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Coffee Break: Malverne Crossbody Bag

purple leather crossbody bag with gold metallic details

I haven't looked at Macy's in a long time, but they have a number of nice bags right now, including this pretty purple leather crossbody.

(Plus, they started carrying Hammitt, which is great if you have a “tough girl chic” kind of vibe like All Saints.)

The purse comes in four colors — purple, black, beige, and gray — and only the purple is marked down from the full price $328. I like the metal detail along the flap, as well as the chain — it looks very luxe! I also like that it isn't (as far as I recognize, at least) an obvious dupe for another, more expensive bag — to quote an SNL sketch, “it's it's own thang.”

The purple is marked to $196, while the other colors are still full price at $328.

(Two other finds while looking through the bag section: this black and red Ralph Lauren tote, and this really fun Kate Spade pizza box bag.)

Sales of note for 12.5

108 Comments

  1. Has private equity ever done anything ethical? Trying to understand if there is any redeeming qualities to the industry other than unfettered capitalism.

          1. I’m sorry you work for an evil company that must cause some really uncomfortable cognitive dissonance.

    3. Define “private equity” and define “ethical”. I assume from your question you are referring to private equity as an investment model (a private company that buys other companies and then manages them with a goal of making a profit upon sale), as opposed to venture or growth capital companies.

      The problem with a lot of private equity is that it operates like a pyramid scheme (or a game of musical chairs). Sooner or later the music stops. And then a company with an unsustainable amount of debt in an atmosphere of tightening credit goes under and everyone who works there suddenly finds themselves unemployed, often with no or minimal notice and severance, while the private equity companies collected millions in “management fees” – although the one left holding the bag at the end may take a loss.

      On the other hand, sometimes companies purchased and re-structured by private equity go on to be healthy and viable ongoing businesses. Or their inevitable demise was put off and people stayed employed longer than they would have otherwise.

      So I suppose it depends on what you consider ethical. On the whole I think private equity has a net negative effect but that is not to say it is always bad for society as a whole.

      1. +1 that it depends on definitions.

        If private equity is a group of investors who come together to buy and restructure businesses, my community has a couple of good projects that were funded by community-minded investors who wanted to keep open specific community-serving local businesses that were failing. The investors will make a return, but they did not invest to maximize profits.

        On the other hand, if private equity means the more common model of buying up businesses and not caring what one does to the employees, customers, lenders, or the wider environment and community in service of trying to make the most amount of money possible: I don’t have any positive stories to share.

      2. Yeah, I don’t understand why one would write the debt that underlies these deals. If anything goes wrong the Fund just takes the company into bankruptcy.

        1. Because debt gets paid first. When a company’s assets are sold even in a bankruptcy, creditors are paid before the investors get anything.

    4. If anyone you know has a pension or received a scholarship from a university endowment, they’ve very clearly benefitted from private equity, which is a major source of returns for those types of investments. If you like to shop at the mall, you’ve almost certainly liked the styles on offer from apparel companies or snacks from the food court restaurants that likely would not have had the capital required to grow into expensive mall real estate without PE firms. If you know any private business owners who wanted retire but didn’t have children or associates who wanted to buy their business, their business would have only been a cash flow not a sell-able asset without the existence of PE companies as buyers. If your local (non-PE owned) spa, fitness center, daycare, doctors office allows you to book a spin bike, buy a service, message a teacher or doctor virtually through a website or an app, that’s really thanks to the rise of capital that has allowed the tech B2B companies that power many small businesses to grow and raised the bar on consumer experience across a whole host of industries. Yes there are absolutely bad things about the PE industry and it should be subjected to much more regulation, but to say that it’s uniformly bad is a pretty head-in-the-sand understanding of both how modern investing works as well as the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate parts of today’s developed economy.

    5. My husband’s renewable energy company is private equity backed. They’re doing really incredible things. Is it all good? Absolutely not. And they’re in it to make money, for sure. But if you look big picture, they’re making massive strides in renewable energy that would not have been possible without the investment.

    6. In medicine, it is just hurting us. The people. The patients.

      Some things just shouldn’t be run with a goal of selling off for profits, or even remodeling for a more efficient “business”. The stakes are too high.

    7. It all reminds me of the leveraged buyout and corporate raider stuff that was happening in the late 80s as I was entering the workforce. One of the first steps in a hostile takeover/corporate raid, in addition to layoffs, was to defund the “bloated” pensions, which were built on conservative interest rate assumptions. No big surprise – as interest rates fell by the mid 90s, all of those pensions suddenly found themselves underfunded, and rank and file employees found themselves pension-less. Who got rich? People like “the buyout king, Michael Milken” and other names like Carl Icahn and Kirk Kerkorian, plus firms like Drexel and KKR, are the ones I recall most vividly. Milken finally went to jail and who pardoned him in 2020? None other than Donald J. Trump.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_equity_in_the_1980s

    8. Maybe another way to phrase this – what is the way that PE is supposed to help businesses, and what are some examples of that happening?

        2. Huh? I am just trying to get some info. I think a certain thing is true, but in case I don’t have a full understanding, I want to make sure I have one.

        3. Usually with a silk eye mask and warm socks. I really can’t fall asleep with cold feet at all. I tend to start out on my right side but after a while, my shoulder starts to ache – that’s my trick shoulder, the right side – and I end up either on my belly or left side.

          Interesting topic. Thanks for bringing it up! How do YOU sleep at night?

    9. Private equity provides the funding that founders/small business owners need to develop awesome ideas or to scale their successful business in a way they could never have accomplished on their own. It’s a partnership designed to help everyone get rich. PE also drastically improves the salary, benefits, and HR support for the employees – many of whom have been dealing with a mom and pop owner who thinks things like health insurance and PTO are a communist conspiracy.

      PE funnels massive amounts of funding into the industries we’ll need most. It’s happening with nursing homes now. Boomers are going to need elder care on a scale we’ve never seen before, and PE is making sure the resources are there. It’s motivated by profit, yes, but that doesn’t change the face that there are way more resources available with PE than without.

      1. I don’t know – my spouse’s work life got significantly work after his founder-led company was acquired by private equity. He had benefits and such before, but the new PE overlords slashed them as much as possible. I’ve seen some version of this over and over again as a litigator. I’d like to think there’s more nuance to it than “PE bad; founder good,” but I don’t see a lot of examples of it in real life.

        2. Oh that’s interesting. I’m the person you’re responding to and I’m also a litigator. Usually on the PE side but also sometimes on the founder side. I’ve seen the opposite of what you describe. Trumper founder isn’t even paying federal minimum wage even though they’re required to, no PTO, no health insurance, no compliance with overtime laws, treats employees terribly, PE comes in and doubles everyone’s take home pay plus gives them free health insurance and a 401k. Maybe folks are working for an Ivy League kid rather than a grizzled salt of the earth type, but they sure don’t mind the improved pay, benefits, and not being screamed at and name called and a$$ grabbed.

        3. same here. everything got significantly worse. We took a 100k+ pay cut so my spouse could leave and start over at a new doctor-owned practice. Also have you had any experience with a nursing home or rehab hospital lately, absolutely horrific.

      2. I appreciate the story line you use it’s really fascinating psychological insight

      3. This is absolutely not what is happening in nursing homes. PE acquisition of nursing homes in particular makes them dangerous places. Profit motives don’t result in good care whether it’s in schools, hospitals, or care homes.

  3. I have always decorated for Christmas AFTER Thanksgiving. It’s been my hard and fast rule. But, this very late Thanksgiving is testing that resolve. I’m cooking for Turkey Day but not hosting, so I’d actually have the time next week to decorate. What’s everyone else doing?

    1. I’m due to have our first child the day after Thanksgiving, so decorations went up on 11/2 this year! I’ve always also waited until after Thanksgiving (I typically host the holiday, but am not this year), and I must admit it has felt lovely to have the Christmas decorations up already. We have really enjoyed it so far. I suggest you go for it!

      1. OP here, and congratulations! My firstborn was born 2 days before Thanksgiving, and we went home from the hospital on Turkey Day. It is such a sweet and special time.

        1. Aw that is sweet. Congratulations! I mentioned my Thanksgiving birthday child below. I vividly remember my husband running to a grocery store the day we brought baby home to get a few prepared thanksgiving items, but we were honestly too tired to do much more than that!

          One of my girlfriends is a Thanksgiving baby herself and she remembers the pumpkin pie having a candle in it every year and thinking “that is NOT a birthday cake!” so I’ve always made sure to separate the two days for my little turkey, though some years his birthday inevitably falls on Thanksgiving. And he LOVES it. He wants pie for his birthday! (preferably apple, though.) As long as he gets presents and there is no Christmas decor up, he’s happy. :)

          1. We always have pie AND cake on Thanksgiving! We do our best to provide some separation between holidays and birthdays, but they do end up overlapping sometimes. So, yes, there have been many years when birthday balloons have been present on Thanksgiving. My brother, nephew, and son all have birthdays between the 19th and the 29th!

          2. There is a Minnesota doctor whose legal name is Happy Thanksgiving bec born on Thanksgiving. Says her parents were hippies!

    2. Honestly, the older I get, the more I want to quickly release my own self-imposed rules when they keep me from genuine enjoyment and simple delight.

      Therefore, my Christmas lights are already up.

      1. I think the hard part is that I genuinely delight in my fall decor, too! So, I’m usually not eager to pack it away.

    3. I am firmly team after and am morally offended that my Whole Foods has been selling Xmas trees for at least an entire week at this point. I will never understand why you would do it before Thanksgiving, let alone more than a few days before (I even secretly roll my eyes at people who do it that weekend, but at least I get why they would do that). Its just not hard to wait and decorating is how you get into holiday spirit – why would you want to be in the spirit of the wrong holiday on thanksgiving?! And even with a “late” thanksgiving- you stilll have an entire month plus of Xmas decoration (esp. if you keep to New Year, which I think makes much more sense).

      1. I remember when trees went up on Christmas Eve and came down on January 6. It makes me cranky to see any Christmas in November.

    4. I feel like you, and compromised by buying and hanging a new cheerful string of lights. It’s not specifically christmassy (to me) but helps with the gloom of shorter days. I think I will wait with the rest of decorating until Thanksgiving is over.

    5. I don’t really understand why this is considered a “late” thanksgiving…it is literally always on the 4th Thursday of November, every year. Not like easter.

      1. The month started on a Friday, so it’s literally the last day it can be. The earliest it can be is the 22 of the month, so this year is almost a week later than that! And when there’s a short time between big holidays anyways, even a few days feels like a lot.

      2. because the date moves back and forth within November… If November happens to START on a Thursday, TG is a week earlier in the calendar year than if, like this year, November starts on a Friday.

        We wait to decorate until afterward regardless, though.

    6. I’m decorating tomorrow (I have Fridays off). I had a really tough fall work-wise so I want the joy even though I also am usually strict about not decorating until Black Friday

    7. We decorated the weekend after the election. We decided to find joy where we could. However, we are also still decorated for fall/Thanksgiving, but it’s all bringing us happiness. The dining room and kitchen still have fall/Thanksgiving decorations. Outside lights and decorations are up. Tree is up in one room and the other is just waiting for Grandma to arrive for Thanksgiving to decorate with our daughter.

    8. I think that’s totally valid. I also tend to prefer waiting til after Thanksgiving, partly because my daughter’s birthday is November 29 and I like to wait to get into Christmas mode until afterwards so she doesn’t feel overshadowed. But it also means a little more stress to get everything up during the first few days of December.

    9. I have a kid with a late November birthday. Said kid strongly prefers all Christmas decor go up after the birthday, which seems like a very reasonable request to me. So that’s how we do it. It makes both the birthday and Christmas seem more special.

    10. I’ll probably decorate this weekend, before we leave for Thanksgiving because we won’t even get back from the holiday until Dec. 1, so realistically the next chance to decorate would be the following weekend, Dec. 7, leaving less than 3 weeks to enjoy!

    11. I’m buying my tree over Thanksgiving weekend and will decorate that first week of December. I prefer to take my holidays one at a time.

    13. Ha-ha, I had a Christmas tree up for a full three years, continuously, until I finally packed it up this past spring. It was nice to cut the lights on every so often throughout the years. I might go decor-free this Christmas, for a more streamlined simplicity and minimalism.

  4. Would you be miffed?

    We’re renovating our house and using a family friend as the designer. We’ve been in the process about a year now, and bills from the designer have always been $2-3k, maybe $4k on a big month. He’s $150 per hour and hourly is fine.

    Yesterday he sent over a bill for $15k. Fifteen thousand dollars. That’s a CAR. He apparently spent 32(!!) hours putting together a powerpoint presentation outlining the project that I printed off and had bound for the bank appraiser. Thirty-two hours on a powerpoint!? Do what now? How is that even possible?? That’s an entire week. If I spent a week on a powerpoint at work, I’d be out of a job.

    I’m struggling with my feelings here.

    — I’m angry at him for letting a bill build up to that level and not saying a word, just emailing over an invoice like everything is business as usual. I guess it was stupid of me to think someone who works hourly would say, “Hey, I’ve billed a lot so far this month, well above our usual, would you like to take a break for the last couple weeks?”

    — I’m feeling an ugly, angry bout of ageism about people in their 60s and computer skills and powerpoint.

    — I’m ashamed of the above and I’m embarassed that I didn’t think of some way to not get in this situation.

    I think the only thing I can do is put my arrangement with him on ice and come back to him in a couple months when I’ve paid off the $15k bill. I don’t have that kind of cash, especially not now when we’re paying every subcontractor known to man. Whatever design decisions come up during that time I’ll have to make without him. This just all sucks.

    1. I’d be livid. Did you request that he create this PowerPoint and if so did he outline the number of hours it would take in advance? I’m not sure how this works, but I would have assumed that would be a 2 hour task and if it would be something that would cost $15k, I would assume the client would need to sign off on that kind of allocation of hours in advance??

    2. I absolutely support you being miffed. That’s a big change and especially on something like that, i feel like a head’s up is necessary. I’d confront him.

    3. I make PowerPoints presented to international governments in a tiny fraction of that time, both the cost and time are completely outrageous.

    4. Wait, what? You have spent maybe $36K so far just on a designer? I would not expect someone to shell out that kind of money on a designer unless the additional $15K was no big deal to them.

    5. The ONLY way I can see this being acceptable was if he was doing the legwork and research needed to present the design options laid out in the PowerPoint, not just spending 32 hours creating the stupid thing. But that’s a long shot. I’d be furious, too, OP.

    7. You sound like you think have no option but to pay, but I’d at least question this. Perhaps ask him if is this an error — my first thought would be that it must be some mistake. If it’s not an error, tell him “in my experience a PowerPoint of this quality takes 2-5 hours, can you tell me what was so laborious here (presuming that the design work/project work was done already and he’s just presenting it here?) Obviously adjust the wording to your needs but it’s more than fair to question this. Maybe there was a typo, maybe he’ll clarify something that makes you see the value or maybe you can negotiate the fee down to something you feel is more reasonable. Definitely at least ask him to estimate the costs at each stage before he does more work or ask him to inform you if it’s going to exceed X or something so this doesn’t happen again!!

    8. 32 hours at $150 per hour is not $15k.

      Do you have any parameters or incentives for this to get wrapped up in a reasonable timeframe? Because otherwise you are going to be a decade in and still paying the designer’s own mortgage each month.

      1. Great point!!! OP, 32 hours is $4,800. $15,000 would be 100 hours of work.

        All of this is more than a little fishy. I would push back hard.

        1. I’d call and ask what happened first and then decide whether to be mad. Surely this is a typo??

    9. I’d double check with him. Maybe there was a mistake in the billing. I’d make a list of questions and call him so you’re putting him on the spot. I’d absolutely make a big stink about a $15k bill and if he gives you a hard time about it rather than decreasing it to something reasonable, I’d fire him and write a bad review everywhere I could. $15K is outrageous when the average bill is about $3K.

    10. $15,000 is 100 hours. Did he actually work 100 hours or is there something being miscalculated?

      32 hours is absolutely insane for a PowerPoint and I’d make it clear that’s a professional relationship-ending bill if not adjusted.

    11. Math is not mathing here, so first order of business is to check the math. Pick up the phone and talk to designer.

      What does your contract with designer say? Is designer supposed to notify you if a certain month’s charges are supposed to be over $x? Does designer need your approval before working on more expensive phases of the project? And if you don’t have a contract, then dios mio, man. GET ONE.

    12. I know it’s a family friend but I would cool down and then call him.

      I’d have a really frank conversation about the scope of the project and the overall budget given this significant billing. I’m a bit of an interior design junkie and it’s my understanding that you would be neither the first nor the last client to challenge a bill and would be well within your rights to ask for an accounting of this bill and to limit expenses going forward. Again, it’s my understanding that like with any other professional relationship a bill shouldn’t be a complete surprise like this. Finally, especially since you have personal relationship it’s worth noting that moving forward without him is an outcome he will be highly motivated to avoid. He is likely counting on your completed project for his portfolio. He’d probably rather take a hit on this billing than be cut out of the project.

      1. +1 to all of this.

        Also, have you discussed overall budget with him? If you have been regularly paying him $2-3k per month for a year and you still have a lot of design decisions to make, the budget must be pretty high. If you have not discussed overall budget, now might be a good time to do that too.

    13. We had a family friend reno our kitchen and living room. We are wealthy, and said friend is less so. We realized he eventually he was up-charging 30% on supplies (the deal was we’d be billed for direct costs with no added marigin), and he was trying to extend the project for as long as possible. We’d pay his team for 8 hours a day when they were working 5-6. He had a vested interest in keeping the $24k a month checks coming, so he kept the project timeline extended for as long as he could.

      All this is to say, even family friends can try to screw you, and it sounds like yours may be testing the limits of your budget and willingness to counter him.

      1. You hired your poor friend to renovate your fancy kitchen and then tried to nickel and dime him on supplies? Not exactly the same as having to pay someone 15k to make a PowerPoint.

    14. OP here. Thanks all – it’s nice to be validated. And sorry for any confusion – the total bill for the month is $15k, but I understand where the bulk of the charges are coming – it’s the $5k for a powerpoint I cannot.

  5. What are your best decluttering strategies? Our house is just… beyond. Would it be bad to just get a few doom boxes going (boxes of random crap we don’t know where to put) to try to keep the clutter at bay?

    1. Doom boxes will just make the problem worse. Every item needs to have a designated home that is easily accessible and convenient to the location where the item is used.

      I would try the KonMari method for determining what to keep.

      1. The Kon Mari system is the crash-diet equivalent of decluttering. I wouldn’t suggest OP start there.

        1. Disagree. It’s a great method. But OP needs to take a weedwhacker to the mess first before attempting it.

    2. As long as you are disciplined enough that the boxes don’t just become “out of sight, out of mind” spaces, and then you fill up your newly emptied space with more crap.

      Make a commitment to get rid of the stuff in the boxes after x days (not x years) if you don’t ever end up needing it. And whatever you do, don’t buy anything new that you don’t have a place for.

    3. Take a trash bag right now and fill it with trash: things that are broken, things that are stained, that sort of thing. Do not overthink this. You know what they are. Put the bag in your outside trash can.

      Tomorrow, take a trash bag and fill it with donations: things you’ve outgrown, things that you have twenty of, things that aren’t your style anymore. Do not overthink this, either. You are targeting the low hanging fruit. Put it in your trunk. Get in your car. Drive to a donation store and drop it off.

      Repeat the above two steps until the low-hanging fruit is cleared. Then do the Marie Kondo thing. But first…get the mental rewards of getting rid of the stuff you already know you need to get rid of.

      1. And to be clear, the most important sentence in both of the paragraphs is the last one. Do not wait for a “big load” to drop off. You’ve done a bag; get it out of the house as permanently as you can as quickly as you can.

      2. Stuff we keep — random papers that my kids may or may not need for school again. Toys that my youngest may decide he absolutely can’t live without and how could we have given away. (He’s a bit of a hoarder.) Things we keep meaning to do (like vocabulary flashcards) that we never do but if I put “where they belong” then we’ll never remember to do them. Somehow it seems like it all falls on this list.

        2. Those are all trash. This is why your house is cluttered. Doom boxes won’t help they are just storing trash in your home.

          1. OP here – so it is ALSO a problem that i have half-full trash bags sitting around because i keep saying well when i get back to this project then i’ll fill it up

            starting to realize that it’s me, hi, i’m the problem it’s me

        3. Your youngest can experience the extremely normal, mild, temporary sting of regret for the 1 toy he wishes he hadn’t given away and also the awareness that he gave 99 other toys away without even noticing them. You’ll be setting him up to not be a hoarder—a kindness as a parent.

          1. Actually, giving a child the sense they can’t control their environment and don’t get a say in when their stuff gets thrown away or lost is what creates hoarding tendencies. I’m not saying mild discomfort isn’t a normal part of growing up, but kids do notice that their stuff is gone and it does impact them

          2. To be clear, I’m saying the kid should be involved in the decision of what stays or what goes, but the structure is “you can keep whatever fits in your toy chest” not “you can keep everything you might someday want.” Learning to select what you want to match the contours of the space available to you is the valuable skill I’d hope the child would be learning.

          3. That’s why my comment has the kid (“he”) as the person doing the giving away, not the parent. I strongly, strongly agree that a kid over, say, four should be heavily involved in this process if not leading it.

        4. Scan papers and then pitch the originals.

          Create a toy box in the kid’s room and backup toy box for the garage- rotate toys to the garage when they don’t fit in the room one, and then either rotate them back or pitch/donate.

          Put vocab flash cards where you would do them (nightstand? next to toothbrush? on your phone?) or just pitch them and give yourself permission to not do vocab flashcards.

        6. Paper is the absolute worst. I save 3 special drawings or art from each kids year and try to frame 1 thing per kid. My kids go thru so much paper. One makes a zillion lists of stuff and I basically cull those weekly. Then monthly I throw away what she hasn’t looked at in a month. Another is very artistic and lots of drawings but I toss weekly too. I pick her best stuff and hold it for a month. Unless it’s especially precious it gets tossed.

          School papers I take pictures of and store on a iCloud file. My kids both get homework which thankfully comes in folders so it can be done and immediately put in a folder.

          I read on a kindle except for a few favorite books or reference type books I tossed them all. My husband still subscribe to paper magazines and I toss anything a year old.

    4. Dana K White has great, practical strategies for people who aren’t naturally organized and who are creative/easily distracted/indecisive/overwhelmed. Go to YouTube and search for her name and “one hour better” and you’ll find videos where she coaches someone through her method. Watch the video as she’s helping someone. Do the steps along with her and the person.

      1. Yep. Dana K Wight. Look at her youtube, podcast and blog, but what you need is the audiobook of “Decluttering at the speed of life” to keep you company while you actually make progress.

        1. thanks for this suggestion (both of you!) – just requested her book and audiobook from the library.

    6. The Marie Kondo approach of everything in category in the whole house in a pile worked well for me when paired with making sure everything either went to goodwill immediately, was immediately shredded/trashed or had a designated home at the end of the process.

      If you don’t have a place to put a thing, it’s worth considering why. Is it an emotional attachment thing? is it being unwilling to throw out a thing you might need thing? Is it not having time or energy to do the whole sort and pitch thing? Is it needing better storage or better organization?

    7. I tackle just one drawer or shelf each week. I always have trash and donate bags handy, and am always surprised by what I find that I can dispense with. If you do that consistently you will find you have more room for your more important stuff.

    8. Doom boxes need to be sorted and decluttered at least a few times a year, so it’s just continuing the problem. What worked for me was the 30-day throwaway challenge (though I was a bit lenient with myself on the supposed rules), where day 1 you throw away 1 thing, day 2 two things, day 3 three things, etc to day 30 30 things are trashed, recycled, or donated. Building up the momentum helped me keep going and finding old things I really should have tossed a decade ago and cut down on the clutter inside the doom boxes.

  6. Hello, I’ve realised I need to update my work wardrobe. I’m 43 with kids and a job. Off-duty I am reasonably stylish although nothing crazy – but eg I am not still in skinny jeans, I have adidas sambas, double ear piercings… like I try to keep reasonably current and I care about coming across that way.

    For work though I think my clothes might be stuck in the past. I am senior at my org and want to look it, so I am fine with appearing more formal than the general work population around me (which is very anything goes) but I also want to look COOL. Here are a few typical work outfits for me:
    – black wide leg pants, silk shirt, ankle boots. I think this is basically fine.
    – cigarette ankle pants, “big” top, Mary Janes – I think this one could use some work.
    – midi skirt, mock neck top, knee high heeled boots – I think this is ok?
    – in summer, colourful shift type dresses with a bit of personality, often just above the knee. This type of thing but not exactly this https://www.cue.com/products/french-blue-utility-mini-dress-s94182s24-french-blue?Colour=French%20Blue&Size=06 I think this last category might be a problem cool-wise but I do love the look!

    I also often wear a bold lip eg red, which I’m realising now is quite uncommon these days.

    I also usually wear heels. Just a small one- I’m 43! – and a block heel not stiletto, but heels are suddenly super uncommon with the generation coming through and I think this potentially dates me a bit too.

    I am ok with having style that is relatively ageless rather than being bang on trend all the time, especially for work, but I don’t want to be someone who found a look 15 years ago and is sticking to it. Does anyone have any ideas?

    1. Post again tomorrow for better input.

      What strikes me is that there isn’t really a point of view here, except that you want to look “cool.” What makes you feel “cool”? Which one of the outfits you describe feels most like you, and is closest to making you feel the way you want to feel when you’re at work?

      1. Agree. It sounds like a mishmash of what you think you should be doing (is a double piercing considered cool? I’ve never heard this) instead of what you like. Worry less about looking dated and spend more time understanding your own style preferences.

        Curious about the responses you get tomorrow.

      2. Also—are you cool? Make sure you’re doing what you can to be the person you want to portray.

    2. Look at the Tibi style blog or insta.

      I think the theory of what you are describing that you want is what they describe as the good “Ick” or somewhere the Creative Pragmatic scale. Some friction, and within the main category of mainly currant.

    3. It all sounds really basic. Mary Janes look good on no one over the age of 7.

      What is your style? Edgy? Classic? Colors + patterns?

      1. +1 I cannot think of anyone senior at my org that would wear mary janes, or even anyone entry level. From the outfit examples, it feels all over the place. I echo that you need to define or find your style and then work in that space to built your wardrobe.

        This is just an example, but when I think of senior women who look cool, it’s because they wear well tailored clothes, with a bit of personal flair, have neat and tidy hair, makeup, nails but one of those has a little edge, and their look is somehow modern but also classic. But I am a lawyer at a large corporation so YMMv based on industry/field!

    4. Look at Alex Borstein on Instagram.

      I feel like your style doesn’t have a defining feature. Figure out your three style words and stick with that theme.

      It’s also more than OK to look 43 when you’re 43.

    5. What do you wear off-duty that makes you feel stylish and cool? Can you just translate that look to work appropriate fabrics and a slightly more formal edge? And I agree with those saying ditch the mary janes.

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