Thursday’s Workwear Report: Ultra-Stretch Ponte Short-Sleeve Midi Dress
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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
Quince is always a great source for work basics, but I’m extra excited when they start making those basics in great colors, like this beautiful ponte dress. If you’ve been building a business casual wardrobe for awhile, you probably have a solid collection of black or navy dresses, but this short-sleeved number also comes in this gorgeous dark orchid purple, as well as ocean green, orchid blue, and espresso. At this price, I’m tempted to get it in three colors.
The dress is $59.90 at Quince and comes in size XS-XL.
Sales of note for 6/26:
- Amazon Prime Day is still continuing! You can check out our roundup here… Also don't forget that sister site Shopbop is offering 25% off a lot of great brands if you link your Prime account, including brands like A.L.C., Aeyde, Alex Mill, Alice & Olivia, Anine Bing, Barefoot Dreams, Beyond Yoga, Birkenstock, Black Halo, Clare V., Cult Gaia, Farm Rio, Ferragamo, Frank & Eileen, Jenni Kayne, La Ligne, Marine Layer, Nili Lotan, Printfresh (!), rag & bone, RAILS, STAUD, Stuart Weitzman, Theory, TWP, Veronica Beard, Vince, White & Warren, Xirena, and Z-Supply
- Nordstrom – Designer clearance, up to 60% off!
- Alexis Bittar – End of season sale, up to 50% off
- Another Tomorrow – Seasonal sale, 50% off select styles
- Ann Taylor – Semi-annual sale! 300+ new markdowns, extra 50% off al sale styles Readers love this blouse and I always love the variety of colors/textures for this jacket (it's a great separate)
- Athleta – Semi-annual sale, up to 60% off reader favorites like Brookyn and Endless pants, and the Pranayama wrap is marked down to $55
- AYR – Ooh, good sale section — but lots on final sale. Readers love (LOVE) these comfy work pants and these jeans.
- Banana Republic – Up to 60% off sale styles
- Boden – Summer sale, up to 50% off – readers love these dresses, these blazers, and the brand's fun suiting
- COS – New pieces added to sale, up to 50% off
- DeMellier – Summer sale: Final Reductions
- The Fold – Up to 50% off, further markdowns
- Hobbs – Up to 50% off, extra 20% off sale
- J.Crew – Summer sale – extra 50% off all sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off all stores and sitewide, plus 60% off clearance
- Jenni Kayne – Semi-annual warehouse sale
- Lo & Sons – Summer sale, up to 50% off
- Lululemon – Summer sale!
- Margaux – Save up to 50% off, including archive sale
- M.M.LaFleur – Fourth of July sale! 70% off occasion styles (Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off on other items)
- Nordstrom Rack – Clearance, new arrivals up to 75% off! Nice selection of Vince, Veronica Beard, Reiss and Rag & Bone, a ton of affordable work dresses from Calvin Klein, Maggy London, Eliza J, and Donna Morgan
- Ruti – Semi-annual sale, up to 70% off!
- Sarah Flint – 30% off select styles (we just ranked these shoes as some of our top 10 most comfortable heel brands)
- Splendid – Up to 60% off women's sale!
- Strathberry – Up to 20% off select styles
- Stuart Weitzman – Summer styles now up to 40% off
- Talbots – 40% off your purchase and 6/26 only: 50% off all T by Talbots
- Veronica Beard – Extra 25% off sale
I decided a little while ago to try to sell some old gold family jewelry and then I just got a notice in the mail about a traveling gold buying event from some auction house that will be held in my city. Are those considered scammy? It would be convenient because it’s being held on a day I’m off from work but I would certainly prefer not to get completely ripped off if I’m going to do this. Any thoughts?
So it depends. They’re going to buy it for gold value, which might be appropriate for the pieces or might not. If they’re unique or anything not a good option but if they’re just mass produced, it’s an easy way to get cash.
You’ll get ripped off a little bit, of course. If you have absolutely no ties to this jewelry and it’s otherwise convenient, then go for it.
If it has even a little sentimental value, or you think your kids, nieces, or nephews might want it one day (if it’s not completely hideous), think harder or do more research. I love vintage gold jewelry and always regretted never having any passed down to me, so buy it for myself.
You won’t get the market price of gold, of course. I sold some similar old pieces to a very reputable jeweler, and when I asked him about the difference between the market price and what he paid me, he simply said “Profit”. Fair enough. It might be worth it to you to get a “good enough” price, instead of shopping it around for months and having the mental load on you.
But you don’t get the market price selling ANYWHERE, right? Whether it’s a local jeweler or a traveling auction house?
Correct. I think you can mail it in to some places and there’s less middleman involved.
Do you know how much gold you have and what the current value is for that amount and quality? I would go into something like this knowing those details first. You aren’t likely to get top dollar but if your goal is to just get cash in hand, that may not matter.
I have an idea as to the number of pieces and there is a mix of 14-carat and 24-carat, but I have no idea how the final “amount” is determined precisely or whether there are other quality considerations.
Total weight of 14k, total weight of 18k, total weight of 24k.
Weigh how much you have of each, then look up the value by carat. But realize it’s going to be like consignment – you will get a lesser amount, not the actual market value.
I’d have a jeweler melt it and make something new rather than selling it. Spur jewelry does a wonderful job of this.
Not interested in this – I’m keeping the 1-2 meaningful pieces but I don’t wear jewelry except my engagement and wedding rings and no one else in the family wants the pieces either. Most of it is generic 1980s hoop earrings and things like that. We actually love antiques and family items (which is how our whole place is furnished) but these just don’t fit the bill and we need the cash more than new pieces.
Sounds like a good enough reason. The hoops are back, but selling on Etsy is kind of a pain, so understand why you’re going this route.
Best thing to do is buy a very cheap coffee scale and weighing each piece and calculating the scrap value of each piece. I like goldcalc.com – so 18k gold ring that’s 5 grams is $496 of total scrap value. Now a melter/buyer/refiner might offer you 80% of scrap and that’s typically pretty good. But if they offer you 50% or less, obviously that’s a huge scam. I will say the real real can be very dodgy for sellers, but they do a decent job for solid gold (i.e. the commision rate is 70% for items over $750, but they price gold at 2x scrap at minimum, so your $496 ring would be priced at $1000, and if it sold for that price you’d get $700 back. If it was discounted to $800, you’d make 65% commission at $525).
Anyone been able to stop the 3am stress wake-ups? I’ve got great sleep hygiene, don’t go to bed worried, fall asleep fine, no phones/computers in the bedroom, but at 3:15, I wake up with a start with a new and improved anxiety about something. Sometimes it’s work, sometimes it’s home…the subject varies from night to night but it’s not something I’m typically worried about during the day. I take a baby dose of amitryptaline at night and magnesium.
Have you tried taking a spoonful of peanut butter before bed? The theory is that you’re actually waking up because your blood sugar is dropping (you’re hangry) and the fat and protein from pb will help you stay asleep.
That said I went thru a year or so with high stress and 3am wakeuos – Xanax kind of helped
I’ll try that. It seems like it’s at the end of a REM cycle, so maybe. I don’t typically eat after 6:30, so by 3, my stomach is probably empty.
I wake up in the middle of the night often, but usually fall right back asleep. Since it sounds like your brain is spinning on something to aggressively for that, can you redirect to something that isn’t an anxiety spiral?
For me, when I realize I cannot get back to sleep I will read so I don’t spend the next few hours ruminating on how much I wish I was sleeping. Sometimes I read until my alarm goes off, other times I read for a few minutes and recognize I am ready to fall back asleep. This used to happen a lot more frequently than it does now. I think training my mind to do something calming rather than running through a doom loop helped tremendously.
similarly, I turn on an audiobook (one that I’ve heard a gazillion times), and the story drowns out my spinning thoughts but also is boring enough to fall asleep.
Yes. Some of the usual culprits are histamine dumping (in which case a cetirizine at bedtime can help) and blood sugar (the advice I received was to cut carbs/sugars at dinner and eat a protein snack before bed).
I think in this case the anxious thoughts are prompted by the sympathetic nervous system being in overdrive, rather than the other way around. (We feel anxious because of the adrenaline, and then our mind fixates on something because of it.)
Yeah, I think if it was the same thing every night, it would be anxiety, but maybe just my mind searching for an explanation because it’s panicking. My kid has 10pm night terrors, I have 3am panics, going to try some PB for both of us.
My husband had night terrors pretty regularly until he had a final sobbing conversation with a loved one about some long-held feelings and they went away for good—about 15 years now.
I’m kind of laughing at myself because my answer is exercise. I guess that’s not the default answer and now I feel a little silly but my experience is this is a problem that I can literally outrun. When I miss a few days the stress creeps in.
+1 – if I lift heavy and/or run hard, I sleep well. I’m 47 but that got me out ahead of the middle of the night wake ups.
I keep an audiobook playing in the background as next level white noise so that when I wake up, I immediately latch onto the story, which is one I already know well and won’t excite me. This has pretty much fixed it for me, but obviously your mileage may vary if you’re sharing a bedroom.
If you’re 35+, anxiety and sleep disturbance are common signs of perimenopause. There are estrogen receptors everywhere in your body, so it may be worth having a conversation with your doctor or a specialist.
What’s everyone doing for the holiday weekend? It’s boiling hot in my midwestern city so no cookouts for me
My husband insists we are going to have a BBQ on Sunday. If I get my act together we’ll have a flag cake on Saturday. Other than that, we’re hunkering down in the AC.
Dosing the dogs with Gabapentin and hiding in a closet. The neighbors put on a fireworks show comparable to that of a town’s show with massive fireworks that last a good half hour, and lots of other people will be randomly shooting fireworks starting last night. No joke, I’ve got some books loaded on the Kindle and have put down in my closet two yoga mats with a folded thick comforter over them, and several pillows.
It is so damn hot in MA today that I can’t even imagine cooking, much less cooking over a hot grill. My husband swears he’ll grill, I’m picking up pre-made potato salad and serving toppings/crudites on the side along with a few cold desserts (cookies, icebox smores pie, and key lime bars). My teens have agreed to come with me to the movies on Sunday, I suspect for the snacks and aircon but I’ll take it.
I cleaned up the Big Splash wading pool in my garage and invited my sister over for an evening mojito in the pool.
This sounds delightful and I might steal this idea for myself.
Oooh. I have an inflatable pool in my basement from pandemic days, and I currently have no next door neighbors, so this might be what I do!
Working – I found out yesterday my weekend is canceled and I’ll be working all weekend due to the extreme heat
I work in operations for my city government- so between the heat and those impacts (opening/running cooling shelters, anticipated increase of 911 calls due to heat-related illness, potential impacts to the power grid and other utilities) AND the pre-existing July 4th festivities and all that they entail, my entire department was called in. We alternate holidays and I was supposed to be off for the 4th, but yesterday they said weekend’s canceled so here I am
Thank you and your team for serving us!!
I have a summer gig at the local minor league ballpark, so I’ll be there. It’s nice after a day in an office job to be able to put my head down and cook, though I’m glad I no longer have to cook full time to pay the bills.
Hiding in the AC and packing for Italy. We’re island-hopping near Naples for a week so… if anyone has specific restaurant recs for Ischia or Procida, lmk!
Jealous!
Hoping the AC repair guy has the right parts to fix the unit that went from total champ to DOA overnight.
Oh no! Good luck!
Oof. This was me last year during the end of June heat wave. I ended up in a hotel for one night. Best wishes for you and your HVAC.
I’m really skeptical about this pick. Not sure this dress would work without major accessories.