If you’ve ever felt like your job doesn’t fit neatly into an elevator pitch, M.M.LaFleur customer Rebecca Shoot is here to tell you: You might be doing something very right. Though she is two decades into international human rights and rule of law advocacy work across five continents, she still describes her career as a series of interests that have converged, rather than a path she planned.

We sat down with Rebecca, who is building a multi-hyphenate career at a global scale, to talk about chasing curiosity over credentials, what getting dressed has to do with delivering her best work, and what she wants every woman building a non-linear career to hear.

Walk me through your career. What are you doing now, and what was the path you took to get here?

My career has been less of a straight line and more a series of overlapping interests that gradually converged. I began in international democratic development, supporting political parties, elections, and parliamentary accountability, first across Central and Eastern Europe and Africa, then more globally. Over time, I increasingly became drawn to questions of human rights and the role of international institutions, and I realized much of what I was doing felt suspiciously like practicing law without a license.

So I went to law school. I was what universities politely call a “non-traditional student” (a kinder way of saying older!). That decision opened new doors while building on the foundation I already had: I’ve always been interested in how we create systems that are more accountable, more just, and more responsive to the people they serve.

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Today, much of my work involves building bridges between communities that are often surprisingly siloed: civil society advocates, diplomats, policymakers, legislators, and legal practitioners. I co-convene the Washington Working Group for the International Criminal Court, co-lead an ImPact Coalition on Strengthening International Judicial Institutions, and I helped co-found Legal Alternatives to War, or LAW not War. I also work increasingly on an initiative to establish an International Anti-Corruption Court and affirm existing limits to the UN Security Council veto when it is deployed to further atrocities.

No two days are the same. On the day of this interview, I began my day with conversations with young human rights defenders and when we wrap, I’ll jump onto a call planning a Global Futures Forum by the United Nations, and organizing events marking the thirtieth anniversary of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons.

You’ve been an M.M.LaFleur customer since your law school days in Atlanta. Has anything about how you shop or dress changed since?

I’ve never particularly enjoyed shopping; for most of my life it felt like a chore rather than something recreational. Before that first visit, I recall at least one law school–era shopping trip that involved tears because finding professional clothes that felt authentic to me was unexpectedly difficult.

What was different about M.M.LaFleur was the in-person experience: having a stylist who took the time to understand how I lived and worked, and who imagined things for me I wouldn’t have had the gumption, or creativity, to imagine myself. I walked out feeling more like myself than I usually do in clothes I’d have picked on my own. (The sparkling wine didn’t hurt either).

My style has definitely evolved since then. Before M.M.LaFleur, I’d never considered myself a trousers person; now they’re a backbone of my wardrobe (shoutout to the Bia pants!). I’ve also bought the Malala dress in at least three different colors over the years, which probably says something about my approach to fashion: when I find something that works, I stay fiercely loyal.

You regularly sit at tables with incredibly high-ranking government officials actively shaping global policy. What have you learned about making yourself heard in high-stakes situations?

One of the most useful things I’ve learned is that making yourself heard has less to do with speaking loudly and more to do with understanding your audience. A few weeks ago, I spoke on a panel alongside the Justice Minister of the host country and the president of the International Criminal Court, with heads of state in attendance: all the security, the VIP protocols, the full trappings of a high-level event. I flew overnight, landed, and got up early the next day to take a bus to New Jersey to speak to a few hundred middle and high school students at a Model UN conference. Guess which audience made me more nervous.

Very few people are persuaded by the same argument for the same reason. A diplomat, a judge, a parliamentarian, and a teenager may all arrive at the same conclusion, but through very different paths. A lot of my work involves bringing together communities that don’t always speak the same language, sometimes literally, but more often politically or culturally, and the trick is listening carefully enough to understand what motivates people. That doesn’t mean changing your values to fit the audience; it means learning how to communicate those values in ways that resonate.

For all the attention paid to high-level meetings, I think young people are the toughest audience there is. Diplomats may challenge your assumptions, but teenagers will challenge your entire premise.

What is your relationship to getting dressed for the rooms you’re in? Is it something you’ve had to consciously develop?

My relationship with getting dressed has evolved from mild panic to cautious competence. I’ve never been someone who wakes up excited to assemble an outfit, and I’ve largely accepted that there are aspects of fashion I’m probably never going to master. Layering, for example: people who effortlessly combine seven pieces into something chic possess a skill that remains entirely beyond me.

What I have learned is that having a few trusted pieces that make me feel comfortable, professional, and like myself is what matters most. Given how much I travel, I’ve become less interested in novelty, or in dressing for the occasion, and more interested in reliability. For example, I wore variations on the same theme, a shift dress and a jardigan, to both the Model UN conference and a high-level conference in Armenia on back-to-back days.

One of the proudest moments of my career came when I was supporting the presidency of the International Criminal Court. Those hearings were broadcast around the world, and it felt like one of those rare moments when the work I’ve devoted myself to might actually make a tangible difference. And guess what I wore? The Malala dress and a jardigan. Nobody could see what I was wearing, because I was in a judicial robe, but as trivial as it might sound, there was something reassuring about feeling put together on a day when I needed all my attention focused elsewhere. I’m not especially interested in dressing to impress a room. I’m more interested in dressing in a way that lets me forget about my clothes and focus on why I’m in the room in the first place.

You’ve built your career across multiple cities and travel a lot. What are your packing tips, and any favorite M.M. pieces that usually accompany you on the road?

If I have one piece of travel wisdom, it’s that packing cubes are civilization’s greatest achievement. I’m an unapologetic packing cube evangelist: one for work clothes, one for casual clothes, one for undergarments and socks. I barely unpack them, and the jardigans always sit at the bottom, with a heavy coat on top if it’s cold or something lighter if it’s not. I add a couple of M.M.LaFleur shift dresses that can be pulled straight out, since everything is wrinkle-resistant, plus a couple of trousers and blouses, like the Tatum, that I can interchange. I’m happiest when I know everything emerging from the suitcase will work, and I just take out the cube.

I did recently break one of my own cardinal rules though. I’d had several trips in a row where I managed with just a carry-on, and got overconfident when a flight to a high-level conference in Armenia came with an actual checked baggage allowance. I packed all of my professional clothing in my checked suitcase. You can see where this is going: it didn’t arrive for two full days. I tracked that luggage with the intensity I’d normally reserve for a missing persons investigation. It finally arrived at four a.m. on the day I was scheduled to speak. It was a humbling, swift lesson: always keep at least one conference-ready outfit in your carry-on.

What do you do to unwind?

Theater has been part of my life I’ve never quite managed to shake, even when it didn’t become my career the way I once thought it might. Over the years, that’s included helping found an English-language theater company in Serbia and taking far more classes than was reasonable with the Shakespeare Theatre Company during stints in Washington, D.C. One of the more prolific periods came during the pandemic, when a group of theater friends scattered around the world started writing, rehearsing, and performing short plays over Zoom, sometimes within 24 hours. It was chaotic, occasionally terrible, and enormously fun. There’s a real distance between spending the afternoon discussing atrocities and spending the evening rehearsing a one-act farce, and I’ve come to appreciate the balance. One keeps me grounded in the world’s problems, and the other reminds me not to take myself too seriously.

What’s something true about your work, or about women and ambition, that you’ve never heard anyone say out loud, but that you wish someone would?

I wish someone had told me earlier that some of the most meaningful careers don’t fit neatly into a job description. When people ask what I do, it often takes me several paragraphs to answer, and that’s not because I’m being evasive. It’s the opposite: much of my work exists in the spaces between established categories, and there isn’t a job description for that.

Women, in particular, are often encouraged to imagine success as a ladder: earn the degree, get the promotion, acquire the title, move to the next rung. But some careers are built differently, emerging from following a question, a cause, or a problem, for long enough that you eventually create a role that didn’t previously exist. Not every contribution fits neatly into an organizational chart. Some of the most important work happens at the intersections between disciplines, between institutions, between people who might not otherwise find each other.

Not every career is a ladder. Some are bridges. I think the most interesting, most fulfilling work sometimes appears before anyone has invented a title for it.

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