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7 Ways to Freshen Up Your Work Wardrobe for Spring

button-front shirts in a variety of pastel colors

We're a few weeks into spring at this point, but with temperatures still all over the place in many parts of the country, it hasn't always felt like spring! Still, I thought we'd talk about some easy ways to freshen up your work wardrobe for spring.

And, while I'll get to the seasonal wardrobe switch at the end of the post, note that a lot of these suggestions are a great way to “finish” wearing your cold weather clothes before you launder them and put them away for the season. (They can also be great ways to “try out” older clothes from 2019 and earlier — because some of these colors and spring-y outfits transcend the trends.)

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Ways to Freshen Up Your Work Wardrobe for Spring

Bring on the Pastels for Spring Work Outfits

Light blue blouses, pinks, mints, lavenders, pale yellows — they're all a welcome addition to everyone's wardrobes right now. The Pantone color of the year is “Very Peri,” a light lavender that we've actually been seeing in a ton of suiting options right now, as well as separates.

For 2024, the Color of the Year is “Peach Fuzz” — stay tuned for a roundup of some of our latest favorite workwear items in that color! This great suit from Etro comes to mind immediately, as does this pinky coral suit from Banana Republic Factory.

Hunting for a specific COLOR for your work outfits and work accessories, whether for an alumni networking thing or just general Style Reasons? In general, this Amazon tote or this tasseled Amazon tote are great. We've also rounded up colorful women's suits, colorful pants for work, colorful work dresses, and colorful work shoes.

Start to Switch to Flats Over Boots or Booties

Booties and boots are great for winter, but for spring you may want to bare your ankles more — find comfortable heels and comfortable flats for work, and build from there. If your office is casual enough for light brown/tan/beige booties, now is a great time to pull those out as well.

Start to Put Away Winter Things

Start assessing what needs to go away for your seasonal clothing review. If you're like me and like to wear clothes multiple times before laundering it (I especially do this with pants and sweaters), now is the time to start prepping your closet to do the seasonal switch. If you've got corduroys, tweeds, or thicker wool pants or skirts that are freshly laundered, put those away for the season.

(If they've just come back from the dry cleaner, remove the plastic dry cleaning bag, air them out for a bit, switch them to your preferred hanger, and then put them away.)

If you've still got wintry pants, sweaters, blazers, whatever that have a few more wears left in them, try to reach for them first on colder days. If you've still got sweaters out in fall colors (for example, there's a red one and a bright purple one kicking around my drawer), think about how you can wear them. In a conservative office I'd try pairing the red sweater with a light blue skirt or light blue blazer; for the bright purple one I'd wear it with a light gray bottom, possibly with a white or lavender blouse underneath it.

If you want to try dry cleaning at home, these are some of the reader favorites that have been mentioned over the years…

Pull out lighter fabrics. 

Linen itself should be reserved for summer, but if you've got some linen tees or linen/cotton sweaters (or cashmere/cotton sweaters), start to pull those out. Lightweight, machine washable pants and lightweight blazers are ideal transitional pieces for this time.

Add White To Your Spring Work Outfits Instead of Other Darker Neutrals

There are so many ways to wear white! From very casual looks (opaque white T-shirts, the untucked/oversized crisp blouse that's everywhere right now) to very formal looks (silk blouses, the ironed/tucked button-front look), there's something for everyone. You can layer these with some of your more wintry sweaters if it's still cold, and freshen up the whole look.

If you don't like white dress shirts, that's fine — there are a zillion other options for white shirts that work for everyone. Look for an opaque white T-shirt and wear it with a colorful necklace, or find a fancier white top and work it into your rotation.

Great White Tops for Work

You can go really basic with a white blouse or white tee, but there are always really trendy options for white tops. These are some of our latest favorites:

As for opaque white T-shirts, we'd suggest checking the double layer lines from Boden and Express, as well as great sources for basic Pima cotton such as L.L.Bean, Uniqlo, Everlane, Universal Standard and Talbots. (This $268 tee also gets great reviews for opacity!)

White tees are also great paired with a nude-for-you camisole — check out Banana Republic, J.Crew Factory, Naja, or Nubian Skin for tons of options.

Also, don't forget this easy trick to make your work wardrobe feel more spring-y: if you often wear a camisole for work, either for opacity under any gauzy/slightly sheer sweaters or to raise the neckline of your outfits, switch to a white camisole instead of a darker one.

White Blazers or Toppers Can Add a Lot of Authority and Polish — Even to Business Casual Looks

These are some of our latest favorite white blazers or toppers — lots of them are reader favorites, including this one from Halogen, or these sweater blazers from J.Crew and M.M. LaFleur.

As of April 2024, some of our favorite stylish white blazers for work include options from J.Crew, J.Crew Factory, Ann Taylor, Liverpool, and Amazon (Cicy Bell, The Drop). If you're looking to splurge, try Smythe or L'Agence.

JCrew_WhiteBlazer
J.Crew Factory
A woman wearing a white parke blazer
J.Crew (exact)
A woman wearing a white ribbed sweater blazer paired with a black inner blouse, pants and a belt.
Summersault
stylish white blazer for work 2024
Cicy Bell

White Pants for the Office

These are our favorite white pants for work this year — note that a lot of them are going quickly!

Other Spring Considerations

Finally, it's not for your work wardrobe, but consider freshening up your office, as well. On the first nice day you can, open the windows to let some fresh air in, consider which clothes you keep at the office may need to be laundered or put away for the season, and splurge on some spring-y fresh flowers like yellow tulips for you to enjoy while at work.

{related: tips and tricks to spring clean your office}

Readers, how do you freshen up your work wardrobe for spring? What are you happy to pull out of your closet — what are you sad to say goodbye to from your fall and winter wardrobe? 

25 Comments

  1. Mid-career professional (early 30s) moved from a big city to a smaller city to be with SO and working from home. Travel a lot for work so don’t have time for regular hobbies. How do I make friends and have a life outside of work travel and SO??

    1. Church? Gym? Meet-up? Alumni group? Volunteer? Find hobbies you can do without having to do them regularly.

    2. Wild kitten has all the right answers, but Alumni group is NOT likely to be in a smaller city, unless you are in the same state you went to college in. I recomend you work from the local STARBUCKS b/c they have WIFI and you can meet alot of peeople w/o geting stuck in your house all day. I go to the Starbucks with my MACBOOK air, even tho I have WIFI at home b/c I like to meet new peeople. You can do that too b/c all you have to do is buy a cup of coffee and a muffin and stay all day. You should try that, b/c you meet a higher class of peeople there then you would at McDonalds (which also has Wifi). YAY!!!

    3. I”ve found volunteering to be one of the better ways to meet people and get to know them, as opposed to just seeing them for an hour on Sunday morning when everyone is trying to gather family and get home to lunch.

  2. I have the cobalt blue tippi sweater from j crew, but am at a loss as to how to style it. I am in a casual workplace where almost anything goes, including jeans. Anyone have any styling advice? Thanks!

    2. black and white Striped ponte skirt, black or purple almond toe flats?

      gray/black skinny pant with shiny/leopard oxford or flats

      chambray shirt layered under w dark colored pant

      stripy tee under sweater, jeans, colorful shoe

    3. Cobalt is great with leopard. I’d wear it with white jeans and leopard sneakers. YMMV…

  3. I would love to have recs on where to buy light grey pants these days for spring. I find it very difficult to find this color, yet I agree that they are very versatile.

    Would love an ankle pant. I’m pear shape. My best fitting pants are the curvy fit skinny ankle pant at Loft.

    1. Banana Republic has a lighter gray pant in lightweight wool (part of their suiting collection) that has been doing a lot of work for me the last few seasons. They have it in a few cuts, I’m a pear too and my favorite is the Ryan fit.

      1. Thank you very much for this rec. I just ordered the pant you recommended in two sizes. This is my first time trying BR pants, but I have seen people rec them on this site for pears.

        Honestly, I would have never picked that pant style (Ryan) without your recommendation, because it isn’t their curvy fit, so thanks for being specific.

        Fingers crossed….

  4. It’s already too warm here in Arizona, but I want to be looking for light cardigans for next fall. I would love to find thin linen/silk blend, or very thin cotton/silk.

    It’s so hard to search by fiber content online, and of course you can’t tell the weight. I look in stores, but Nordstrom rack is the best we have in town. Any advice?

    1. The Lands’ End DRESS Cardigan is a lightweight cotton, much lighter than its usual heavier supination cotton sweaters.

  7. In spring I exchange my dark neutrals in wool with my dark neutrals in silk, viscose and cotton.

  8. I’ve been dating a guy off of a dating app for a few months.The other day he made a comment about “my friends are very surprised to hear that I have a girlfriend”. Now I know he’s a nerdy guy, I’m a nerdy girl, he’s not the most flirty etc – but is the fact that his friends think/said that a yellow flag?

    I have been single for a while so my friends may be surprised to hear I have a boyfriend, but its not like they are disbelieving or shocked.

    1. I think you’re right to pay attention to the remark, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it. You could ask him more about why he thinks they made that comment. Maybe he’s a nerdy guy who doesn’t pursue women much and other women have overlooked the gem that he is.

    3. I don’ think it’s a red or yellow flag. My lovely husband said similar things when we met. I was his first girlfriend. He’s a wonderful person and conventionally attractive, he’s just shy and nerdy and in a college major and then profession where met mostly men. He’s been a great husband and father.

  9. I’m in the Bay Area and I’m wearing linen now. I don’t save it for the strict three months of summer. I wear it well into fall (our real summer) too. I would rather wear linen this time of year than a white blazer, which you don’t seem to apply the same rule to.

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