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Coffee Break: Fake Collars

two fake collars aka dickies are shown in white and blue

If you love the look of a sweater with a crisp button-front blouse beneath it — but hate the bulky layers, static cling, and more — do consider a fake collar. We did a roundup of fake collars last year, and I was intrigued to note that this set was amongst our best sellers last month.

The sets generally come with two colors, and generally with a pointed collar. They're under $20 and eligible for Prime.

If you like the look but want something a bit fancier, check out Etsy seller Putney Home Design. It's also hard to beat Lele Sadoughi's faux collars. (Amazon also has a number of twofer sweaters, with that layered look built in!)

(Of course, if you're looking for a dickey to layer with a blazer, Veronica Beard makes the blazers and the dickeys — Quince also has zippered inserts for blazers.

Sales of note for 12.5

73 Comments

    1. i make a lasagna like casserole with a really heavy bolognese and ricotta and mozzerella and use zucchini or eggplant instead of noodles. sometimes add a layer of spinach too. I freeze them in individual containers and bring them for lunch. pretty tasty and satisfying.

      1. Similar: I actually prefer shrimp scampi with zoodles instead of pasta. I tried it once when we had a surfeit of garden zucchini, and the light crunch really balances the buttery sauce.

    2. My husband has been doing keto for nearly a year. One of our favorites is eggplant rollatini–slice an eggplant vertically, roast, roll up with the cheese filling from a lasagna or stuffed shells recipe, top with sauce and cheese, bake.

    3. Some of our standbys:

      Martha’s Caesar salad recipe (sans croutons) with hard boiled eggs
      Tuna salad using the good Geneva tuna from Costco and either chopped red pepper and olives and preserved lemon, or celery and good mayo.
      A good air chilled chicken (we like Bell & Evans), stuffed with one lemon, sprinkled with salt and pepper, roasted on high convection
      Sausage cheeseballs made with almond flour instead of breadcrumbs (I think we found a paleo recipe somewhere but just make it to taste now)
      Oven roasted chicken wings (salt & pepper or I like some Frank’s) served with crudites and blue cheese dressing and/or Toby’s ranch (which is surprisingly low carb)
      Beef meatballs with lots of parmesan and parsley, again some almond flour and eggs; Rao’s is a lower carb marinara if it helps to know one
      White fish in a lemon coconut curry sauce (we like S&B) with bok choi. I can’t find the recipe but it’s coconut milk, curry powder, lemon wedges, maybe some stock or broth if there’s some around.
      Mori-Nu silken tofu either with a little ground pork prepared as ma po tofu (bean paste, sichuan pepper, cilantro) or stewed with some kind of meat or fish and kimchi.
      If any previous meals left us with meaty bones, I really like to use those to make okra stew with red palm oil

      If sweeteners are okay on your husband’s diet, we like “Stevia Select” and a lot of dessert recipes that don’t have a starch can be low carb if you swap out the sweetener (so think vanilla or chocolate custards, cheesecake, homemade ice cream). A sweetener can also help make berries which are pretty low carb taste more indulgent. I will say that going a few weeks without sweetener can make the berries taste sweet on their own in my experience! If there’s a desire for soda and stevia is tolerated (stevia tastes different to different people), Green Cola is not the cheapest but I think it’s the winner for sugar free colas.

    4. A big steak, roasted broccoli, side salad.
      A roast chicken with lots of delicious roasted root vegetables, spinach or salad

      1. Aren’t root vegetables considered part of the carbohydrate food group? Since they’re starchy?

    1. I am in! i love the sweater over collared shirt look but it is too bulky on me when i do it. I have a short torso and wide hips so have to be strategic with top layers.

    4. What if they are Veronica Beard jackets and dickeys? Not that these are in my budget.

      1. I have never actually seen one of those in the wild. I think it’s all marketing. Who would wear a $695 business blazer with a dozen shiny gold buttons with a faux hoodie.

        3. I seem them all the time among the mothers at school drop off. I suspect they are working moms on their way to the office rather than SAHMs (the SAHMs are all in LLL or Vuori). And the CMO at my company loves them.

          I am not sure I understand the distaste for dickeys. I do not love that look but if you like a collar but not the bulk of a long sleeve shirt under your thin and/or close fitting sweater they seem like a good solution.

    5. I have nightmares from when my grandma tried to make me wear these to school in the 80s. So, so bad.

    6. I love that we’re just renaming things that were uncool and trying again. Fanny packs are now belt bags. Dickeys are now fake collars. (I’m on board with belt bags, not with fake collars)

      1. I thought belt bags were dumb until I tried one and realized how functional they are. Now I have a nice leather one I use on the weekends for errands and I love it.

    7. Since the post says that a set was one of the more popular sellers last month (a metric I suspect is closely tracked) clearly many people are.

  3. Prompted by the post about slip skirts last week: I wento to an event the previous weekend wearing the washable silk slip skirt from Quince (maxi, not mini) and a long velvet jacket, both in black, with an eggplant purple shawl for warmth and silver loafers. A teenage girl stopped me on the street to tell me how much she loved my outfit! That has never happened before and probably will never happen again, but it was very gratifying.

      1. I know I’ve done something right when I get an “okay, girl” from my daughter.

    1. Heavyweight (all time favorite), Move with Heart, Sweet Bobby, Betrayal, Las Culturistas, This American Life, Serial, How I Built This

    2. This is an oldie and I’ve recommended it here before, but my absolute favorite of all time is Dead Eyes, the story of an actor who lost a small part in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers and set out, 30 years later, to find out why. SO GOOD.

      I also love Normal Gossip for something light and fun. Decoder Ring for interesting pop culture puzzles.

    3. A bit out there, since it’s more music than classic podcast, but I love BBC Radio 3 Sound of Cinema, available for a month outside the UK. (Even their Cinematic Presidents episode last weekend wasn’t too political.) I love listening to the host.

    4. I just listened to The Rumor about an absolutely wild baseball/celebrity gossip rumor I had never heard. Very fun!

      Also like the first and third seasons of Normal Gossip, Forever45, Bad on Paper, the first season of Under the Influence

    5. BBC Gardener’s question time is really chill. So chill that it can be not very engaging. But good background if you are e.g. cooking, and also good for falling asleep.

    6. While this is slightly embarrassing, times like this call for anything Bravo reality tv. Binge on old episodes and podcasts. Ironically reality tv is a great escape from reality.

      1. I’ve been listening to this and it is GREAT. Also “Wiser than Me” and “Normal Gossip.”

    11. Sinisterhood! They do true crime episodes and also “Freaky Fridays” where listeners share their odd but true stories, which are a delightful random assortment that runs the gamut from “I think I saw a cryptid” to “my dad worked for a serial killer” to “this one time I almost got kidnapped” and more. The hosts are two funny progressive women who live in Texas and they’re my new pretend podcast friends.

      1. +1 someone here recommended it to me and I love it so much. I recommended it to friends who also love it.

    16. Were you raised by wolves fits the bill. It’s about etiquette and the hosts are delightful.

    17. No Such Thing as A Fish. It’s 4 Britishish comedians (one’s Aussie) who talk about their favorite fact of the week and related, much of it’s history, all of it’s British humor. It’s hilarious, and I just love it so much.

    18. I just listed to a series called Classy that I saw on a list of best podcasts of 2023. It discussed social issues without being overtly political and was actually pretty funny at times.

    19. – Happier with Gretchen Rubin, and Happier in Hollywood
      – The Girl Next Door Podcast
      – Stuff You Should Know
      – Friendlier
      – Best of Both Worlds

  5. Neither of those Etsy shops is currently active… Which is a shame, because I’ve been looking into some fake layers lately. I overheat so easily that I can’t bear to wear blazers or sweaters anymore, so it would give me some options to wear with my shells and tanks.

  6. Has anyone bought a ninja cream and do you recommend. I am specifically interested in it to make protein ice cream / treats.

    1. Yes, it’s been a great investment. Rather than listing recipes, I’ll recommend the creami subreddit.

    2. yes – i ate ice cream like every day for breakfast this summer after working in the garden, it was great. less than 300 calories and something like 40 grams of protein.

  7. This group always has the best recos, so question: Anyone have a book (or other resource) they really recommend on building/fostering organizational culture? Looking to deepen my knowledge in this area & want something that will be worth my (extremely limited) reading time.

    Thanks in advance!

    1. Oh man, there are so many bad books on this topic. One that I do like is called “Positive Professionals” by Anne Brafford. It’s largely about law firms, but I think there’s a lot of good stuff in there that goes beyond the law firm culture.

    2. Depends on what cultural change you’re aiming for, but for my money Christina Wodtke’s Radical Focus is the best out there about prioritization and goal setting. It’s based on the tech-world OKR idea, but applicable to non tech

  8. After years of straightening my hair I started embracing my natural curls this year, which I love because it is low-maintenance. My hairdresser convinced me to get bangs and I hate them. I can never get them to look right, even after using all the special brushes and creams. If I don’t want to wash my hair in the morning I still have to wet my bangs to style them, which is more maintenance than I wanted. It’s going to take forever for them to grow out.

    1. A spray bottle is a curly girl’s best friend. You don’t necessarily have to do a full wash to wake up your waves.

      That said, a cute barrette can be a great help while growing out bangs.

      1. Came here to recommend a barette or headband, depending, as you grow out. I also wear my hair in its natural curly/wavy state, and also regretted some short bangs I got during COVID. Barettes and pins were my friend until they could fit behind my ears.

      2. This depends o your curls. Mine are completely unmanageable in the morning unless i shower

    2. If your stylist convinced you to get bangs knowing you’re embracing curly style she should be driven out of town with pitchforks. Seriously.

      1. Exactly what I thought!! I have a good friend with curly hair and we were just talking this weekend about how curly hair bangs are a really hard look the pull off and not worth it in our opinions.

  9. I know that glasses webshops let you play with different frames on your headshot. Is there such a thing for virtually trying out hairstyles on my face? I am not very adventurous in the hair department but wondering if I should talk myself into bangs.

    1. lol, reading your post immediately after the post about the person who regrets her bangs

    2. Bangs are from the devil himself. I have a recurring reminder on my phone that I do not like bangs no matter what.

      1. I like bangs. But I have the same reminder for myself about weed. I am never going to like it. Glad for those who do. But it’s not for me.

    3. As someone who has a hair appt tomorrow, wants something dramatic but doesn’t know what, and was looking at bangs on Pinterest a coupe weeks ago, repeat with me “no bangs no bangs no bangs”. Because I always always regret them.

  10. has anyone invested in a qualified opportunity fund? asking because i know i’m going to have a lot of capital gains when i retire but i’m only 48 now.

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