Wednesday’s Workwear Report: Bow-Neck Knitted Sweater
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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
This sweater might be a little too twee for some folks, but I’m really loving the built-in bow and gorgeous red color. Actually, let me correct myself. It’s from Boden, so it’s a “jumper.” I would keep this in my closet to lift my mood on a day when I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
The red color would look lovely with camel, navy, or just about any neutral, but I have a pair of light pink pants that are waiting patiently for this to show up at my door.
The sweater is $140 at Boden and comes in sizes XS-XL. It also comes in camel, ivory, and black.
Sales of note for 8/21:
- Ann Taylor – 25% off fresh fall styles! Also, there's an online-only warehouse sale — $20 tops, $25 sweaters, $30 pants, and $40
- CVS – Epic beauty sale, $10 off when you spend $30 (Walmart is having its “Beauty Event” as well right now!)
- The Fold – Up to 50% off, further markdowns
- J.Crew – Last chance summer styles on sale
- J.Crew Factory – 8/21 only: 50% off pants and shorts, and free shipping on all orders
- J.McLaughlin – Extra 40% off sale
- Lilysilk – Anniversary sale, save up to 70%
- Me & Em – Sale! Up to 60% off (new lines just added, exclusively online)
- M.M.LaFleur – Lots of new pieces added to sale (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
- Revolve – 20% off most beauty!
- Talbots – End of season clearance, extra 70% off markdown tops and extra 60% off other markdowns
- Theory – End of season sale is on!
Anyone regret donating/throwing clothes that you habd outgrown (body or style)? I have some mini and bodycon dresses that I just don’t expect to wear ever again. I have young nieces, no kids, debating whether to save a couple totes in case they want to explore them. Worth keeping, or donate?
Generally, no. Stuff I wasn’t wearing b/c it wasn’t my size, I don’t miss (and I’ve never retained any former smaller size). If it’s party pieces not worn due to lifestyle, I miss the party and could always find a new outfit. Not enough parties in 2026.
My nieces have never wanted anything I’ve had (silk DVF wrap dresses, etc.). One daughter borrows things from time to time.
Unless they’re iconic brands from the era a la Herve Leger Bandage Dress… let them go. My only regrets have been from not doing this sooner and allowing the stuff to clutter up my life, having learned the hard way that no, just because I lost or gained that 15 pounds does not mean I want to wear the clothes from that size that I had in 2016.
Personally, I’d donate. Reasons:
• I don’t want to store stuff for years in the hope that somebody, someday might be the exact right size/height at the exact right life stage and turn out to want it and value it the way I did.
• I’ve decided that on the off-chance I do regret something, it’s not the end of the world. Regret can be just a passing emotion; the threat of possibly feeling it doesn’t need to govern my decisions. Besides, it’s just regret over clothing. Pieces of cloth.
+1, also, I’d rather regret donating than have all the boxes of stuff stored indefinitely. I don’t have the space for that.
Yes – few but yes
– red suede skirt from Kenneth Cole, 2002
– button-up shirt with red and brown stripes, also 2002
– off-white leather peplum top, Theory, 2006?
– formal BCBG dress that I wore to my brother’s wedding, 2010
– a few more formal dresses
The stuff that I miss is high quality. I keep a lot of formal wear and costume-y pieces (including old dance costumes!) and those get rotation on Halloween, and my kids have used old minidresses (including some of my mom’s from the 70s!) for decade days at school, etc.
That Kenneth Cole skirt sounds dreamy!
My stepmother has given me some stuff from her fab-u-lous life in the 90s as a banker in London, and unfortunately, as much joy as it brings me to see it in my closet, I have never worn it because the cut and style are outdated. I don’t know which way this cuts – maybe keep it if it’s very expensive, but if it’s just run of the mill, definitely toss.
Fabulous earlier London like Patsy from AbFab? Or too try-hard like Eddy Monsoon? I’d take either though.
Eh, your nieces are going to have their own tastes and style. And there’s no guarantee that your stuff would fit them, even if they like it. Just donate it and move on.
Based on my daughter’s experience: If you try to give your nieces your old clothes, they will accept some items and express gratitude out of a sense of obligation, then feel guilt that they don’t actually want the things you were so kind to save for them, and annoyance that the things are taking up space in their closet but they can’t get rid of them because they were a gift from you.
Please do not put them in this position.
Amazon just updated its terms of service to include binding arbitration of “ ANY DISPUTE OR CLAIM RELATING IN ANY WAY TO YOUR USE OF ANY AMAZON SERVICE, OR TO ANY PRODUCTS OR SERVICES SOLD OR DISTRIBUTED BY AMAZON OR THROUGH AMAZON.COM.” Amazon is about to begin drone delivery in our neighborhood. Is it really possible that this broad language means that if a drone drops someone else’s package on my house or my dog or my kid and I happen to have an Amazon account, I will lose my right to sue? Or will courts interpret this language only to apply to tr—-actions where I am a party?
Is Amazon even going to be the owner of the drones? Or once it is tested, all drones are leased out to third party delivery LLCs who have their own drivers and everyone is underinsured, so if you do sue and win, you win an LLC with a lot of judgments against it and a bunch of leased drones to pay for? Because that’s how delivery on land seems to work. Look at the placards on the back of the delivery vehicles.
Depends on how much Amazon bribes the judge?
Has anyone gone down the road of “is it mild cognitive impairment or early dementia” with a loved one before? And does it matter which it is? Speaking as a history major, with no medical training, it seems that for many places and situations (assisted living facilities, dealing with powers of attorney, etc.), having a diagnosis of dementia closes some doors but just “mild cognitive impairment” is just treated as part of aging (so Uncle Gregor, who used to fly jets, has a hard time in the airport if Cousin Lise isn’t there with him, but can do all ADLs on his own, but his bills are all on auto-pay and who knows how he’d be without that (true for any of us though now that no one writes checks)). But I don’t know what I don’t know (and I also don’t know how to get a real sense of what is going on here). Where do I start and what sort of doctor would really know?
I went down this road with myself in my thirties, and it was a treatable condition. I wonder if I’d have ever been diagnosed if I’d been older, or if it would have been treated as part of aging! It also took a lot of advocacy with the healthcare system to get anywhere, some of which I really needed loved ones to do for me because of my symptoms at the time. So cognitive impairment is sometimes treatable.
If it is really aging or dementia, geriatrician is the medical specialty for aging. There are also social workers that specialize in geriatrics. When I searched to find a link for you the first result was AARP, which is not a bad place to start.
My mom’s dementia was diagnosed and is now monitored by a neurologist, so I would start there. They will be able to determine whether testing is warranted and how to determine whether it’s vascular dementia, Alzheimers, etc.
My dad has self-referred to neurology because he feels like he’s getting forgetful. I think it’s too much time on his ipad and maybe a hearing issue? But I’m not a useful kind of doctor. They are doing some baseline tests but think he’s probably fine.
Get all your legal documents including wills and trusts done before any diagnosis. I’m not sure what benefit it serves, frankly. The real question is what care do they need and how to fund it.
It was fun to see myself quoted in Kat’s post about business development! This is a good conversation for us to have over and over again. I mentor attorneys in this area in real life too. I am surprised there isn’t more engagement in the comments but go take a read if you’re working on this in your career.
Because those are old, recycled posts often just taking one comment o ones that into and trying to make fetch happen.
Does speech to text just not work or not work for some people? Someone who regularly texts me has (I think) started using it and it is like getting messages from a hallucinating drunk person. How would you say something like “did you proofread this or are you hitting the sauce early?”
In one case in my friend group this was literally carbon monoxide poisoning, so just throwing that out there.
In another case they were having vision issues and weren’t proofreading successfully.
I think it sometimes doesn’t like my accent. Our smart device only understands my husband. Someone was giving me a lift once, and I was the only one who the GPS would understand (all very strong Scottish, versus my Californian).
You can set iPhones to different accents, fyi.
I have a family member like this. I can usually figure it out, but if not I just write back and respond to what I can and say I didn’t understand the part about the pizza at the airport, or whatever nonsense came through. For my family member, it’s because of arthritis and because she loves to talk and has no incentive to be brief when dictating, hahaha
Speech to text makes mistakes all the time!
This. Also no, they probably aren’t checking, I text a lot from the car this way and I’m not proofing things. It’s efficient and everyone knows it’s going to have errors, my friends aren’t my English teachers.
I feel like I get a LOT of stuff like this and it’s so garbled that I am not going to make an effort when I get out of a meeting to 10+ garbled texts. Speech to text is the 2026 nuisance reforwarded e-mail.
I’m used to getting voice texts when friends are driving.
But DH texts a lot from the car for work, and the car reads it back to him, so he still has a chance to correct it if it at least sounds wrong (I realize there are soundsalike errors but those are usually obvious).
That’s a setting, I found it too annoying and turned it off. People are used to a weird text and again, it’s just efficient.
Some people’s speech to text is so confusing you have no idea what they’re even trying to say. Sometimes I think their mic is too sensitive and it’s also picking up words from a conversation their kids are having in the back seat.
Reposting from a weekend thread:
-I have a 2010 Toyota RAV4 and two soon to be teenage drivers. I have a highway commute.
-Would you: get a 2026 RAV4 or Corolla Cross? Take the newer car on highway and have teenagers use 2010 RAV4 and have a backup camera installed? Or have them solely use the newer car?
-Related, what car do you have and are you happy with it/what’s your dream car? I’d drive a Lexus if I had the $$ but otherwise a Toyota is fine (love seeing the Fiat Pandas on trips to Italy-fun cars.)
I feel like when we shopped (got a CRV hybrid AWD, would consider RAV4 now also), the Cross had bad reviews and a not-great backseat for adult-sized teens. RAV4 would be more flexible.
I have an Odyssey and teens learned on the smaller CRV, which I love to drive and which we use as newest family car for college visits (generally one adult and 1/2 kids) but use the van for family hauls when we also have dog with us. I still drive the van and prefer urban parking with the CRV.
With $ not an option, for city driving (short trips, nothing over 40 mph): ideally older air-cooled manual 911 from the late 80s/early 90s. Would not take on highways. Or a VW Thing (convertible, manual). I love cars like that. Today, everything looks like a RAV, so hard to get excited about Lexus RAV or Cadillac RAV or whatever. Make cars stunning again.
Yes, what is with so many cars looking exactly the same?! I’d love to get rid of my minivan, and yet nothing out there really excites me (beyond not being a minivan).
Wasn’t this exact question just asked the other day?
Teens get the old car. Parents get the new car, preferably something fun. My vote is always a mini cooper.
I gave my teens the newer car, largely because it didn’t have 15YO safety features and was substantially smaller than my car. They learned to drive on it and switching them to a larger car just because it’s paid off would serve no one. I’m an adult and can get a fancy car if I want to (but also want to not spend money I don’t need to with college costs looming). I will inherit “their” car once they are in college.
This is where I land.
I would also check insurance costs. I am willing to bet it would be cheaper, possibly a whole lot cheaper, to insure the teens as primary drivers on a car with modern safety features.
This. Except I’m not a fan of mini coopers.
Is there a third car in the mix? Assuming two parents, a 2010 RAV4, a newer car with backup camera and blind spot warnings and pedestrian detection, and a brand-new car, I would have the teens drive the newer car, give the old RAV4 to the parent with the shorter and less dangerous commute, and use the new car for the parent with the longer commute and as the main car when traveling as a family.
When my teen was learning to drive, our older car was a 2012 with no backup camera that was prone to mechanical issues. She was only allowed to drive the newer car because it had a backup camera and was not likely to break down on the side of the road. Even though Toyotas are incredibly reliable, at some point after 100K miles and many years on the road there will be issues from wear and tear. Somewhere around 150K the water pump and then the alternator on my beloved 2007 RAV4 died. (We fixed both issues and kept the car until 250K miles.) I would not have wanted a new driver to experience either of those events.
I would add a backup camera to the old RAV4 immediately no matter who is going to drive it.
I posted this on the last thread, but I have a Corolla Cross and would not buy another one at current prices. I actually like the Corolla Cross because it handles like a smaller car, but the hybrid AWD version is now the same price as a hybrid AWD RAV4 and is much less powerful and a bit cramped inside. Our college kid is taking the Cross and the replacement parental car will be a RAV4.
have times changed this much in 25 years? it was unheard of when I was a kid that the teens would get the new car as opposed to getting their parent’s ~10 yo hand-me-down to drive. Only the super wealthy families bought their 16yos their own brand new car!
I posted once before about dealing with a coworker who outsources every thought to Claude. Now it’s progressed to him pushing back (raised voices, tension) whenever he’s asked to do anything manually because he thinks it’s “not worth his time.” He literally yelled at our company president (and later apologized) when she said she did not want to use his Claude output and that he needed to do it himself. I’m torn between wanting to grab my popcorn and wanting him to quit and go work at some AI startup if he loves it so much.
Ugh, he sounds insufferable.
My latest cross to bear is that my leadership saw a message that went out from another higher-up and is just in love with how it read. Friends, I am a writer. It is at least 50% AI generated. This is what my job is becoming: interpreting what they love so much about what they read, when I can clearly tell it is slop.
A lot of people do not know how to write. They probably like the clarity.
People with TikTok attention spans also like how dumbed down AI slop is. You can’t miss the main point when it’s bolded and set off with an em dash and a “Bottom line.”
I suppose. My leader has so many thoughts running through her head at all times, and it shows up in how she writes. Then I’m trying to interpret what the heck she means so I can rewrite it clearly and concisely. I suppose AI cuts out the middle man (me). I can’t say that I love the end product, though. It’s creepily perfect, like the writer’s version of someone who has used too many injectables in their face.
AI writing isn’t known for being clear. It’s usually too verbose, and it struggles with coherence (this is more apparent if you read every word and don’t just skim it; a lot of the statements are vague filler).
AI writing is known for being sycophantic and emotionally manipulative. Some people respond really well to that!
The filler language drives me insane, but my boss seems to like that. I’ve been trained to cut out filler from my writing and have been doing so for two decades at this point, so it’s been a real struggle to get our styles to mesh.
Low stakes questions for the day. What is your absolute favorite:
1.) Beauty product
2.) Make-up product
3.) Haircare product
4.) Lipstick
Beauty product – Vitamin C, I use poems from the lab (I consider this tied with good sunblock in terms of efficacy)
Makeup – Blush. I am not a loyalist to any particular brand though as I age I prefer cream blush set with powder blush for more staying power
Haircare – Olaplex 4&5 and then 6&7 for styling. Sadly the new mist stinks, save your $$
Lipstick – I prefer liptints, the Kbeauty ones are amazing – this list is spot on: https://www.allure.com/story/best-korean-lip-tints
1) Glycolic acid from the Ordinary for armpits
2) Saie underye concealer
3) Oribe shampoo and conditioner and styling cream
4) Wonderskin lip tint + Hince lip gloss
1) I have used the same Clinique face wash for literally decades at this point. It’s my nighttime wash.
2) I enjoy eyeshadow. Applying it is fun, a little like painting in a good way.
3) The Tigi Small Talk thickening cream is the GOAT for my fine-textured short hair.
4) Loreal Infallible lip gloss in Sangria. Have used it for yearssss at this point.
I am so surprised that kids are so casually allowed to choose instruments in middle school. Like the life of a band parent and the life of an orchestra parent are so, so different. The life of a band instrument player (marching band, concert band, pit bands for plays) is so different than a string/orchestra instrument player. IMO band should be a sport and the parents should get letters, too. It is a family endeavor.
At my HS, the string students were required to be in marching band also – they had to either learn a marching band instrument or be a flag / baton person!
What a strange requirement; I’d feel like that was some kind of punishment.
How did they manage to practice all that? I was in high school band, but during marching band season, I was 100% flag line. Then back to my instrument once marching season was over.
Totally. I have one violin player and one saxophone player. Band is on another level of commitment for the family. I also find the strings parents to be insufferable and stuck up in the three times a year I see them, so give me the marching band families any day! String instruments are largely a solo endeavor with private lessons, even if the student plays in the school orchestra. Band is so much more communal, IMHO.