Coffee Break: Katrin Pumps
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Readers have always sung the praises of Ferragamo heels as some of the absolute best for comfort, style, and quality. I'm loving these Katrin pumps, over at Shopbop.
They're described on the site as having “stiletto” heels (these are 70mm) but I feel like the skinny, blocky, almost pyramid-like shape of these heels is more interesting than just “stiletto” — but maybe that's just me.
(Fun fact: did you know that stilettos were originally a kind of skinny, pointed dagger, which, as Wikipedia helpfully notes, was “primarily intended as a stabbing weapon.”)
The shoes are $895, available in sizes 5-11 at Shopbop. You can also find them in a lovely burgundy suede at Bloomingdale's, and a beige patent at Neiman Marcus.
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{related: check out our Guide to Comfortable Heels!}
Sales of note for 1/31/25:
- Ann Taylor – Suiting Event – 30% off suiting + 30% off tops
- Nordstrom – Cashmere on sale; AllSaints, Free People, Nike, Tory Burch, and Vince up to 60%; beauty deals up to 25% off
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20 off your $100+ purchase
- Boden – 15% off new season styles
- Eloquii – 60% off 100s of styles
- J.Crew – Up to 40% off winter layers
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off sweaters and pants
- Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – End of season clearance, extra 70% off markdown tops + extra 60% off all other markdowns
I was thinking about the fast fashion comments this morning, and I’ve been following the debate on twitter as well.
I’m an Old, but when I was starting my first post-college job in 1987, I just didn’t have that many clothes. My interview suit was a navy blue polyester blend from JC Penney, but it was still more expensive than the Old Navy suiting featured this morning, and I’m not even adjusting for inflation.
When I was a teenager all I wanted were Levi jeans. They were $30 if they ever went on sale and I only had two pairs because they were sooo expensive. I can still by Levis for $30 on sale – what gives?
I used to buy one or two work pieces per season as I made a little more money, and I was always scouring the clearance racks at Nordstrom in the Women’s Tailored Clothing section (anyone remember that?) I wore skirts every day and I think I had a maxium of five skirts in my wardrobe at any time, and fewer jackets. Mixing and matching were big for me, and even though suits (and pantyhose!) were “required,” everyone took their jackets off the minute they got to their desks so I could get away with it. I re-wore the same things week after week. And this was how all of my work friends dressed too.
I am not saying I’m immune to fast fashion at all. My closet is now stuffed and I buy a lot more and donate a lot more than I used to. Even nice things now are cheaper (not adjusted for inflation!) than nice stuff was back then. I have to think all of our stuffed closets were built on the backs of underpaid overseas labor, even the items we think of as higher quality.
There’s a book about this exact subject called Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Fast Fashion. I didn’t realize it until I just looked up the title, but it’s ten years old– I can only imagine it’s gotten worse with the rise of Shein.
Thanks. I will check that out (literally, on Libby!)
Loved this book. It also made the point that if you adjust department store prices of a dress in the 1960s, for example, to today’s prices that would put you solidly in the range of most mid- to higher-end designer brands today (not the logo brands, but the ladies who lunch / rich b$tches brands). So the cost for similar quality to old vintage dresses has stayed the same, we just have a lot more cheaper options.
There is another one called Fashionopolis: Why What We Wear Matters by Dana Thomas that is also really good.
Yes. Unless a brand is bragging all over the place in great detail about its supply chain, with an outside entity verifying their claims, you can generally assume the wages and conditions of their manufacturing are bad. Same goes for environmental impact. I like to think that items made in the US (or other countries with more regulation) have a better backstory, but we have so many stories of wage theft and sweatshop conditions here too that I don’t assume it’s any guarantee. I find this good motivation to shop less and buy second-hand when possible.
In the recent Little Women movie, there was a minor point about a dress costing $50. That was shocking to me just how many orders of magnitude less expensive clothes are now.
About $1,000 in today’s dollars!
And they probably each had 2 day dresses and 1 formal/church dress.
And that dress would have been treated like gold, and repaired and altered until it quite literally fell apart, and then it would have been turned into quilt pieces and other needed items.
Those Civil War dresses used a lot of fabric, and fabric was more expensive then, if that helps.
I just bought a Jones NY blazer that must be from the 90s for $30 on Poshmark. It is way better quality than anything in the stores now. I, too, am amazed that we would pay $80 for Sassoon jeans in the 80s given how much inflation has impacted costs in every other area. I laugh at the idea of a capsule wardrobe. That is what we all used to have. I would buy navy slacks, a navy skirt, a patterned blazer and a few shirts to match. One purse and it was black.
Everything I bought back then was nicer quality than I buy now, sadly. However, it was also dry clean only and I rarely buy anything dry clean only any more.
I can’t remember the last time I darkened the door at a dry cleaner. However, I do remember taking armloads of work dresses/suits to the dry cleaner in the lobby of the building I worked in, in the early 90s.
Things are cheaper now because garments are poorer quality and the workers are functionally sl@ve labour. The fashion industry is really ugly. It’s so important to consume consciously and not over consume.
Yep. This is why I buy a lot of items second hand, and when I want to buy new I save until I can buy a higher-end option.
Like I tell my kids, if an item costs you so little after everything that goes into getting it to the store, imagine how little the person who made it was paid.
Honestly, this is still how I shop and I am still having to buy most of what I own at Old Navy or TJ Maxx.
Growing up in the 00s I went to Catholic school and thus wore a uniform to school. I only had one pair of jeans because I never needed more. As a late 20 something now, I have a whopping 3 pairs and I have 5-6 social plans a week. I have 3 pairs of work pants (in the office 4x a week), a handful of fun tops and work tops for each season, a few plain white Ts, a few sweaters and a few dresses (work and fun). That’s about it.
Unfortunately my weight has yo-yo’ed a bit so I have had to rebuy in different sizes but I feel like compared to many people I know I don’t have that many clothes, I keep what I have forever, and almost everything I own is cheap (Old Navy, TJ Maxx, lots of thrifting) with the very occasional splurge.
I love clothes and fashion and I feel like I just don’t have the budget to do things differently?
I’m a little older than you, and also have a limited clothing budget. Most of my clothes are second hand, and other than that I will make do or do without something until I save enough to buy a higher-end option. I also have some sewing skills so I can replace a button and make minor repairs.
I have four roommates. One got COVID, gave it to me, and then the other two got it a few days later. I am on Day 6 and feel completely recovered; I’m going to test again on Saturday to see if I get a negative test.
I’ve been staying at a friend’s empty one-bedroom to quarantine as opposed to being locked in my room, but now that all four roommates have it, no one is quarantining within our house (ie, everyone is hanging out together inside but not leaving.
My roommates want me to come back so we can all watch movies together, and I’d love to hang out with them. BUT, I’m wondering if since they have a higher viral load and I feel like I’m basically recovered, that they could potentially reinfect me or increase the amount of time I’m testing positive? Or give me a higher viral load?
Does anyone know anything about the potential to reinfect or cause a higher viral load from COVID if you’re exposed while you already have it? Trying to decide if I should go back or not…
Not an expert here, but I don’t believe people catch the same exact strain twice like that. If you all got it from each other, it’s likely the same strain. But don’t go back if you don’t want to! You can always watch movies another time.
It would be highly unlikely to catch the same exact strain again in such quick succession. But I also sort of understand where you’re coming from. If you’re totally healthy and they’re still quite sick I wouldn’t really want to be around them either. You can watch movies any time.
When my family had it, we caught it from each other on successive days and none of us quarantined (within our house) at all. We all recovered quickly and a few family members (out of 6) didn’t ever test positive. I think you are safe. But don’t feel pressured.
Since you all probably got it from/gave it to each other, the odds you’ll reinfect each other are pretty slim. But I’m also recovering from COVID and feeling like 90% better around day 11, still somewhat cruddy, so if you’re more comfortable in the empty apt or you don’t want to uproot yourself again, I think those are valid reasons to stay separate if that’s what you want to do.
I don’t know why you and your roommates haven’t been vaccinated and boosted against the most recent strains. Vaccines have been available for over two years now, and there’s really no excuse for anyone to get infected at this point.
Sadly, while the vaccines are very good at preventing severe disease and hospitalization, they aren’t great at preventing infection.
Oh come on we don’t need that sneaky antivaxx sh!t here. Everyone knows the vaccines don’t prevent infection but do reliably prevent severe illness and death.
What? The vaccine isn’t a magic charm against ever being infected. It’s an attempt to mitigate its worst possible effects.
is this a tr-ll? if not, you are woefully uneducated about the effectiveness of basically any vaccine, not just Covid vaccines.
Lol what. I’m fully boosted, included with the latest bivalent booster, and I still got COVID and got quite sick.
I have 4 doses in (last dose in March’21) and still caught it end Sept ‘21. Vaccine is here to prevent hospitalization due to those strains known at the time of vaccine development. It is not a prevention from infection, esp from new variants.
I think this is a troll, but we are all double-vaccinated and double-boosted, and have gotten each booster and vaccine the second we were able to. You can still get COVID even if you were boosted!
Please go drink a cup of tea and do some breathwork exercises. Being this weird on an anonymous forum means there might be some heavy stuff you’re carrying in your heart that you deserve to be free of <3
Whaaaa? Everyone I know who’s vaccinated and boosted has gotten infected, except a few very lucky people (me included, although I’m expecting to lose my NeverCovid status any day now). My boss got Covid less than a month after getting the updated booster, which was his fifth (?) shot.
Hi I’m as pro-vaccine a person as you can find, I have every single booster including the bivalvent, and I’m still aware that I could catch this. The benefit is the vaccines is that it’s less likely to kill me (a very real risk for me.)
Why are you tr lling?
lol
The most prudent thing to do, if you can, is stay in the one-bedroom until all of your roommates test negative on two successive days. There is a not-insignificant chance of reinfection. Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s CEO, famously was reinfected in September 2022 after having recovered from a first infection in August 2022 (links in reply). Every time you have COVID, you increase the chances of developing long COVID, or of developing unknown health issues in the future, which none of us needs.
https://www.pfizer.com/news/announcements/statement-pfizer-chairman-and-ceo-albert-bourla-testing-positive-covid-19
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-ceo-tests-positive-covid-2022-09-24/
Sounds like he got a different strain though. That’s not the same scenario as being with the people you caught it from.
I acknowledge and more than believe repeat covid infections are quite detrimental in many ways.
Coming back to add that I appreciate that the isolation is real. My partner is currently in quarantine after an exposure (to protect me because I have a chronic condition). I am in charge of the kitchen and delivering white glove meal service until he tests negative on day 5 and again on day 6. We talk in the morning and evening by phone, text during the day and try to co-watch (I think I just made up that word) an episode of something light at bedtime.
I recently started a new job, and the culture is night and day from my last job. It’s making me realize how many aspects of my last job were downright unhealthy! It’s like starting a great new relationship after leaving a toxic ex.
People seem relaxed and the culture is warm and supportive. They take pauses to breathe, laugh, eat lunch. They talk about their lives outside of work, their passions, and their caregiving responsibilities.
At my last job (ahem, tech), they paid a lot of lip service to being a great place to work and spending money on fun events and swag, but the day-to-day was actually awful. By the end, I didn’t feel like a whole person as much as a thing that drives impact and adds value—to the detriment of having an actual healthy life.
I also have been so conditioned to having to defend myself and my choices to angry department, and I never felt supported in any decisions I made. It was terrible. Here, everyone feels like they’re on the same team.
I also had no sense of my day would go. Meetings were added and subtracted constantly. Presentations would be scheduled with no prep time. My calendar was a moving target and I was just along for the ride. It was so chaotic and made it impossible to plan for appointments or even just a lunch break.
Just had to share in case others are in a similar situation like my last job. I don’t think I fully realized how bad it was until I left and started somewhere new.
I’m so glad you’re somewhere positive!
Thanks for sharing! I’m looking to escape a bad culture fit, and it really is good to hear that there are good places out there.
I really appreciate this post – cultural red flags are hard to identify when you’re in them! “No sense of how my day would go” is such a big one.
For those of you who have had one, how much time did you take off work to recover from a laparoscopic hysterectomy? Anything you wish you knew ahead of time? Thanks!
My friend just had one and I stayed with her for a few days while she was recovering, and I may be a candidate for one very soon, so I have been doing all the research in this area!
Overall, she said it was not too bad. She was definitely tired and couldn’t lift things, but she was walking around the block within a few days. I believe it was 6-8 weeks to a full recovery, but you could definitely WFH after a few days.
Having it be laparoscopic made all the difference. My mom has many friends who had hysterectomies before laparoscopic was a possibility and their recovery was much longer.
Thanks! Mine is scheduled for a Tuesday so my tentative plan is to take the rest of that week off then play it by ear whether I WFH the following week or go to the office.
Dr. Google told me I should take 2 full weeks off work which seems a bit overly cautious for a desk job, but I also don’t know anyone who has had a laparoscopic one to ask.
At a minimum, I would say one week off, one week work from home, then consider going in. Set expectations low and no one is going to be bothered if you are better than expected and CAN go in a week after surgery.
I had a different surgery recently, and started working from home (my norm) after a week, I did not expect how exhausting it would be to mobility limited and working full time. I was not working at 100% for the first week back/second week after surgery, but it was harder to lean out once I was “back” than if I’d set a longer expectation of being out. under promise, over deliver.
I have a friend who thought she’d only take the one week because she’s a tough cookie, but it turned out she really did need the two weeks and had to frantically reschedule a lot of stuff that first week while she wasn’t really feeling up to it.
Don’t make any commitments for two weeks at least.
I had one over the summer, and while I didn’t have much pain … I would NOT have been able to wfh after a few days. I attempted it after 2 weeks and my brain was much too foggy. I ended up taking another full week off and did not regret it. OP, definitely take 2 weeks off, minimum, and reevaluate at that point. Again, it wasn’t unbearably painful but I was very tired. I don’t know where people get the idea that just because it’s laparoscopic doesn’t mean it’s a minor surgery! Faster recovery time, absolutely, but your body has still been through a lot.
I took off two weeks after mine. I could have gone back sooner, but was glad to have the time to rest. Good luck! Having a hysterectomy is one of the best things I’ve ever done.
I’ve known two women whose procedures were textbook and were ready to WFH after about a week, and one who had an insane random complication.
I had mine on a Wednesday, was walking that night and was WFH on Monday. My core was pretty thrashed and sitting up (I normally use one of those kneeling stools) was a very, very poor life choice. Walk as much as you can, then walk some more. Moving helps everything settle down.
Stool softener was a big help. I also bought a bunch of bagged salads and easy fresh food like that ahead of time. The referred pain from the gas they use to blow your abdomen up is no joke… laying on my side helped that.
Everyone is different. My post surgical pain was no worse than the pain that pushed me to have the damn thing out in the first place.
I had a laparoscopic tubal ligation and agree the gas blowup pains are no joke. My shoulders and neck hurt SO bad, and it was awful with a newborn to carry around and breastfeed
Minimum of 2 weeks off for the dozen or so friends I’ve had, longer if you are having it done due to endometriosis, adenomyosis, or something else. WFH doesn’t mean your core won’t be very weak and even if you can read documents or listen to zoom meetings, sitting up or standing will be very hard and you’ll need more time getting up and down for restroom breaks, your meds may make you feel some way, etc. Schedule off as long as you can for this, you can return early if you’re ready but it’d be harder to get more time.
I had mine on a Thursday and was back to work the next Wednesday. My only restrictions were no lifting heavy things. In my experience, they make the recovery sound much worse than it is.
What are your favorite colors to wear with rust colored clothes?
Ooh, I have a rust-colored pair of pants that I bought on purpose to have something besides jeans to wear with a navy blue fisherman’s sweater. I think AIMS advised me to try that, actually.
Turquoise jewelery
+1
Navy, cream. Maybe gray, if it’s a warmer gray. Maybe maroon? Camel?
Army green, cream.
Lilac and purple.
Black, blush pink, taupe/camel, cream, blue of any shade.
Beige, camel, cream. I like to keep it neutral as it looks more expensive.
Does anyone have any favorite restaurants in Pittsburgh?
Spork, Gi-Jin, Fish Nor Fowl and Acorn for more upscale
Lorelei and The Independent Brewing Company for more casual (Lorelei is pizza and the Independent is more burgers and sandwiches)
Dish Osteria for upscale old-school italian
Check out the blogger Summer Wind – she lives there
Altius on Mt Washington
Girasole in Shadyside and Point Brugge Cafe in Point Breeze
I posted a reply, but if you’re not still checking: look up “absence seizure” and see if that sounds like you.
I applied to a job with a large company a few weeks ago. I never heard back, but my application in the portal now says “not selected.” I was a bit surprised that I didn’t receive an email stating that, but oh well. I searched the company’s career page for more postings, and saw that they reposted the exact job a few days ago, with the same Job ID#. Do I apply again? Or assume I wasn’t a contender?
I’d assume you weren’t a contender. The same thing has happened to me. It sucks, I’m sorry.
agree – I’m sorry you weren’t selected but they opted to pass on your candidacy at this time.
I am not surprised by the meaning of stiletto. While I would never murder someone, I will admit I have fantasized about killing one person, and the means has always been a stiletto heel to the throat.
You would like the movie Single White Female
Fellow Gen Xer??? Jinx!
100%. Recently, my Gen Z daughter had a freshman year roommate who seemed obsessed with her (right down to buying the same clothing!) so I made her watch this movie haha. Mother of the year.
She changed roommates at the semester break. :)
Single White Female. Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh. 1992.
Stiletto knives/daggers are still a thing, so you don’t have to ruin your shoes, lol.
My office recently changed the bad weather policy from “if schools are closed, nobody is required to come in, just please try to have your stuff to WFH or you’ll need to use PTO” to “the office will always be open, you can decide, same rules apply re: WFH and PTO.”
Given the fact that I have the most butt-in-seat boss in the whole office, I was already dreading navigating this. And now it’s wetly snowing and likely going to be very icy in the morning.
Your safety comes first. And having fewer cars on the road when it’s icy makes it slightly safer for the folks who can’t do their jobs from home. Boss can jump in a lake about it.
Just gonna chant “Boss can jump in a lake about it” until the anxiety recedes. Thank you.
I am from an area where we don’t get warnings for our major natural disasters (earthquakes) so I was shocked when I worked in NY in 2012 and we absolutely knew Hurricane Sandy was on her way, a good half of my staff ignored me when I told them to take their laptops home. Our building was in lower manhattan and we were locked out of it for well over a month.
If you know an ice storm is coming, take your files and laptop home! Use the official rules to the letter and if your boss pushes back, point to the rules.