocktail reception? Or drinking coffee at a club meeting or conference at break time. You have to be careful not to spill or splash food and drink. Maybe you are careful. Then somebody backs into you! 

Even if you rush to wash off the stain, you may be left with a patch of darker colour from the liquid. Later you may see a faint stain has been left.

So, how about a Vietnamese outfit in a colour? 

Many clothes are imported from China, by enterprising entrepreneurs. I have nothing against that. It is all promoting the Vietnamese style, advertising trips to Vietnam.

Nowadays, similar outfits in various colours and fabrics are sold small shops along the shopping streets in the main cities of Vietnam. (I visited the second city, a base for visiting beautiful HaLong Bay.)

I was quite a large lady at that time, so a black outfit was more slimming. The colour looked better on me. Showed creases less.

Hid the fact that my top half is slightly lopsided. Looking in the mirror, some patterns drew attention to this. (Everybody is slightly different, left to right. With me this is accentuated by the fact that I was indina a car accident damaging my ribs and collar bone. Later another accident damaged my right arm).

Now that I have visited Vietnam, I can recognize the Vietnamese style. If I see one, reasonably priced, I try it, and maybe buy it. I add it to my stock of co-ordinated outfits for special speaking occasions.

Wikipedia gives you the spelling and pronunciation:

Always be prepared to give a speech. You might be invited to after you have told an acquaintance or friend that you give speeches. You might be invited to as a VIP guest or stranger at a small gathering. You might feel the urge to do so, seeing that the organiser of an event has not been thanked.

At a French informal banquet, as I spoke French, after a toast to the English travel writers from our French hosts, I was nudged by the person next to me, who said, "You speak French. Speak on behalf of all of us." I stood up while the photographer from the local French newspaper took a picture. My first thought was, am I dressed for dinner in France in sufficient and suitable chic for a chateau?

Am I wearing matching ear-rings, bracelet and ring to co-ordinate with my watch? Am I wearing matching belt, bag and shoes, matching in colour and fabric? Am I wearing suitable shoes (closed toes? Is black right for evening in summer? Are my bra strap and slip straps invisible and/or do-ordinating with my evening blouse?

Is my outfit contrasting with the colours of the wall paper. Am I wearing a clashing pattern, so I am a riot of roses, in red, swirling, looking loud, against a neat square geometric pattern in refined and muted rust colours conveying the historical and elegant atmosphere which I have invaded?

After enquiring amongst the committee, family, or organisers whether somebody else plans to give a speech or vote of thanks, so you don't duplicate or steal from their limelight, you could offer to do so ensuring that you are announced and there is quiet. You also have time to check on spellings and pronunciations of names. Are you dressed for the occasion, to give a speech and be photographed as the VIP or visitor?

Each traveller and each country has different likes and colour traditions. The most obvious examples are weddings and funerals. It is handy to pack clothes suitable for day and evening, ordinary daytime and luxury evening surroundings. Even when travelling on a budget to India I was on a flight delayed at Heathrow airport several hours and a fellow traveller invited me to his wedding, after several house of conversation and sympathy. By then I knew his name (Patel) but not the name of the bride and groom.

As a travel writer on press trips, I was often marched around a building site or camp site in the morning by the tourist board, then taken to a dinner opened by a speech from the mayor at the five star hotel which had offered us overnight accommodation or sponsored the trip. The promised time to change and shower in between before dinner often vanished during the traffic delay on the motorway.

I learned to have spare shoes in my tote bag, and a glamorous scarf and necklace or ear-rings to cover or enhance a plain black or white tee-shirt, or tee-shirt with embossed gold pattern or wording.

Wedding  Colours
Wedding colours in the UK, UK and many countries are white for the bride (copying the fashion set by Queen Victoria). White was not previously the fashion, which only the rich could afford.

If you visit costume galleries you may be surprised to see that in earlier times a bride wore her best outfit, which in days before washing machines would have been in a dark colour. Only the rich could afford a dress worn only once, liable to show stains, unsuitable for any other occasion.

Guests don't wear white if the bride is wearing white. It causes confusion. Why? Because, often half the guests are from the groom's side and don't know the bride, have not seen her for many years, or have never seen her before being distant (on the family tree, or distant by living miles away), relatives or work colleagues of her family.

As for waiters and photographers and bystanders, they are equally likely to be confused. And the bride wants to be centre of attention in the photos. Easier to find her in a crowd and greet her or say goodbye.

However, in Asia brides often wear other colours such as red. As for guests, why not white? White is used for the shroud in a funeral, for the dead to go to the afterlife pure.

As a speaker, may your words and clothes always make a good impression.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and speaker.
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