Oh my god, I come up with the most wretched post titles, someone really ought to stop me.
What I am actually planning on writing about is another wardrobe problem. I have to go shopping soon for clothing for a specific event. I don't hate clothes shopping but right now it's pretty far down on my list as far as leisure activities. It's expensive, for one thing, and it takes time, for another. Also right now I am about five pounds heavier than normal. This is due to my yearly summertime bloat. (I tried on some dressy clothes - the kind not made of forgiving stretchy denim or cotton - and they still fit, but I'm right at the outer edge where I can wear them.) And that means that anything that I buy right now which fits will be too big when I go back to my more usual weight. And we don't have enough closet space to hang onto two complete wardrobes in two sizes, though I think every woman probably has some size range in her closet. More to the point, I don't want to buy an awesome outfit I love but won't be able to wear most of the time.
But then I thought: I can wear tights when I'm shopping! Spanx, specifically. And that'll suck me in enough that when my weight goes down in winter, the new clothes will still fit perfectly.
So is this like a moral or feminist victory of some kind about women and weight? I doubt it, but it's an elegant practical solution to my problem. Which I'll settle for, right now.
Showing posts with label clothes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clothes. Show all posts
Monday, August 11, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Work clothes, part three
Back at Cara’s response to my wardrobe – I solve my conundrum at H&M.
I’ve probably shopped at that store in at least half a dozen countries. They didn’t have one when I lived in Budapest, although they do now, and I was there last time I visited, in January.
There are a bunch in the Bay Area now – two in downtown SF, one of which is huge.
Their work clothes are interesting enough that I can still feel a little, um, fashionist going there. I have an H&M suit that I wear very infrequently, so it doesn’t matter that the seams are weak. And most of it seems to be made in Romania and Bulgaria, so I feel almost at home.
It does, though, pander to my materialism. It’s so cheap that I can afford to buy and buy, which isn’t really a good thing. I’m sure I have a pretty big carbon footprint just because of cheap funky tops.
I’ve probably shopped at that store in at least half a dozen countries. They didn’t have one when I lived in Budapest, although they do now, and I was there last time I visited, in January.
There are a bunch in the Bay Area now – two in downtown SF, one of which is huge.
Their work clothes are interesting enough that I can still feel a little, um, fashionist going there. I have an H&M suit that I wear very infrequently, so it doesn’t matter that the seams are weak. And most of it seems to be made in Romania and Bulgaria, so I feel almost at home.
It does, though, pander to my materialism. It’s so cheap that I can afford to buy and buy, which isn’t really a good thing. I’m sure I have a pretty big carbon footprint just because of cheap funky tops.
Work clothes, part two
I can relate to Maya's wardrobe conundrum - how do you dress business-casual (that's what it sounds like she needs) and not just look like everyone else, wearing some kind of wide-legged pants and this season's style in floaty tops? When I was in a client-facing role I usually wore a lot of black, nicely fitted, and if I didn't look original at least I didn't hate myself. The dry-cleaning bill sucked, though.
But these days I have sort of an opposite problem. Although I work in an office (a real live cube farm!), it's pretty casual - jeans every day is not a problem, and most of the developers wear a jeans-and-t-shirt sort of uniform. In my company clothing divides along male/female and career lines - men are more casual than women and sales and marketing tends to be more dressed up than dev. Managers are usually more dressed up than us regular folks, and female managers dress up more than male managers. There are individual exceptions to all these rules - I am one of them, totally letting the marketing side down with my slobbiness - but in the main they hold true, and I've seen these roles play out in more than one company.
I love the casual and take as much advantage of it as possible, but it allows me to be lazy - I end up rotating the same three pairs of jeans and my favorite sweaters until it's all way past its sell-by date. And while there's something to be said, I guess, for thriftily wearing your clothes until they've got holes in them, usually the clothes start to look pretty bedraggled long before the holes appear.
It's not really that I can't afford new clothes (although that was the issue for a while), and it's not that I hate shopping (I don't; stuff off the rack usually looks pretty good). It's that I'm lazy and time-impaired. Too time-impaired to consider shopping as a leisure activity (when I could be reading or cooking or blogging or going for a walk or playing with the cats or learning how to knit or sew or whatever; my list of leisure activities is long and ambitious) and I'm too lazy to put together interesting outfits based on what lives in my closet.
Occasionally, if Dave has a show or something, I'll pull an outfit together. But the rest of the time it's jeans and a sweater and no makeup, and yeah my clothes fit and yeah I have a good haircut and yeah my glasses are kind of cute, but as a whole it lacks pizazz. I don't feel cute unless I've at least got a little makeup on and have a somewhat pulled-together outfit. But since I don't have (or don't make) the time for this in the morning (usually too busy medicating cats and blogging), frumpy is my default go-to. Which I'm not totally thrilled about, honestly, but I lack the discipline to dress for success just because I ought to. Even though I bet my dressing badly is actually a factor, conscious or not, in management decisions not to promote me or whatever. So - if I want a promotion, which would be nice at some point, I definitely should start dressing better. This will require me to spend more time on myself (good), focus more on my appearance (maybe good, maybe not) and will require some discipline (ugh).
I will let you know how it turns out, if a promotion shows up despite my t-shirts and jeans. I sort of hate having to think about this at all, because in my head, how I look isn't related to the quality of the work I produce, but in the real world (outside my head), how I look matters a whole big bunch.
But these days I have sort of an opposite problem. Although I work in an office (a real live cube farm!), it's pretty casual - jeans every day is not a problem, and most of the developers wear a jeans-and-t-shirt sort of uniform. In my company clothing divides along male/female and career lines - men are more casual than women and sales and marketing tends to be more dressed up than dev. Managers are usually more dressed up than us regular folks, and female managers dress up more than male managers. There are individual exceptions to all these rules - I am one of them, totally letting the marketing side down with my slobbiness - but in the main they hold true, and I've seen these roles play out in more than one company.
I love the casual and take as much advantage of it as possible, but it allows me to be lazy - I end up rotating the same three pairs of jeans and my favorite sweaters until it's all way past its sell-by date. And while there's something to be said, I guess, for thriftily wearing your clothes until they've got holes in them, usually the clothes start to look pretty bedraggled long before the holes appear.
It's not really that I can't afford new clothes (although that was the issue for a while), and it's not that I hate shopping (I don't; stuff off the rack usually looks pretty good). It's that I'm lazy and time-impaired. Too time-impaired to consider shopping as a leisure activity (when I could be reading or cooking or blogging or going for a walk or playing with the cats or learning how to knit or sew or whatever; my list of leisure activities is long and ambitious) and I'm too lazy to put together interesting outfits based on what lives in my closet.
Occasionally, if Dave has a show or something, I'll pull an outfit together. But the rest of the time it's jeans and a sweater and no makeup, and yeah my clothes fit and yeah I have a good haircut and yeah my glasses are kind of cute, but as a whole it lacks pizazz. I don't feel cute unless I've at least got a little makeup on and have a somewhat pulled-together outfit. But since I don't have (or don't make) the time for this in the morning (usually too busy medicating cats and blogging), frumpy is my default go-to. Which I'm not totally thrilled about, honestly, but I lack the discipline to dress for success just because I ought to. Even though I bet my dressing badly is actually a factor, conscious or not, in management decisions not to promote me or whatever. So - if I want a promotion, which would be nice at some point, I definitely should start dressing better. This will require me to spend more time on myself (good), focus more on my appearance (maybe good, maybe not) and will require some discipline (ugh).
I will let you know how it turns out, if a promotion shows up despite my t-shirts and jeans. I sort of hate having to think about this at all, because in my head, how I look isn't related to the quality of the work I produce, but in the real world (outside my head), how I look matters a whole big bunch.
Work clothes
A friend of mine started a very good media internship at the beginning of summer. She’s a mother and a grad student and hip, always looks great. But she was carping about needing new clothes to look “proper” for her job.
This is something that I think about a lot. I have to go out and talk to people for my work and the vibe needs to be such that what I’m wearing, how I look, doesn’t get in the way of our communication. I need to be neutral, almost not even there. I want my sources to talk to me as they would talk to themselves in the shower (…wait, most people talk in the shower, don’t they?...) without trying to frame their message to the person opposite them with a notebook and pen.
That’s a complicated way of saying that I don’t want a retiring businesswoman that I’m profiling to look at me and go, ‘Oh, a Temescal hipster, she won’t understand.’
At the same time, I need to feel comfortable in my own professional role, which means not wearing clothes I can’t stand. I want to walk into any interview situation with confidence and grace – and feeling like ‘me.’ Too drab and I feel old (a whole other problem).
So it’s all about the clothes. On one hand, I want to look tidy and respectable, on the other hand I want to look hip and interesting to give my own confidence a boost.
This means, the bigger the interview the more time I spend choosing what to wear, yet I always end up wearing the same things.
Should I be free of props and baggage? Maybe so.
All those pajama blogger types out there have moved past this, of course. They are post-wardrobe.
This is something that I think about a lot. I have to go out and talk to people for my work and the vibe needs to be such that what I’m wearing, how I look, doesn’t get in the way of our communication. I need to be neutral, almost not even there. I want my sources to talk to me as they would talk to themselves in the shower (…wait, most people talk in the shower, don’t they?...) without trying to frame their message to the person opposite them with a notebook and pen.
That’s a complicated way of saying that I don’t want a retiring businesswoman that I’m profiling to look at me and go, ‘Oh, a Temescal hipster, she won’t understand.’
At the same time, I need to feel comfortable in my own professional role, which means not wearing clothes I can’t stand. I want to walk into any interview situation with confidence and grace – and feeling like ‘me.’ Too drab and I feel old (a whole other problem).
So it’s all about the clothes. On one hand, I want to look tidy and respectable, on the other hand I want to look hip and interesting to give my own confidence a boost.
This means, the bigger the interview the more time I spend choosing what to wear, yet I always end up wearing the same things.
Should I be free of props and baggage? Maybe so.
All those pajama blogger types out there have moved past this, of course. They are post-wardrobe.
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