Splurge Monday’s Workwear Report: Diane Printed Wide-Leg Pants
This post may contain affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
I fully recognize that these Carolina Herrera pants may fall into the “Ladies Who Lunch” style of dressing, but it doesn’t make me love them any less. The print is gorgeous, the cut is perfect, and if I had four figures to drop casually on a pair of trousers, they would be in my closet immediately.
For the office, I’d try them with a silk blouse or a crisp navy blazer if the coordinating cardigan felt like a little too much look.
The pants are $1,490 at Bloomingdale’s and come in sizes 2-10.
Sales of note for 8/14:
- Ann Mashburn – Seasonal sale, up to 50% off – we just included them in our updated Top 10 Brands for Comfortable Heels!
- Ann Taylor – 25% off all suiting! Also, extra 60% off clearance — readers love this blouse and I always love the variety of colors/textures for this jacket (it's a great separate)
- Anthropologie – Extra 40% off sale!
- The Fold – Up to 50% off, further markdowns (new lines added)
- J.Crew – Up to 30% off
- J.Crew Factory – 40-60% off sitewide, extra 60% off clearance
- J.McLaughlin – Summer sale, up to 50% off
- Lilysilk – Anniversary sale, save up to 70%
- Me & Em – Sale! Up to 60% off (new lines just added, exclusively online)
- M.M.LaFleur – 20% off pants (Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off on other items)
- Nordstrom Rack – Clearance, new markdowns 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
- Saks Fifth Avenue – Take 25% off one item (ends Mon)! Great selection of Veronica Beard, L'Agence, Vince, and more.
- Talbots – End of season clearance, 60% off all markdowns. $24.99 pants and jeans
- Theory – End of season sale is on! Love all the colors their best-selling sweater tee comes in, and some colors are on sale.
- Tory Burch – Private sale, ends 8/19!
good morning! I am travelling to Niagara Falls this autumn to visit a family member in school there. I know to stay in the Canadian side, and I’m comfortable walking and using the buses. I’m interested in recommendations for hotels and if anyone has used the transfer services between the Buffalo airport and the Canadian side. (I heard the border crossing is easier there rather than at the Toronto airport. I am a US citizen.) Thanks!
Border crossing can be really slow at certain bridges between Canada and the US. If you have global entry use the Whirlpool bridge (it’s Nexus only). Caveat – I have never used a transfer service, I always drive myself. The airport is also bad sometimes, but I don’t think it’s consistently worse. But the traffic between the airport and Niagara can be awful.
No hotel recommendations for Niagara Falls in Canada, they all feel a bit old at this point. If you have a car or can find transit, Niagara on the Lake is a nice town to visit or to stay.
Restaurants: Copa Cabana in Niagara Falls is really good. It’s an all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse. I’m not a big meat-eater but I really enjoy it. Niagara’s Finest Thai in Niagara on the Lake is also great.
what the heck is the inseam on these pants? I think I could make an entire pair of shorts out of the amount I’d need to hem off.
I love these pants. I cannot afford them.
Question for the hive: I think of myself as an especially lazy person. I just drag my feet on absolutely everything. I’m good about exercising and daily routines but stuff like cleaning out a drawer I will literally never do. I don’t think it’s adhd so much as I just get zero sense of accomplishment or happiness from completing most tasks. Case in point I hadn’t gotten my car washed in forever and it was on my to do list and I finally did it and….meh. It’s clean now. It was still an annoying chore and there are still a million more. I ask here because people were talking about procrastinating by tidying and good grief I have never done that. Is it possible it’s because I get zero dopamine from it? Is there a way to change that?
Getting no dopamine from accomplishment isn’t normal. There are three types of ADHD which most people don’t realize: inattentive (space case, often what women have and self manage), hyperactive-impulsive (disruptive little boys), and combined (both).
Where does the no dopamine from accomplishing things fit in? I just feel like the drudgery is never with the result. I want the drawer clean but dealing with the decision making and dust just puts my brain in a super grumpy state and makes the juice not worth the squeeze if that makes sense?
I’m similar. It may take me literally years to get a piece of art framed and hung, whereas I have an aunt who will do that kind of thing the first hour she thinks of it. In my case, I think I’m protective of my free time to relax. It’s gotta be reallyyyy important to eat into the only time I get to read or exercise each day between work, childcare, and long-distance elder care.
Also, I absolutely hate a staycation – when I’m off work, the last thing I want to do is chores, even if I have stored up a long list. I’ve had a few unwilling staycations in the past few years and wanted to climb up the wall after 2 hours. I get very little vacation time, so I think the same dynamic I mentioned above is coming into play.
To me, the word staycation always meant you still do fun things (going to the lake, local museums, shows, boardgames, backyard BBQs), you just don’t travel anywhere. Not staying home and doing chores.
Tell that to the other women here! Every time someone asks for ideas on what to do during a staycation, at least half the responses are “clean out that closet at last.”
This is not the point of your post, but a “staycation” is not for chores! Stay just means that you are in your own home rather than a far-flung location, but it’s supposed to still be a vacation, just without going anywhere. Take a daytrip, go to a museum or amusement park, get a massage, eat at a cafe and read a book or try a new restaurant, etc. Treat it like a vacation but save on hotels and airfare by vacationing within range to sleep in your own bed.
People who feel a sense of obligation to have a clean house before they are allowed to vacation are people who hate staycations because something tells them they can’t do five days in a row of fun stuff unless they earn it by completing things on their to-do list. But, if that doesn’t describe you then a staycation is amazing! There is so much to do without having to drop $$$ on airfare and airbnb.
I should add that I’m a person who values cleanliness and organization, but apparently not enough to endure the drudgery of cleaning and organizing. It would be nice if I could make myself do this stuff.
Can you reserve a dopamine activity as a reward for after you completed a not-so-fun task?
Good idea! Any suggestions? I have to work to get time with friends and exercise into my schedule so I don’t want to ration those or mess with my schedule too much.
I’m lazy, too. Except I will absolutely skip the gym but dump a drawer on the floor to organize it. But that drawer organizing does give me a dopamine rush and exercise never will (and I say this as a former athlete and current volunteer sports coach.)
Someone needs to invent 1-800-VIRGOS4U. Some of us can’t get to the gym because we are always trying to treat our living spaces as giant Tetris games.
YES 😂
Interesting. I’m the op and my mom is a very organized Virgo. Even as kid it feel something like painful to sit there while she asked me what clothing should be purged. I wish I know why organizing projects leave me so grumpy! I’d love to have a more organized home.
I am the same way, and I have accepted some journeys are not for me. I live in a city and pay way too much for my parking spot in a parking garage so my car gets so dirty. I also don’t have access to a hose, nor are there car washes near me. So, I have a dirty car. Such is life. I’m certainly not driving out of my way and paying $15 just to have a clean car.
I think I’m just worn out. Eldest daughter, long-time single/living alone, managing up at work for an incompetent and borderline verbally abusive supervisor. If someone wants to come organize a drawer for me, great. But that’s just not on my list.
I have a vibrant social life, and am very active in lots of hobbies. I can’t balance thhose + the demanding job + “baseline adulting” + AND CARING about stuff like car washes or drawer clean outs. Something’s gotta give and the thing that brings nothing to me (fun, rest, baseline competence, salary) is gonna be what gets cut out.
I used to feel bad about this (soemtimes I still do), like I’m flawed or less put together because of it. But, I’m trying to stop caring. Because the people with more “finished” lives don’t have the active personal and/or professional life I do.
Agreed with all of this. Also, cars just get dirty again (and quickly).
If you live a place where it snows a lot and the roadways are salted, you MUST wash your car or it will literally fall apart with rust.
I learned the hard way that regularly washing your car is not a vanity project.
idk, we’re all wired differently. I feel that way about exercise. I do it because I should, but people who describe feeling super energized about their day or a runner’s high? Zero experience with that.
At least for me, this mostly comes down to the things I care about, I don’t care about whether my car is spotless in general, but when for some reason it gets dirty in a way that makes it hard to see out the windows or it gets super salty in the winter, then I have no problem getting motivated to clean it. Forget all the dopamine bs, I just care about maintaining my car’s function. Same for keeping my house maintained and clean and organized, which makes it easier for me to function in it. If it will ultimately make my life better or easier enough to be worth the cost and effort then I do it, and if not I probably won’t, which seems efficient, not lazy.
+1 that it’s efficient to focus on what you value. I value a safe car, so I’ll make sure my windows are clean. I don’t really care if my car is dirty, so I let it get dirty.
There are a lot of things I like or find nice, but I don’t really value. I don’t consider myself lazy for not spending time on things others value, but I don’t.
I value cleanliness a lot. I despise clutter, disorganization, dust. This hasn’t helped my currently untreated ADHD or provided extra energy or made cleaning not an activity that somehow also feels like it ruins my day (mission accomplished provides no dopamine at all) and also ruins my downtime, since as soon as I think of myself as responsible for handling the mess, I can’t stop seeing it. So it’s like the mess will bother me slightly less if it’s not my problem (like a public space), but if it is my problem, it will bother me constantly and forever, since it’s never going to be clean enough. I’m the kind of person who should always have a cleaner just so that it’s not my problem. I could probably even swap chores with someone and benefit.
I was just thinking about this. I will put some things off forever if I’m not accountable to someone else. Have you seen Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies? I’m an Obliger, which means I only get things done when accountable to others. If i’m only accountable to myself, it never happens.
Once I learned this about myself, I started building in external accountability to the things I knew I should do but kept putting off. Example: have a friend come over and help me decide where to hang the art I’ve been putting off. Do an accountability coworking session with a colleague where we both try to check items off our lists. etc. etc.
If something still isn’t getting done after all that, I have to accept that it’s just a priority for me and move on accordingly. If it were important, I’d get it done.
I think people are spending too much time on social media. Cleaning, cooking, tending to oneself, are necessary parts of being human and living a relatively functional life. How fancy you want to get with the cleaning and cooking and tending are up to you, contrary to what you might see on Instagram.
Also, most humans are not sent into paroxysms of joy by cleaning the kitchen, again, contrary to what you see on social media. Just do the thing, enjoy the cleaner or more functional space, and don’t worry about “dopamine,” whatever that means. I feel like some people here are spending more time psychologizing why they don’t want to do a thing than just doing the thing (or just deciding they don’t need that thing in their life, if it’s not needed for basic human function).
I will often do the old trick of setting a timer and cleaning for 15-20 minutes, it’s rather amazing what you can get done in that time. I also like my kitchen to be tidy, because I don’t have much counter space and if I have to move things in the morning to make breakfast before I’ve had coffee, I will be unhappy. Does the floor sometimes get a little sticky? Sure, but I don’t stress about it because my kitchen is still functional even with a slightly sticky (but not gross!) floor.
I love these! Have neither the budget nor the lifestyle for them… but gosh if I was an aunt at a swanky southern wedding, I’d wear these to the welcome dinner or something.
I have a seagrass rug that has seen better days, so it’s time to get another one. I didn’t love it — it was very rough under bare feet and uncomfortable even with socks on due to the ridges. What else is out there that I could get in a custom size (like 4 feet by 12 feet) that could have a fabric edging? It doesn’t need to be a “grass” type fiber but needs to have a fairly neutral look against orange-ish pine flooring that is very soft (so will also need a substantial custom-cut rug pad beneath it due to use of roller office-type chairs in a WFH space). THANKS MUCH.
You can get any carpeting cut to size and the edges bound (examples: https://www.curranfloor.com/guides/borders). I do this in my apartment to cover the awful flooring in the living room. I have a thick pad (half inch?) under that looks like felt. I think you’ll need a thinner pad for rolling chairs. If you can, check out at a local carpet store for fiber and color ideas.
Looks like Pottery Barn has some neutral in appearance wool rugs available in one foot increments between three and a half to twelve feet wide and seven to twenty feet long. I’ve got a mix of antique and Pottery Barn rugs at my place and have been happy with the quality the Pottery Barn rugs.
Where can I obtain term life insurance if I’m in good physical health but have a history of depression and mental health treatment?
I tried to get term life when I got married and was denied a lot of places, and since then just bought extra through work to get me to about $1M. However, I recently changed jobs and my new job doesn’t offer a buy up for term life. My daughter is 4 and while we have a decent amount in savings I want to ensure she’s taken care of if anything happens.
I recently tried again through a few brokers and keep getting denied. It’s a demoralizing process. With the de-stigmatization of mental health treatment e.g., counseling and medication, it’s disheartening this is still an automatic denial for so many carriers.
Have you tried getting it through your college?
Sorry, “through college” meaning, via your alumni network? Many colleges offer alumni access to insurance products. The colleges make a small amount of money on them, and the insurance carrier gets access to an overall low-risk population.
I need help breaking the cycle of work anxiety. Every Monday morning, it’s the same thing: butterflies in the stomach, dread, needing to take deep breaths during my drive in. NOTHING IS WRONG. My work environment isn’t perfect, but it’s fine. There is nothing bad enough to prompt such a strong reaction. It’s exhausting starting the day or week like this, and then it takes my brain a long time to get going on the real, actual work. I hate this and feel like such a broken person.
I already take an SSRI, btw.
How are you spending your weekends? What are you doing for fun?
Well, this weekend, not much! My kids went back to school last week and we were all exhausted, so it looked like a lot of resting, getting caught up on chores, and not much in the way of fun. Other weekends, I make much more of an effort to have at least one social event for myself.
A chores weekend can really have a downer effect and cause more “Sunday scaries.” The ideal is getting to the end of Sunday and thinking “damn, that was fun, I feel refreshed and pleasantly tired now. I can’t wait for next weekend when we’re doing ___.” Then the Monday morning itself tends to feel better as a result.
This is about work, not how she spends her weekends.
Thank you. Every weekend looks a little bit different from me, and I’m not in the stage of life where it’s going to be all fun and enjoyment, all the time. I’m more than OK with that.
I understood what she was saying. Having better weekends = better Monday mornings.
For me the things that tend to help are:
– having a Monday morning treat, like buying coffee
– having a productive Friday, so I don’t feel the procrastination-shame Monday morning
– allowing myself a bare-minimum Monday– giving myself a very achievable to-do list on Mondays
Aren’t Mondays like this for everyone??
I do find that a weekend of chores makes me feel worse. My trick is I try to do as much on Friday night as possible so I can enjoy the rest of the weekend.
I’m done. I’m a federal employee who has been THROUGH it in the last 1.5 years (with NO reprieve on the horizon). My job was demanding and it’s only increased due to the attrition, my direct leadership is awful, and what they’re doing to my agency as a whole is immoral, illegal, and awful to live through.
I’m early 30s, single and always have been, have been living alone for about 5 years, eldest daughter, yadda yadda yadda. I’m just DONE with always having to be the person who does it, otherwise it doesn’t get done. I have great friends and a well-meaning family, but I’m just over it.
I’m hella resilient. I wish I wasn’t hella resilient. I went straight from pressure cooker high school to a selective university where I was a double major and D1 athlete to an intense but meaningful and passion-filled government career where I’ve been for the last 10ish years. I just lost a really close loved one a few months ago. I’ve been single my whole adult life so I’ve never had someone to share some of these burdens with (I finally came out about 2 years ago – it took forever to feel comfortable doing so, so that explains my younger-adult singleness, but not my current singleness) . I love my career but it’s been miserable lately. I have an incompetent and cruel supervisor so I manage up to make things not even tolerable. The federal government is an abusive place to work right now. Financially things feel so much tighter than they should thanks to the economy. But also, with my benefits (and how much I adore my colleagues and the work we do), I’m stuck.
There’s a lot of good in my life: my friends/family, hobbies I”m invested in and love, some fun personal goals (training for my second marathon), I am planning a bucket-list trip for next year. My therapist is great and we’re working a lot of resilience and positive-self talk/appreciation about everything we are doing and can do and have to do.
But what I wouldn’t give to just not be the one who has to do/fix everything.
I say this as someone who tends to be this way: what would happen if you didn’t fix everything?
FWIW, I’m very similar to OP, when I eventually cracked and started drawing boundaries and not being as helpful I lost a LOT of friends and family. People did not like me, they liked what I could do for them. There were no mythical people who liked me for me.
I hear you. I have a younger sister who has been allowed to live as a fragile wilting Victorian flower. I see so many women like that — they do nothing and someone always picks up the pieces. They are decorative at best (but if the PTA needs to have a stage built, they are there for the ‘gram but not for the day of work to prepare (nor for the clean-up). Performative women?
Hugs. I have been “busy with work” for all non-mission essential other things in my life (as ranked solely by me). Eldercare, yes, but also transitioning single dad into an apartment in my city and signing up for driving him in exchange for selling his cars. It’s a lot.
No advice for playing on the other team, but maybe everyone our age is just really busy and having lives of drama (BUT my public defender friends have made meaningful relationships and friendships from the softball league).
I don’t mean this to sound harsh – and tone is hard to get right on the internet.
But is this a perspective problem? Your salary is enough to cover your needs, benefits are so good that you can’t (ie. are choosing to prioritize that access to benefits) leave for another job, you have room & energy for hobbies and a great social life, and the freedom to live independently and make your own choices in those matters?
Absolutely, sounds like your job is stressful. But in the global picture, you’re living the dream. Would it help to focus on gratitude, instead of viewing this as a resilience problem?
Oof. Not the OP, but I needed to read this.
Just to add to this – both things can be true, and sometimes allowing for both things to be true – gratitude + this objectively sucks – helps me. We can be really lucky and want this life/career, and also things can really suck and be hard during some seasons. Last week my friend texted this: “F this and I’m really lucky.” and it felt like the most true mantra.
Stop managing up. I used to do a lot of that, and a lot of trying to repair things my supervisor broke. It was stressful. I finally realized that no-one actually expected me to do any of that, and I just stopped doing it. No-one noticed. Nothing broke. Supervisor was as capricious and disrespectful as she was before, but didn’t get any worse. And I felt much less stressed. It felt weird at first to not “care” about my job so much, but looking back I can’t believe how much of my personal mental energy I wasted on it.
As a former fed employee (VA) who was able to bail out, you have my sympathy. It’s an awful situation and my heart goes out to you. While you generally can’t say no at work, you can to your great friends and well-meaning family. It will be new to them, and to you, so not too easy at first. My therapist is helpful at thinking this through (i.e., what would realistically or likely happen if “it” didn’t get done by me) and providing language for these discussions.
You have agency here. You don’t like being single? Get out there and date, go on the apps, make the effort. Hate your job? Get another one. Why are you being a martyr?
I love these pants. The price point is far superior to my
means though. Rats.
Where do you buy cotton jersey pull-on pajamas? I just want some normal PJ pants and shorts. Matching t-shirts or camis would be nice but not necessary. Everything I can find is polyester or modal.
Pact has good cotton lounge clothes.
Lake PJs – they really hold up well
JCrew
I recently got these from Land’s End and they are decent quality cotton fabric, unlike the rest of my haul, knit tees and pants which were thin and terrible quality. They have the same PJs in a shorts set too. https://www.landsend.com/products/womens-knit-2-piece-pajama-set—long-sleeve-top-and-pants/id_394794?attributes=28911,43307,43327,43403,44256,44967
Second to Land’s End pj’s. They are comfy and hold up very well.
How fashionable do you want them to be? Vermont Country Store has 100% cotton jersey. Garnet Hill has some that I think are cuter.
Somehow I actually don’t mind modal unless it has spandex in it, but so often it does! Looks like Lands End’s cotton knit also has spandex currently.
Have you ever been at someone’s home and been shocked at how they live? I was invited to a friend of a friend’s this weekend and the level of clutter, dust, and just… piles of stuff everywhere made my blood pressure rise. I guess I like clean surfaces! But I was thinking about how for them, this feels normal and anything less clutter-y would probably feel cold and austere. Just like I’m sure someone has been to my house and thought I had too many books out or plants or who knows… it’s all relative!
And this is why I never have house guests.
I had a friend in law school who lived in a nice townhouse in a nice neighborhood with her long-term boyfriend. The kitchen and living areas were generally pretty clean, but the first time I went into their primary bath (I stayed overnight in the guest room on one occasion and it did not have its own bathroom) I was shocked. The toilet looked like it had not been cleaned, ever. Imagine a brown ring around the inside at least 3 inches wide. The vanity surface was covered in little hairs and sticky spots. It really changed my perception of the couple. I still loved them but was really taken aback at how they lived.
Oh yes! I try to remember that I am there for them, not their home.
I have learned to try and meet at a restaurnat or park if possible.
Personally, clutter in my place makes me twitch.
There is a clutter level I can deal with called “piles,” like a lot of books on surfaces or paper.
Then there is a combo of slight hoarding + dust + despair that is mentally hard to watch (and rough on the allergies — there is often a stale mustiness if not whiff of old mold about places that have just been left in a Miss Havisham sate). At some point, those people stop letting others in because it’s just slid down from bad to OMG an intervention is needed.
I feel my house looks like this, and I hate it too. I don’t inflict it on others though! It’s just a battle that I’m losing.
Your friend of a friend sounds very normal. People get busy and houses get cluttered, or they just don’t care as much as you about having a photo ready house.