Tuesday’s Workwear Report: Maude Dress
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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
There was a little frost on the ground when I woke up earlier this week, so I feel ready to declare that sweater dress season is here.
Let’s begin with this gorgeous polo dress from Tuckernuck to kick things off. I love the color, the fit-and-flare silhouette, and the fun collar neckline. Pair with a blazer for a cozy office look that still looks pulled-together.
The dress is $198 at Tuckernuck and comes in sizes XS-XXXL. It’s also available in midnight.
Sales of note for 10/12
- Ann Taylor – Flash Sale: 40% off full-price purchase + 60% off sale styles
- J.Crew – Friends & Family Event, 30% off for loyalty members (ends 10/12)
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off at stores and sitewide, 20% off $150+
- Lo & Sons – Fall Sale: Up to 40% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Fall Refresh Event, up to 25% off (Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off on other items)
- Nordstrom – 6,200+ new markdowns for women (Also, weirdly, they have the Fall 2026 Chanel collection, which I feel like is a first for them, but it's like a catalog for you to call for an appointment… very strange.)
- Nordstrom Rack – Extra 25% off select denim (ends 10/12) + up to 50% off DV by Dolce Vita and more
- Old Navy – 40% off everything (ends 10/12). Also, the Old Navy x Altuzarra collab is here! All sizes (up to 4X!) of the blazer in the collab is still available.
- Talbots – Friends & Family Event: 30% off your entire purchase
- Theory – End of season sale is on with extra savings (new prices are marked)
Looking for recommendations for dining in Aspen during ski season. How busy do places get and how far in advance do reservations fill up? Appreciate any recs for planning out meals with teens while maximizing ski time! Bonus on any packing tips you have for flying with all the gear!
For flying with the gear, I really like a boot bag that fits in the overhead bin. Ours has the boots lie flat against your back when carrying it, arranged inside the compartment like you would have new shoes in a shoebox, and there’s a helmet pocket on top. I can fit all my outerwear in that bag and it’s comfortable to carry. It’s pretty old at this point but the brand is Dakine.
Does Aspen have Ski Butlers? I haven’t used it myself but have heard great things in case you want to demo new skis instead of schlepping yours.
I also have and love the Dakine boot backpack.
I need casual but put together weekend clothes. No jeans or leggings. I hate the feel of the spanx super popular scuba/like- soft fabric line but like the overall idea/look. I also hate ribbed fabrics, they always stretch funny on my body. Anything you love?
If money is no object, the AYR High Hopes pant ($200’ish) plus any sort of top fits your criteria. If that’s not the budget for weekend outfits, Athleta and Lululemon have similar pants that do not look like (and are not) athletic wear. The Athleta Endless pant is very popular here, and I have and wear it, but Lululemon’s version is more flattering to me (less-high rise, I think).
More spendy, but I love the Frank + Eileen Riley pants in the triple terry material once it gets cold enough for them. (And, cue someone commenting over $300 for a pair of sweatpants with the zipper…).
I think you go with casual pants that aren’t jeans or leggings. Like the barrel travel pants or straight leg tech pants listed in this post. I haven’t tried either of these pairs of pants.
https://jolynneshane.com/what-to-buy-during-amazon-prime-big-deal-days.html
The viral Ruti pants in black, plus a crew-neck cashmere sweater or a Varley quarter-zip sweatshirt.
I like the Varley double soft pants, and the Marine Layer Allison trousers though the elastic waist is very casual on both.
Athleta has lots of options for athletic-feeling pants that don’t look like athletic pants.
Sounds like you need to repurpose regular work pants. Style them with sneakers and a t-shirt.
Has anyone ever chosen to divorce from a partner who has unsuccessfully treated depression? My sister is contemplating this and it’s been sad on all sides. He’s tried for the whole time I’ve known him and I think at some level he really wants to get better but on another, he’s somewhat comfortable with the status quo, while she’s not (“I’m smothering under his heavy blanket,” which made me sad to hear). I’ve seen discussions here over the years about how it’s justified to leave someone who refuses to treat their depression but this feels a little different. She feels a lot of guilt but in our last conversation, I got the impression she might move past that for a chance of happiness. (to be clear, I’ve just been listening and have given no advice other than “take some time to think” and similar).
I have not, but had a BF like this and did choose to break up for the reason she gives.
Same and it was the best thing I ever did for my own life. Good for her.
+1. My BF refused to get treatment and it was really impacting my own mental health. We both improved after the breakup, I think it was a real wakeup call for him.
Perhaps a very hot take: I think you can require your spouse to make progress and to do all the things that need to be done (sleep, exercise, therapy, medication if appropriate); it gets dicier when you put a timeline on their healing.
This isn’t to say that you’re obligated to stay in a marriage with someone who has permanent untreatable mental health issues. It’s more that the other person has an obligation to their marriage, which is to do what is within their power to ameliorate mental health problems.
I say this as someone with real, diagnosed (not TikTok) PTSD.
(My marriage fell apart because my ex is the sort of sicko who enjoyed triggering my ptsd; he admitted that he would play dumb and push me to watch the reaction.)
This is really tough. Are kids involved? Has he had good periods, followed by rougher ones? Is the relationship functioning OK (guessing not, if she’s contemplating divorce).
No kids (she wants them eventually) and he has had good periods before, but even his best is kind of a muffled gray best. No concerns or fears about abuse or lashing out – it’s more that she doesn’t think she can live life in grayscale, to stay with the theme, for the next 50 years. She’s a vibrant, cheerful person and even though she has hobbies, friendships, etc. etc., I know she needs more life and spark at home. I think it’s harder for her to get over the guilt when home is “OK” but she knows it may never get better than OK.
If she wants kids she needs to get out ASAP. Having kids will just make his problems worse, and then she will really be stuck.
If they don’t have kids and she wants kids, she should leave tomorrow IMO.
If none of the depression treatments are working, are they sure it’s what he really has or that it isn’t secondary to something else they missed? He’s ill and presumably has little initiative, but I’d fire his whole failing medical team and start over with a different approach if things are going this poorly.
Treatment resistant depression is real and starting over from scratch with new providers sounds insane.
Refractory depression can indicate misdiagnosis, and this is not uncommon. I think it’s more insane to stick with providers who haven’t been helping!
Part of my context here is that I’ve seen people recover when they moved or even just switched insurance plans that landed them in a different hospital system, and then they ended up with new diagnoses a previous team had missed. There are conditions that present similarly to depression that psych meds don’t treat very effectively.
Even when it’s a primary mental health condition, SSRIs can have some negative effects (like emotional blunting and flattening, apathy and indifference) that make it very hard for the patient to advocate for better treatment.
I have and it’s the best thing I ever did. Caveat that I didn’t have kids with him. He did seek treatment but then would abruptly stop and have some sort of breakdown. He was increasingly aggressive and resentful of me. Once I left him I started to feel like I could breathe again. I had underestimated how small I had made myself and my life in order to manage him. At some point it is ok to put on your own oxygen mask first.
This, you aren’t required to stay because someone gets treatment. It’s an insane premise.
i think what gets tricky and no judgment at all, and this is more of a philosophical question, but like if you wouldn’t leave a spouse bc they have cancer, are mental health conditions different? and if they are then as a society we will never truly be able to remove the stigma
Yes they are. And it’s silly to pretend otherwise. Men leave women with cancer all the time, women do not need to be guilted into staying with no functional men
Not even close to the same thing, it’s a false equivalency that guilts people into staying in bad relationships.
Why isn’t it close to the same thing? Because you said so?
Mental health conditions are fundamentally different from physical illnesses, and if we pretend otherwise we will never truly make progress in dealing with mental illness as a society. Mental illness can fundamentally alter a personality. It is also a convenient cover for many pre-existing personality defects and moral failings.
Because cancer only infects the person who has it.
I’m happy if this represents someone’s individual experience of an ordeal with cancer, but I feel like “cancer only infects the person who has it” is far too glib here!
I think it is harder than this because a lot of marriages really were premised on “in sickness and in health.” We can all think of reasons why that would not apply in the case of some kinds of mental illness, but that’s partly why I personally would want to be sure it really was mental illness at all.
If someone would divorce over another diagnosis anyway, then it may not matter as much to someone.
The standard for leaving a spouse is the same whether they are healthy, physically ill, or mentally ill. If they mistreat you, you are not obligated to stay with them.
OP here and my sister doesn’t feel mistreated, though. She does feel guilt about reneging on her vows and I think that’s very understandable. I think she thought his depression would get consistently better instead of being kind of stuck.
I mean, it’s a marriage, so it’s not that insane a premise.
Different people mean different things by marriage, which I think is part of the reason this feels so hard to navigate!
But for me, when I’m dating someone, I would take their mental and physical health into consideration. It’s not a moral judgement on whether it’s the person’s “fault” they’re ill; it’s a practical judgement on whether it’s a good idea to bind my life to theirs.
But once I marry them, I take the “in sickness and in health” part pretty seriously, and would only marry someone who felt similarly. And that does mean accepting the possibility that an incurable or treatment resistant disease (physical or mental) decreases quality of life for both of us. It’s hard to navigate.
Yes, this. I might not have married this guy in the first place, but once I did, we’re in it for better or for worse. That’s not to say that I’d accept anything to keep the marriage, but I’d try pretty hard to support my husband with an illness (and I say this as someone with a chronic physical illness who has had family members and friends with fairly severe mental illness, so I have a decent idea of what that can mean).
Sounds like she’s making the best choices she can and your job is supporting her.
I absolutely would. Living with someone with mental illness is no joke. My spouse had depression and, as it progressed, the impact spread beyond him. I had always been a social drinker, but never had more than 2 drinks in a setting. I started to drink very heavily every night to mitigate the stress of living with spouse. Spouse started to threaten suicide to our then 6yo child. I dreaded what would happen as our son got older and wanted to separate from his parents more. I assumed spouse would use his mental illness to try to control son. Spouse couldn’t hold a job and basically only watched TV and played video games. He was not a partner and was, in fact, a negative influence on everyone around him. My spouse refused treatment, but it the effects of depression on everyone in the house would have been the same if treatment had not been successful.
This is a really gorgeous dress, but I fear for how it would cling to a softer belly. I used to love a good sweater dress but I’ve stopped wearing them after realizing how they accentuate everything. Tights just displace the squish. It’s hard to find good fall/winter dresses for that reason.
“displace the squish” is SUCH a good description of this, ha! I know exactly what you mean. I have found a slip helps, but not enough, plus it’s another layer to deal with. And even if you can’t see the squish, the tights make what seems like it should be comfortable outfit less comfortable.
“Displace the squish” is my new favorite way to describe clothes.
I tried this on last year and it was very flattering in a chic architecture professor kind of way but unfortunately much too big on my 5’2 frame:
https://tnuck.com/products/chocolate-vivianne-maxi-dress
im dreaming of frost on the ground as it is still 90 degrees where i live.
are we really going to televise an execution? the number of things that have happened in the past ten years that i never thought i’d see in my lifetime is truly a bit scary
I’m disgusted that the livestream idea was even considered, let alone that people in leadership roles think it’s a good idea. There’s a reason no democracies do this.
Apparently it would be livestreamed and maybe not actually on TV? Regardless, it is absurd.
I heard on NPR this morning that Australia would not allow it to be streamed there because it violates their safe internet laws.
Capital punishment is the disgusting part. Not the broadcasting part. Better our heinous acts be done in public so people can confront what they allow their government to do on their behalf.
Does this job exist and if so what is it called?
I am a middle manager and a medium sized company. I’m very good at going into a complicated situation, figuring out what the problem is, and making sure its fixed. There have been multiple projects where other people have added me on basically saying “Marie will fix this” – and then that happens.
Specific comments I’ve gotten include that I’m good at: understanding stakeholders, taking ownership and delivering on complex projects, cutting through the noise
In my view some of this is basic management, but its clearly a strength of mine. What’s a role that focuses on this? Is there a type of consulting that is “unf*cking messy situations”?
I’m also good at this. I agree it’s some basic management / organization, but it’s also being able to synthesize lots of nuanced information and data from different sources and quickly figure out what actually matters. I’m a former consultant, and am now in a Chief of Staff type role to a CEO – which has a mix of this but also a mix of more administrative stuff which is way less interesting. One of my other friends is also good at this and has an independent consulting business where she basically gets hired in to help with messy, complex projects.
Project manager? Consultant? Chief of staff?
I’ve been tasked with organizing a going away party for a co-worker (boss who would normally do it is stuck on a huge out-of-town project and asked me to handle). I was told to get a cheese tray, a fruit/veg tray, and a dessert tray, plus drinks, budget is $300. There’s a Whole Foods and a more basic grocery store within walking distance of the office. I am kind of at a loss — what do y’all recommend?
Is Costco an option?
Whichever one delivers, or another that delivers. Or if you can get more junior staff to get it, use a rolling cart, etc.
Whole Foods catering.
Fruit platter: $49.99
Cheese platter: $89.99
Cookie platter: $29.99
Each serves 16. That leaves you $100 for tax and drinks. If you want, swap out the fruit platter for the anti pasta platter and get fruit from the grocery store.
How much do you think a therapist ought to guide discussion or push back?
Are we still wearing DVF wrap dresses in 2026? Or DVF print shift dresses? As work items (what even is a work outfit these days) or for dinners out? I miss the era where one garment seemed to work for a full day and most of a working woman’s life events and travelled well.