Suit of the Week: Gabriella Hearst
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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 2025!
Oooh: this is such a sleek wool and silk blazer. I love the slim fit of the suit paired with the wider pants.
The blazer is $2650, and the pants re $1440; there's also a matching vest.
Sales of note for 8/29/25 (I'm bolding the ones I'm checking out first):
- Nordstrom – Summer sale has started!
- Ann Taylor – 30% off your full price purchase, $99 dresses, jackets and shoes, and 60% off sale
- AllSaints (some of the best leather jackets!) – Clearance event, up to 70% off
- Anthropologie – Extra 40% off sale + 25% off designer denim
- A.P.C. – Last days, 50% off!
- Athleta – Up to 60% off + extra 30% off sale – readers particularly love these casual pants
- ba&sh – Extra 25% off Labor Day Sale – readers love these cardigan lady jackets; some are marked down to $190
- Banana Republic Factory – 50%-70% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 20% off everything – readers love this blazer, these dresses, and their double-layer line of tees
- Brochu Walker – Labor Day Sale, up to 30% off
- Everlane – Summer sale up to 70% off – reader favorites include their scoop tee, their ReNew Transit backpack, silk blouses and their oversized blazers!
- Frank & Eileen – Lots in the sale section up to 40% off
- Kaai – 10% off work bags and 50% off Loop bags
- J.Crew – 40% sitewide (readers love this blazer, these pants, these sneakers, this suiting, and their sweater blazers and winter coats in general. Also note that they've expanded their size range up to 3X/24! See our full roundup of what to buy for work at J.Crew.)
- J.Crew Factory – 40-70% off everything and extra 60% off clearance
- L.K. Bennett – Sale items up to 70% off, lots of shoes and more in the sale
- Me + Em – Up to 60% off, online only
- M.M.LaFleur – Save up to 70% Labor Day Weekend – Take an additional 20% off already-discounted items
- Naturalizer – Last call! Up to 70% off
- Neiman Marcus – 15% off select beauty & fragrance including DIOR, Nars, Chantecaille, Victoria Beckham, SK-II, and La Mer (ends 8/30)
- Nordstrom Rack – Clear the Rack, extra 25% off clearance (we recently featured this great $30 sweater blazer, but I think it comes in more colors now)
- Rothy's – Up to 50% off last-chance sales
- Sarah Flint – 25% off sitewide
- Soma – Sale up to 70% off, bras 2 for $65, $6 panties with any purchase (also buy 3 panties, get 2 free) – readers love these PJs and these no-VPL panties
- Spanx – End of summer sale, extra 30% off sale styles with code — reader favorites include these pants in regular, petite, and tall sizes all up to 3X (the very rare option for a plus-size petite!); Nordstrom also has a big collection!)
- Talbots – 70% off markdowns final sale + 25% off regular purchase – readers love this classic cashmere sweater, this classic cardigan, and their suiting (available in petite, regular, plus, and plus-size petite!) (here are all the reader favorites at Talbots)
- White House Black Market – Extra 60% off sale styles for up to 80% off, also $50 off your $200 purchase, and $30 off all pants
I’m never sure about plaid / windowpane patterned matching suits. It feels like “a lot of look.”
My former coworker in the 90s bought a bold plaid blazer and then found out there was a matching skirt available. She wore the whole getup together weekly. Our male coworker said “my grandma had a couch just like that,” which I don’t think me meant to be mean. Just factual. (In hindsight I believe he must have been on the spectrum, and not just from this one incident.)
So my vote, at least for myself, is don’t wear the couch.
i generally shy away from wearing anything weekly that is clearly recognizable. So yes weekly for black pants, chinos, and cream cardigan. No to anything printed, patterned or pink/ red.
While I think that’s the case now, I don’t think that was as much the rule in the 90s. My wardrobe was way, way smaller back then. I frequently re-wore the same things; much more regularly than I do now.
Oh no, that was still for sure a rule in the 90’s.
But it’s a rule that some of the best dressed people broke!
When I was a teenager in the 90s, I was petrified of wearing the same thing too often. I kept a list of everything I wore to school so I wouldn’t repeat outfits.
I plan to wear the heck out of my pink floral pussy bow shirt this fall. Probably not weekly, but more than once a month. I don’t think a piece that stands out is a bad thing.
Me either. “Memorable” does not bother me at all especially when it comes to being well-dressed.
I’ve heard that rule before – what is the reasoning here?
I’d wear it if I were in a “wear a suit regularly” kind of position in the same way that I currently rotate bolder patterned blouses. Sure someone will recognize that I wore the same one a month ago – but it’s one of a dozen blouses they see. if you wear a suit maybe once a month or less, I agree, too memorable to serve that purpose.
I can barely remember what I wore last week, much less what a coworker wore! So I truly don’t care if they repeat outfits, or if they remember memorable items of mine.
Bring on the weekly Grandma’s Couch Suit! Let’s give ’em something to chat about.
I love this and would buy it with the vest if it wasn’t so expensive. It has a menswear vibe while still being feminine. I think you wear what you love. If you dry clean regularly, then you can wear this or anything bold regularly.
Same. I think this is gorgeous and will look best as a suit, not separates.
I love it and I would wear it as separates and together. I really don’t care if people notice the clothes I wear.
Eh, I wear the couch all the time. You can take pattern out of my cold dead hands.
+1. I would die of boredom without wearing discernibly different outfits each day. And if you can splash out this much for a fun suit, you likely have other business clothing.
as a parent living in TX, i’m slightly freaking out over the end of the vaccine mandates in FL bc i feel like we are likely to be next. will this be challenged in the courts?
Challenged in courts? Yes.
Will the challenges be successful? Probably not, as I’m not aware of a legal basis for successfully challenging. But who knows?
Is all of this bad? Definitely.
You should freak out bc yes, you will be next and the courts don’t save us from d*ck anymore.
+1. Sadly.
It’s definitely not great but the vaccine mandates didn’t start until the 80s and in some states 90s, so if you’re 45+ there’s a good chance you went to school before mandates. Obviously not great to be turning back the clock, but it’s not like kids were dying en masse from disease in 1990.
And the good news is vaccines like MMR and polio are very effective for individuals who get them, so if you vaccinate your kids the impact on you personally is likely to be minimal. The people harmed by this the most have children who can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons.
+1.
+1
If you have young kids, it might also be worth talking to their pediatrician about an accelerated schedule. Some vaccines you really do have to be older for; but some of the current schedule is optimized for the assumption of herd immunity protecting littles – and the calculus for *your* kid changes when that goes away. Similar conversation to eg. if you need to travel to a high risk country with a kid younger than the typical US vaccine ages.
I think we may see an updated schedule that moves some of the standard “school vaccines” up. From the AAP at least if not the CDC.
The people who will be harmed by this the most are kids who can’t be vaccinated and babies and toddlers too young to be vaccinated.
My college friend’s kid had cancer and couldn’t take vaccines while she was getting treatment (she’s fine now). They lived in a state with a lot of anti-vaxxers and it was just maddening. Frankly, I think failure to vaccinate is child neglect. Vaccines are the major medical miracle of the last century.
And infants who are already most vulnerable and can’t get all vaccines in the first year. So pro-life!
Yep. Frankly, this is going to make women less willing to put their infants in daycare, and because of that, it’s going to lead to more women exiting the workforce. I could live with this if it was paired with one year paid maternity leave for everyone in the state, but that’s obviously not happening.
but that’s either a bonus for them if not the entire point of it — they want women out of the workforce. they want us barefoot and pregnant.
I know! But I’m saying I would be fine with that trade if the Democrats were capable of using this as an excuse to get that done.
Well, and there’s the specter that RFK is screwing with vaccines for those who WANT them (see the covid vaccine). So much for personal responsibility or even pretending to care about Americans’ health.
And those of us for whom the vaccines don’t work.
Shoutout to my immune deficient internet pals!
And the anti vaxxers end up getting and spreading yet more diseases because measles and Covid both make people more susceptible to getting other diseases a second time by reducing their prior immunity to them. So they are more likely to get and spread other things.
I don’t know what the grounds for a challenge would be. If they have the authority to issue a vaccine mandate, they have the authority to rescind it. But I’m sure someone will try (and should).
What on earth would the basis for a court challenge be?? There isn’t a constitutional right to have people get vaccinated.
It would be “a constitutional right to force others to get vaccinated,” even. Vaccines are (currently) still available to anyone who would like them.
I agree. In a world where people will change their opinions based on validated scientific data, you wouldn’t need vaccine mandates to keep people safe. They’re like seatbelt laws. Unfortunately, we do not live in a world where people have good access to or understand how to interpret scientific data. My husband and I are working hard to move to a different state because or how low vaccine uptake is. There’s over 10% of the student body with vaccine exemptions in literally every elementary school in my county.
This has what to do with a court challenge, exactly?
The fact that if your state rescinded seat belt requirements, there wouldn’t be a basis to challenge that either. I think if the vaccines get banned for those that want them, there may be a basis for challenging that but not for doing away with a mandate requirement.
On the plus side, it’s so easy already to get a non medical exemption in Florida that maybe the overall rate won’t change much? We can hope?
Indoor classrooms genuinely aren’t safe without an adequate vaccination rate.
Can anyone recommend some great new TV shows? Need something to watch with the hubs. We like historical, sci-fi, or general funny/drama type shoes (Hacks, Succession, etc)… thank you!
Have you watched the Righteous Gemstones yet? It’s soooo good.
Some things we’ve liked recently:
– Silo (Sci-Fi, AppleTV)
– Your Friends and Neighbors (crime/dramedy, AppleTV)
– Nobody Wants This (comedy, Netflix)
– A Man on the Inside (comedy, Netflix)
– The Gentlemen (dramedy, Netflix)
– A Gentleman in Moscow (historical, Paramount+)
Strange New Worlds, if you aren’t already watching it.
The Pitt, Shrinking, Shogun, Andor, Say Nothing, Somebody Somewhere
Your Friends and Neighbors
Obsessed with The Gilded Age here. I immediately rewatched all three seasons so I could catch more nuance, pay more attention to the clothing, and Morgan Spector. That is all.
Thirding (or Fourthing?) Your Friends and Neighbors. DH and I loved it.
We’ve been watching Blue Lights. It’s a police drama set in present-day Belfast and it sort of reminds me of The Wire. We also enjoyed Day of the Jackal.
I watched all of Blue Lights on the long flight from LA to Australia. Loved it!
The Residence on Netflix was excellent.
+1. I was disappointed to learn that Netflix did not renew it.
Currently watching The Lazarus Project on Netflix and it’s really good
The Great
The baby shower outfit Q from this morning got me thinking. I have tons of summer items that would do well at a shower for a baby or a bride. But I will have one in December and one in January when my clothes are very black or gray and don’t seem joyous. What to shop for now for those events? I’m happy about each event and love parties but don’t want to show up looking dour from my normal cold weather palette. What is joyful and also warm?
Velvet jeans and a pretty sweater, nice flats. Or something like the JCrew Stratus silky pants if velvet doesn’t appeal. Probably a bit early to shop for velvet pants specifically though – tend to come out closer to Nov.
You can make your existing clothes more baby shower-appropriate through the styling.
I tend to grab something from Jcrew/Talbots/Boden in this category every year – you should be looking for ‘holiday party’ attire. Lots of festive tops/sweaters/dresses in plaid, jewel tones, velvets, etc.
A pretty sweater or cardigan and a satin skirt. Add tights + slip for extra warmth.
Sezane sweater dresses. They are my go to for these sorts of winter events.
I usually default to a sweater dress. Different seasons get different vibes! I’m not freezing for a baby shower.
You can also look for the warm items you’d usually wear in lighter colors, so you have a least one or two outfits that aren’t dark / dour. I love light-colored neutral outfits in the winter: cream, taupe, dove gray, blush, camel, pale blue — whatever colors you like.
I usually wear a pretty long sleeved dress and tights.
Boden seems to have a lot of Winter party wear if you like their aesthetic.
I got the Tuckernuck Hot Pink Long Sleeve Kiera Dress for a baby shower and Galentines event in January/February. I’m in the cold midwest.
I’m struggling with finding an effective way to clean the bathtub. We prefer to use cleaners that don’t have harsh chemicals (eg bleach, heavily scented stuff) with kids and pets around, but efficacy is an issue and due to back problems, I can’t be on my hands and knees scrubbing for a long time. What works best to get rid of buildup on the tub surface?
It’s probably too harsh for your standards but I love Scrubbing Bubbles. Spray it on, let it sit, wipe it off, rinse.
If it’s as easy as that, I might compromise. Is there truly no scrubbing?
No, there is still some scrubbing involved.
Try spray foaming Cif. It’s genuinely spray on, leave 10 mins, rinse off. I never even have to wipe it.
I often use baking soda on mine. Scrub with a net shower-scrubby thing.
I recently realized I’d had some soap scum build up over the years, that my regular cleaners weren’t getting off. Scraping with a leftover plastic gift card worked wonders.
We use biokleen in our showers/tubs (but bleach in the toilets). It’s “clean” enough, doesn’t smell, and seems to work fine? Kind of expensive though.
So bathtub dirt is basically human grease. Dish soap works very well with a nylon scrub brush.
Dawn dish soap would be my pick here. If you can deal with the smell, I’d also use ammonia cut with water. Ammonia is fantastic for grease/smells – caveat to NEVER use it with bleach.
There is nothing that will work on soap scum without some scrubbing. I have had the most success with either the Magic Eraser bath version or the OxiClean (formerly Kaboom) spray cleaner + scrub brush.
Hire a cleaner if you have back problems and can afford it. They’re cheaper than back pain management will be.
Dawn (for grease and soap) mixed with baking soda.
But that doesn’t help with the bending over and scrubbing part. You could try using something with a handle, like a swiffer-type mop, but I don’t know how well that would work. Could someone else do the scrubbing on your behalf?
I use a bathroom “grime” cleaner and let it sit for half an hour or so. I can’t kneel and find a tub brush with an extendable handle very useful. It has good, stiff bristles and looks a lot like a toilet bowl brush but with a very long handle.
I got a scrubbing tool with a long handle so I can stand. I had to kneel to clean a few spots, but overall much easier on the back.
Link to brush? I like the idea-not OP.
Chemicals and a cleaning lady
I bought a set of bristle brush attachments for my power drill at the hardware store. Attach, add soap of your choice, and brush electrically powered. I don’t know why more people don’t have this.
this is the set I have
2 PC. MEDIUM BRISTLE BRUSH CLEANING ACCESSORY KIT https://share.google/OHTKlsiJRrQwOUAtJ
This is medium bristle strength, there is a softer and a harsher version too.
I use Method’s daily shower spray, which helps cut down on buildup significantly. About once per week I use a scrub brush with a spray bottle with diluted dish soap at the end of my shower. We have cleaning people who give it a good scrub once a month. Get a detachable shower head if you don’t yet have one. Ours is magnetic and it’s great.
How can I watch out for if im a condescending know it all? Has anyone ever pointed this out to you? Any way to call it out to someone else? Many of my law school classmates are getting on my nerves over-explaining. Example, someone told me he went kayaking and then explained bioluminescence in excrutiating detail. I told him I grew up on a coast and am familiar. He kept going. Someone else told me what a motion for summary judgment is, again in excrutiating detail – I had not asked about it, I got the top score in civ pro last year, I am just so annoyed and also wondering if I do this to people. How can I watch out for this myself, and is there an effective way to stop someone from overexplaining? I think it bugs me because I wonder if they think I am stupid, and it is inefficient. But also, if someone said to me “oh yeah, I know what X is” I would fast forward my story. Maybe I am overreacting? Is this something law school teaches and lawyers just do? Should we assume ignorance instead of assuming other people will ask questions if they don’t know?
hm. oh interesting. thanks. huh. <- any of these with an expressionless face and then you check you phone and say you have to go.
I think people do this often and it’s not a big deal. It seems like it’s triggering you in some way based on how angry you get over it
+1
Sometimes people do it in school (!) because they are reinforcing their own understanding by saying it out load. It seems braggy, but it is like “studying” together. People did this in med school all the time. Shrugs.
Law students can be entirely obnoxious. They will get it out of their systems.
As for the best way to avoid doing this to other people: just… ask. Be low key about it. “Kayaking at night was so great with the bioluminescent plankton. You’re familiar?”
Bigger picture: people are tiresome when they assume that smart people are stupid. I would rather assume that a not-smart person has a brain in their head than condescendingly explain MSJ to an attorney.
Just assume that the other person knows what you’re talking about. If they don’t, back up and give a fast explanation, one that isn’t focused on sounding like an encyclopedia so much as building rapport. What’s the important part of bioluminescent fish or a MSJ? That it was cool to watch the water light up or the exact chemical mechanism that aquatic life use to light up?
For how not to: cultivate a genuine care for other people, and watch yourself very closely in areas where you know you have a tendency to over-talk. I’m generally pretty good about not over-talking, but there are times I “wake up” and realize I’ve been going on and on about something that my hearer probably doesn’t care about. It has nothing to do with me thinking they’re stupid and everything to do with me getting involved in my topic and losing awareness.
For how to get less annoyed at other people: catch yourself doing it often enough to recognize that it’s a really common human foible. Also separate the over-talkers who simply aren’t aware from the people who are genuinely arrogant; you probably have lots of clues from other interactions with these two guys about whether they’re simply unaware or over-talkers, or whether they’re actually arrogant.
There’s a difference between being a condescending know-it-all and overexplaining, even routinely. Overexplaining can be annoying and tedious but doesn’t imply condescension. Condescension is way worse. Do people respond to you as if you’re a jerk? Do they avoid talking to you? Then you’re probably being condescending. But simply explaining something niche isn’t being condescending. It sounds like you’re just impatient to get through it. If you want someone to move along, and you don’t want to alienate them, I’d advise a chirpy “oh, right! I know how that works, I grew up on the coast, isn’t it pretty? So you were kayaking…” If you don’t care about this person and don’t mind being rude, then just scroll on your phone and mutter and say you have to go.
I’m a lawyer and although law school was a long time ago, my experience is that law students and lawyers like ideas, they like learning, they like debating, they like nuance, they like talking. So much talking. Everyone’s swimming in cool new ideas with other smart people, so there’s going to be a lot of talking.
Law school does not teach over explaining. Over explaining is not something that lawyers do. This is you and all of your future colleagues figuring out basic conversational and interpersonal skills. Figuring what information to provide and whether you need to go deeper or zoom out is a crucial skill for lawyers. You will need it when you talk to clients who don’t know what a summary judgment motion is, and are either too scared to ask you or don’t even know how to ask you.
Since you’re having this issue across multiple people, I think you should work on being more generous in how you receive conversations, rather than focused on how you participate in them.
I get why that is annoying. And I agree that it seems more common among lawyers/law students for some reason. (I mean, I once had a young lawyer give me detailed instructions on how to navigate on foot to a stadium that was in front of my face and the only large building in the entire area (and which I visited often), then how to present my sportsball ticket and get admitted to the event, so . . .) In my own life, if I am talking about summary judgment, I will stop and ask if the person knows what it is, and not explain if they say yes, or say something like “well, you know how the standard is X, right, well we just won an appeal because Judge Smith totally applied the wrong standard.” Something like bioluminescence, I would use the word without explanation and let them ask, assuming they either already know or can get it from context. I just don’t assume people are dumber than I am, but lots of people approach life from the perspective that they are “gifted” and that is measurably different from most other people.
It’s something that law school students do.
I have either never experienced this, or never noticed it. I’ve been a lawyer for the greater part of two decades. I am quite sure it is not because people believe I am so smart I don’t need any explanations. You might consider that you may, in fact, be a condescending know it all, since you believe that your classmates have nothing to offer you, to the point that you’re not interested in hearing what they have to say! Try being interested in people and their thoughts and opinions. Maybe you will learn something you didn’t know before. And this will serve you in your career as an attorney as well, given that (1) business development relies on a network which you primarily build by being interested in and friendly to people and not worried about “efficient” conversations; and (2) clients don’t want to work with condescending know it alls.
“You might consider that you may, in fact, be a condescending know it all, since you believe that your classmates have nothing to offer you, to the point that you’re not interested in hearing what they have to say!”
I didn’t get that read from her post *at all.*
Really? That’s all I got from her post.
Yeah, sorry…”I was top of my class in civ pro, so no one better talk to me about MSJs”
Oh, I thought you were going to ask how you can stop being so annoyed, which is the much, much better question to be asking yourself. You have to learn how to deal with this.
+1.
Law school was the one time in my life where I truly believed that if 180 out of my 200 classmates vanished forever, I would be 100% fine and not miss them even a little bit. Law students are per se obnoxious, especially the ones who just did something (like kayaking) or just understood something (like civ pro). But it’s not bad to be assertive – sometimes when people are overexplaining they don’t listen to the responses of others or nonverbal cues.
Honestly, the condescending people I know seem to have absolutely no self-awareness. I was on a school committee with a woman who was incredibly condescending and patronizing, and I think it was because she’d pegged me as one of the working-class “old-timers” because I was a bit older than the elementary school mommies and I chatted pleasantly with some of the “old-timers” (because my middle-class parents had taught me manners).