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Suit of the Week: Ann Taylor

woman wears suit; collarless blazer has unusual scoopneck

For busy working women, the suit is often the easiest outfit to throw on in the morning. In general, this feature is not about interview suits for women, which should be as classic and basic as you get — instead, this feature is about the slightly different suit that is fashionable, yet professional. Also: we just updated our big roundup for the best women's suits of 2024!

There are a few blazers out right now with this unusual scoopneck collar — what are your thoughts? I saw it first through Favorite Daughter, where it is almost entirely sold out at both FD and Nordstrom — while trying to find it in stock somewhere Google helpfully led me to Ann Taylor (pictured).

I'm hesitant about the jacket, but in theory I like it — I'm always a fan of the U-neck or scoopneck neckline, and I honestly can't remember seeing it in blazers before. It feels fresh and cool.

The blazer is part of Ann Taylor's fluid crepe suiting line, and has a number of matching pieces — the blazer itself is available in sizes 00-18 for $189.

Sales of note for 12.3.24 (lots of Cyber Monday deals extended, usually until 12/3 at midnight)

131 Comments

  1. I’m in a bit of a reading slump— any suggestions? I feel like I’m in the mood for a fun non-fiction book. I like the ones that feel like novels.

    My favorites are The Feather Thief and The Art Thief. I also like adventure stories like Into Thin Air. The Perfect Storm and The Wager were good, too.

    I’ll be listening to audiobooks if that matters!

    1. I’m listening to the audiobook of Everest Inc. about the development of guided Everest tours and enjoying it.

    3. I just finished The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides and it was pretty good – about Captain Cook’s final voyage. You would also like Chasing the Thrill by Daniel Barbarisi. The Indifferent Stars Above was a good one too, although very grim.

      If you liked Into Thin Air, I recommend Savage Summit.

    4. Based on a New York Times book review from last week, I started Never Saw Me Coming by Tanya Smith. It’s about the author’s life as a scam artist and then the harsh punishment after. So far it’s really interesting.

      Have you read The Smartest Guys in the Room (about Enron) or The Wizard of Lies (about Bernie Madoff)? I found both really riveting.

    5. I’ve recommended it before but I’ll say it again: The Last Cowboys by John Branch has a very similar vibe to Jon Krakauer.

      Also if you want something heavy but completely riveting, The Only Plane in The Sky is an oral history of 9/11. If you go with this one, listen to the audiobook, which uses archival audio and different speakers for each story (I think they’re the actual people reading their own stories? Not sure). I was literally unable to stop listening until I finished, it was that good.

    6. Based on recs from this board, I listened to and loved Prairie Fires, which is about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s real life story, as well as her truly nutty daughter.
      Britney Spears’ memoir is good too – read by Michelle Williams.

    8. Jessica Simpson’s autobiography. So much gossip and she’s a great narrator.

    9. The Man In the Rockefeller Suit was a *great* nonfiction read about a longcon artist.

      1. I knew the conman back in his previous incarnation (before he was a “Rockefeller”). He was already weird.

    10. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m excited to start When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion

      1. I read about half the book before I gave up. It was a rather breathless narration, with lots of imaginary conversations and situations presented as if real.

    11. The Splendid and the Vile is a great read, even if like me you detest most WWII literature.

      1. I concur with this whole review! Not a war person at all, but I loved the audiobook version of this.

    12. I haven’t read the book, but based on the movie adaptation Molly’s Game might fit the bill.

    13. It’ s not adventurous, but I really enjoyed Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb. She’s a therapist and talks about her own therapy and her patients.

    14. just finished Seth Rogan’s Yearbook on audio and it was really engaging. I don’t like most celeb memoirs but he is a very talented writer.

    15. I recommend Challenger by Adam Higginbotham, about the Challenger disaster. Terrific non-fic read!

  2. It seems as though it is staying hot in the fall and staying cold in the Spring all over the country every year now. I’d like to buy linen and summery outfits in dark green and cranberry and warm clothes in light blues and pinks. Anyone else notice this trend of needing a coat in April? And not needing one in September?

    1. Yeah, I’m in Canada and thanks to climate change our seasons have changed a lot since I was young – it will be nice here until October but snow as late as mid-April.

    2. I’m not sure this is all climate change — growing up in the Midwest nearly 40 years ago, fall was always much nicer than spring. I think a lot of northern places stay nice through November or December but then take a long time to warm up.

      1. Yeah, I’ve lived in PA my whole life. September and October are always wonderful, April always stinks and May is iffy.

    3. I feel like I’ve always needed a coat in April and not needed one in September. As a kid, we always got new coats for Easter. Except this year — I pulled on a jacket this morning and I’m wondering where my September beach weather is.

    4. i remember 30 years ago (omg) at university — we would leave for spring break in t-shirts and shorts and have to come back a week later to a snowstorm… but that’s Chicago in April.

      But all of the garden zones changed just recently too — so temperatures are definitely changing! I think the fall go-to outfit is dresses with bare legs.

      1. I live in the Chicago area and it’s not unheard of for it to snow on my early May birthday.

    5. Climate change is real, but I’ve lived all over the country, and all of those places have always been colder in April than September. Spring coats are normal, fall coats can usually be avoided until October.

      1. +1 October was warmer than April when I was growing up. I’m not even sure May was consistently warmer than October. I remember more frigid days in winter coats in May for sure.

    6. What you’re describing is normal climate for me. I wear my navy, black, and olive linen this time of year.

    1. I don’t care how comfy, I would not wear those out of the house. And definitely not with the shoes shown.

      1. Nah, they’re cute. They’re obviously not meant for formal situations, but they can go a little further than the house.

        1. Nah, they’re cute. They’re obviously not meant for formal situations, but they can go a little further than the house.

        2. I am not that Anon and I don’t like them either. I’m about the size of the model and I can’t think of any style that would be less flattering on me.

    2. I would do a cream cotton crewneck sweater, maybe with a stripe, plus sneakers like Sambas or Vejas.

    3. Seconding the sneakers suggestion, with a looser cute top. Linen tee, the striped Gap Factory sweater from yesterday’s comments, your favorite band shirt, etc.

    4. Showing my age, but I remember all the women in my family (Mom, Grandma, me, sis) having spring coats in lovely pastels to wear in March and April – especially to Easter services. I always keep my eyes open for a lightweight wool in pink or yellow at a decent price to pick up for this purpose, but no luck yet.

    5. My midtwenties daughters would wear these pants with a fitted black crop top and sneakers.

    6. The PhD in clothes blog have lots of outfits stykes with informal trousers, some of them cargo.

    7. I have pants similar to this in rust and in navy, and I wear them with tees (long or short sleeves, depending on weather), and sandals or fun sneakers. When traveling I add a matching travel blazer to the navy ones and I feel presentable almost anywhere.

      1. I agree, but I think we’re not supposed to say that word here. The olds don’t like it.

  4. Can we as a society agree to stop the multiple phone call attempts to get people unless it’s an emergency (or you are my spouse)? If I don’t answer, leave a message (I know, I know, that’s just not done any more, but can we bring it back please?).

    1. I agree. The phone isn’t a leash. Leave a message: it’s 2024, and we no longer need to listen to voicemails all the way through before deleting. If I don’t want to listen, I’ll delete.

    2. I had an important meeting most of the day last week. Some day-to-day issue came up, and the same group of people was trying to get my attention by calling, texting, and internal messaging me. (Internal messages also go to an app on my phone and appear in my notifications.) I had to step out of my meeting during lunch just to tell the my co-worker that we’d take care of it, but on another day.

  5. I grew up blue collar but now live in a bougie area of my post-college city. I went to college with a class that was over half women and pretty competitive (think — Vandy, UNC, UVA, Emory). My friends are still working even if they are married or have kids. In my neighborhood, all of these similar women seem to have dropped whatever career they had and are now interior designers or decorators and seem to just go to NYC and Europe on buying trips. IDK that they even have clients, just blogs. I am sort of fascinated — one lives on my street and has a boy and a girl and IDK if they are raising the boy to just be a finance bro but what do they tell the daughter and I wonder what she she thinks of this world.

    1. I was raised by a SAH mom who left her career in accounting to raise me. I’m a partner in big law with no intention of leaving the workforce when my first child arrives in the winter this year. If anything like my household, they are telling their daughter she can be whatever she wants to be. And given the privilege she is equipped with, likely they are right. Sounds like it is all good to me.

      1. Yeah, I don’t think being a SAHM limits your daughters. I went to a top college and most of my classmates had SAHMs. In many cases they were immigrants, so it was a different culture than what you’re describing, but I think the point remains. You can limit or not limit your daugthers’ world view but I don’t think being a SAHM has much to do with it (and I work full time, fwiw, although not in a prestigious or highly paid career)

    2. Do you have kids and how old are they? I ask because I am a mid-law lawyer and have lots of lawyer, doctor, big job friends who have cut back, or left completely for “fluffier” jobs, when their kids were in middle school or older. It’s not the little kid age. It’s as their older. The husbands are making enough to support the whole family (and may be even able to do more if they don’t have to handle kid arrangements), and kids become really needy in middle school through age 16 in a way that is so different than a little baby. And I know our country is still really behind on little baby help, but it’s way, way easier to hire help for babies. And that help goes through 6pm each night. By 6pm nowadays, I’ve driven to at least one practice, helped with homework, and am on my way to a second practice or game, plus need to feed the family. And this is without having kids on travel teams. And when something throws off the schedule, it’s bigger and more challenging (I would give anything for a blowout diaper or something that could be cured with cuddles, versus early teenage friend angst). I would venture to say most of these women didn’t set out to do this, but an off-ramp presented itself, and it does look really, really appealing if it’s possible for your family financially to take it.

      1. This is so incredibly true. Being a working mom with older kids is so much more difficult than with little kids. I never wanted to be a SAHM until my kid was in late elementary and needed more from me. I ended up stepping back to part-time temporarily during her senior year of high school and wish I’d been able to do it for all of her high school career.

        It’s also true that when the kids are older the parents’ student loans are likely to be paid off and both parents’ incomes are likely to have grown enough for the family to get by on one salary. Dual biglaw families also seem to frontload retirement and college savings in a way that regular families can’t, and tend to have more grandparent support for college. I am a public interest attorney and my husband works in IT and our parents aren’t wealthy, so we both *had* to keep working in a way that my law school classmates and their spouses didn’t.

        1. Cosigned. I am a biglaw partner. I’ve always kind of wanted to be a SAHM but never more than now, with kids in middle and high school. They need me so much and you have to be physically present to catch the moments when they are willing to talk to you. It’s not like littles where you can do quality time on your own schedule. You really have to go with their flow so much more.

        2. “It’s also true that when the kids are older the parents’ student loans are likely to be paid off and both parents’ incomes are likely to have grown enough for the family to get by on one salary.”

          I absolutely do not think this is true for most people.

    3. I had a SAHM who had gotten her teaching license before she got married and left the work force. I grew up assuming I would need to have a career. My SIL made a point of keeping a job while her kids were growing up for the purpose of showing them that women could and should have careers. Both of her girls’ ambition, fulfilled in each case, was to earn an MRS and become a SAHM.

      1. I understand this. I think in some ways, we want the opposite of what we grew up with. My mom was a doctor and the breadwinner. My dad was a minister, and in many ways, his career was the family priority. As I was growing up, we were so busy all the time. I was in carpools, before care, after care, church activities, my own activities, and had babysitters all the time. If my family ate dinner together, it was at a restaurant between 5:30 and 6:30 because my dad had to be back at church at 7.

        My priorities for my family are more time at home, family dinners, and a schedule where we’re not rushing all the time. We achieve that by having my husband be a SAHD. That said, I don’t feel like we’re giving my son the impression that he’s not going to have to work.

    4. I live in a big city and there are definitely well-off SAHMs on the trajectory you describe (i-banker to handbag designer or poolhouse decorator) where their husband has a “big job” so they don’t feel the need to bring in income. Some of these people are on far more precarious financial footing than you might imagine and some of them have family money that they don’t disclose.

      My mom was a pharmacist, which meant that she worked part-time when I was little and went back full-time when we could latchkey (ah, the GenX childhood). My dad was a full-time govt. employee, which meant travel and little flexibility but reasonable hours. I was always really proud of my mom even though she wasn’t the nerve center of the PTA and I don’t think I “missed out” because she wasn’t there when I got home from school every day. Did I love going to the home daycare where the lady had a creepy husband and we only got animal crackers to eat? No. Did I like going to college without debt? Hell yes.

      I make slightly more than my husband and have always worked full-time as an adult. Even if he’d had a better financial trajectory (he started his started his own business which didn’t go so well then changed fields), I know him well enough to know that if I worked part time, I’d have to do every damn thing around the house.

      With my own kids, I want them to make enough money to live a comfortable life but don’t want them to feel like they have to get a job in private equity.

    1. Seems tricky to find something to wear under it.
      Many moons ago, I had a black suit like this (probably from Ann Taylor, too) and it was hard to wear anything other than the shell (remember shells?) that I was meant to go with it.

    2. The scoop is way too wide. It doesn’t look like it will stay where it’s supposed to. Not to mention it would be very difficult to find a bra to wear under it, let alone a shirt.

    3. The neckline takes this from blazer to top. You cannot wear this jacket in any way other than as a top.

      1. It’s a church suit, and given the color really just a funeral suit. You wear the blazer buttoned up without anything (except maybe a no-show camisole that’s an undergarment, not a top) underneath. It’s a bit surprising that it has pants instead of a skirt.

    7. Even if one does not have huge tracts of land that is a lot of upper chest skin for a professional setting, plus will be a problem when bending over. As someone who does possess huge tracts of land I think it is an absolute no go for an office setting for me. However – I would style it for a fancy dinner out or the opera with brocade or heavy satin pants and a bling necklace. I think it would would great in the context of an evening social outing.

    8. I wouldn’t wear this to work, but for a girls dinner out, with a dark or black slim jean, stilettos, an updo and hoops? Yes. A slim/skinny leather pant would look great too.

    9. More for me, I guess. This jacket would be great on my shape. I would not wear a shirt under, and I’d never wear the jacket open, obvs.

  7. Thinking of buying a new sofa. Can you recommend some sites or brands I can look at for ideas? All that comes to mind is Macys but I imagine there are real furniture stores I can look at too. I need to buy a sofa that will work in a 1 bedroom and I generally like smaller, more delicate looking furniture. It seems like so many sofas on the market are huge and meant to be in the great room of a 4000 sqft house.

      1. Not sure yet but looking in the 1000-1500 range? If it’s a loveseat in order to get a smaller sofa I’d like to be on the lower end of that range. But I could go slightly higher if I really loved a piece.

          1. Eh I think that puts her in sticker shock range

            Furniture has gotten a lot more expensive since the last time you bought a couch

      2. Try Wayfair, Joybird, or Article. Maybe West Elm, though I tend not to like the quality of their stuff.

    5. Room & Board is the dream
      If you need budget though we’ve done fine with JCP couches, and we also got an Ashley sectional for about $1200 I think. (Maybe thru Costco, maybe Macy’s or JCP?)
      Costco has some but I hate the couches that come apart in all the sections, it just feels like you’ll be sinking into the cushion cracks no matter where you sit.

      Lovesac also has some good ones.

      If you’re really on a budget, look at your local thrift store — or sometimes Habitat for Humanity has thrift stores attatched to them; our local one gets all of the Arhaus floor models.

    6. I have a smaller/sleeker couch from American Leather bought via Creative Classics in Alexandria VA, which claims to specialize in townhouse-sized furniture. Something like that might be helpful to browse just for an idea of what’s out there.

    7. I went with Sabai since they happened to have what I needed, but I also looked at Article and some apartment oriented brands. IKEA sofas were just as big as Macy’s when I was looking!

    8. We were able to get a decent Ashley sectional for about $1100 this summer. Colors and fabrics are pretty limited. We looked at Costco – I would not describe those as “delicate.”

      About four years ago we bought a sofa from Joybird – it was really beautiful and high-quality, but getting it took MONTHS and I had to threaten to make a BBB complaint. There are no live customer service representatives – you have to email someone every. single. day. to get shipping updates. I absolutely would not recommend them.

      1. Did they not set appropriate expectations when you ordered? It is not uncommon for furniture delivery to take months, and that was especially true after the pandemic.

        1. I feel like today (vs 2020-2021) you can expect delivery within a couple weeks unless they’re clear the item is backordered. There aren’t really massive supply chain problems anymore, and when you buy something you don’t expect to wait months for it unless you’re told it’s out of stock.

    9. I have the Room and Board Jasper 71″ Loveseat for my small apartment and love it. It fits two people, which is all I need. I got mine gently used for about $600.

      I’d also look at Crate and Barrel.

    10. If you can get past the sticker shock (about double your budget), apt2b.com has a whole line of apartment-sized sofas. I had one in my last house and was really happy with it.

    12. Shop Room and Board, or consider my dream sofa, the Reverie from EQ3. The love seat version in cloth is currently listed at just over $2,000 online.

  8. For anyone who is following the election or understands this stuff, can you explain why the polling from Nate Silver is so different from other sources like ABC or Morning Consult or others. Seems like ABC and others show the candidates mostly tied, with Harris leading in most swing states but very much within the margin of error. But Nate Silver is starting to show a blowout electoral win for Trump since the DNC. I know a lot of the polling out there now is actually betting projections like through Vegas, but I don’t think that’s what Nate Silver is right?

    1. Nate Silver himself said his model is correcting for a post-convention bounce and it should get closer to 50-50 odds soon.

    2. Nate Silver factored in a post convention bounce. Most candidates do better after their conventions, and then drop a week or two out. So Silver says that Harris is likely to go down in the polls hereafter, whereas the other pollsters are taking a snapshot of now.

    3. The poll you’re seeing may not be based on betting, but I believe Silver was hired by Polymarket, so make what you will of it.

    4. i feel like nate silver is a tool but i can’t remember why – was he the one responsible for the “hillary has a 95% chance of winning the election” stat i seem to remember?

      1. Yes. And I think he’s generally really defensive whenever people point out flaws in his models. He is obviously very smart but does not seem like a very likable person.

        1. Yeah I find him on obnoxious but he was much more pessimistic about Hillary’s chances than most. He still had her favored but by a much smaller margin.

          1. And she did, in fact, win the popular vote, but not in the right places for electoral college purposes. So he was sorta right.

          2. I think his 66% projection was specially for the electoral college. He has models for that.

      3. Someone’s personality isn’t really relevant to whether their work product is good or not, and I thought we left ad hominem attacks back in the 2010s.

        1. that’s like saying the hopes and dreams of the person with their hand on the ouiji board are completely irrelevant to the spirits

          1. Evaluating whether work product is good or not includes evaluating whether a person’s bias has affected the outcome. (Everyone has a bias of some sort). It does not, in any way, include saying “he’s a tool but I don’t remember why he’s a tool.”

    5. I don’t think Silver does his own polling. He builds models and feeds in poll results.

    6. Nate Silver (and Real Clear Politics and 538) are not doing their own polling. They are aggregators. RCP just averages all of the polls. 538 and Nate Silver have complicated algorithms that take a lot of factors into account (whether the poll is likely or registered voters, the number of people, whether the polling company has a house bias, its historical accuracy, etc.)

      Nate Silver assumed that Harris would get a big convention bump because that is what usually happens. He is therefore assuming that her numbers will go down – again because that is what usually happens as the bounce fades. I tend to think that this year is weird enough given the last-minute change in candidates that his assumption might be flawed, but we should know more in the next few weeks.

  9. Oh – I asked about dog grooming in the morning thread. If you’re still here, my dog is a cavapoo and his lil’ eyebrows are flopping into his eyes; his coat is also getting a bit shaggy.

    1. You’re going to need to groom him regularly. That’s the kind of dog that needs to go in.

  10. Tipping question: do you tip an airport shuttle driver if they don’t help with your luggage? I do, and would, tip when traveling on vacation with my family and need help with luggage. However, I’ll be taking a short work trip where I can easily manage my carryon myself. I am planning to take the courtesy hotel shuttle to and from the airport.

    2. If I happen to have a dollar bill or two on me (rarely) then yes, otherwise (most of the time) no.

      2. Yes up to $5. I figure the driver needs it more than I do and why not be generous?

      1. Seems better than only tipping when there is someone else there to see you do it.

    6. I wouldn’t in that circumstance unless they did something else commendable (like being really nice to an older passenger or something).

    8. Nope. I tip about a dollar per bag. But they usually do grab my bag, even if it’s the kind of bag I’d usually handle myself at the airport. The driver usually has to be the one to stack it in the shuttle’s baggage rack.

      Anyway, don’t begrudge a shuttle driver a buck or two.

  11. I love the look of these Ann Taylor suits with the … scoopneck blazer? Is that what we call it? But what shirt does one wear underneath these blazers? A scoopneck tshirt? Maybe a turtleneck in winter? I’m confound by this.

    2. A camisole to prevent button gaping flashes? Underarm sweat blockers to protect the blazer pits?

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