How Have You Adjusted Your Wardrobe After Life Transitions?
Here's a maybe weird question for today: How have you adjusted your wardrobe after different life transitions? These are some broad definitions, but I think all of them would count as a Before and an After in your life, if that makes sense. This might be anything below:
- your first job after college or grad school
- getting a pet
- a return to grad school after working for a few years
- promotion / or job change (such as firm to in house, or from a conservative office dress code to a business casual one)
- changing your commuting style like walking, driving, biking, public transportation
- motherhood, marriage, divorce, eldercare
- flexibility changes, such as working from home, having a hybrid office, having to return to the office
- retirement
How I've Changed My Wardrobe Over Various Life Transitions
Looking back, I definitely changed my wardrobe after various life transitions, in pretty major ways.
(First job to college: I didn't change my wardrobe enough, honestly — it was the heyday of Express so the Editor/Columnist pants were already in my wardrobe, but some of my skirts were way too short…)
Going back to law school — I think I worked for about 18 months before going back to school, in part because I finished college in December. At the time, I certainly felt SO MUCH OLDER than the straight-from-college kids, which of course is laughable at this point. My wardrobe changed in that I refused to go back to college things like backpacks, and I reveled in the newfound freedom to wear jeans whenever I wanted.
Law school to law firm — suitmania! I bought a ton of suits and a lot more blazers.
Conservative office to business casual office — this one threw me for a loop because I really liked my sheath dresses and blazers, and I struggled with what was “my style” versus what was stuff that I wore because of my circumstances. (And, if “my style” wasn't really appropriate in my business casual office, how could I adapt it in a way that “felt” like me?) I wound up adding a lot of 5-pocket pants that were cut like jeans, and I had a denim blazer that I wore over some of my more conservative looks like a monochromatic shirt/pants or a sheath dress.
Marriage / first apartment purchase — We bought our first apartment less than a year after getting married, so a lot of that time was feeling like we were house poor (and had renovation goals, ha), so new clothing purchases weren't at the top of the priority list. I will also say that marriage changed my wardrobe in that I chose comfort over appearance a lot of times, if that makes sense — switching to lower heels or flats that I could walk in, non-stabby bras, etc.
Motherhood — the big changes here were washable clothes (even washable coats — I've told my story of my toddler's yogurt-covered hands and my cashmere coat before, le sigh) — and shoes that take very little time to put on, preferably slip-on. I also had primarily been a “dresses in the summer” kind of girl (vs shorts), but after a certain point it felt weird sitting on the floor with my kiddo without changing into pants — plus I didn't want to fuss with dresses and skirts if I had to run after him or pick him up quickly.
Working from Home — I only started working from home about 5 months before my first son was born, so motherhood and WFH are definitely conflated in my mind, along with the attendant mom guilt/mom time crunch of “I don't have time to spend on my appearance because I should either be working or mothering.”
I'm curious, readers — did you change your wardrobe(s) after life transitions? How so?
Stock photo via Stencil.
Do you all have advice on what to wear to a gala that is described as “business attire?” In the DC area.
The darker colored and more business formal elements of your regular work wardrobe. Maybe add more sparkly jewelry than you would wear to work, or a satin sheen blouse.
I switched jobs in March and now I’m in the first ever job I’ve had where I can wear jeans. It’s dress for your day, so we can be decently casual on days without big meetings. I also only am in person twice a week (last job was 4x a week). This means that, for the most part, I no longer need a work wardrobe and a weekend wardrobe; most things can do double duty. I’m 30 and pretty trendy so ripped jeans, shorts, shorter dresses, or cropped tops are of course weekend only but its so nice that most of my clothing can be worn at either location.
How do you split vacation house stays with friends? If you find a house with equally nice bedrooms/bathrooms for each person/couple, do you split the cost equally by the number of bedrooms? What if one person plans to leave early such that they’re not using their bedroom the last night?
If you’re on the hook for a period of time like a full week, then the other couple pays for their half of the full week. It’s not fair to leave you holding the bag for the day they decide to leave early.
The easiest split is when the bedroom and bathroom situation is pretty equal – in that case you just split it down the middle. It gets more complicated when you have to figure out how much more the couple with the “nice” room pays. Even then, there’s no formula. It’s all negotiation.
I work from home permanently now. I kept what I suppose is a capsule wardrobe of business looks for meetings and conferences, but other than that I’m in casual pants (not leggings), cotton shirts and cotton sweaters in the summer, and warm wool or cashmere sweaters in the winter. It’s the absolute best.
I found a pair of pants I liked in a prior season (Talbot’s chinos) so now I buy them second hand. I have a drooly dog and I like to stay in the same outfit for long walks, so I need a pair for every day of the week. I also wear jeans to go out, and the occasional dress for an occasion, like the wedding we attended this past weekend, but other than that, it’s a pretty casual, comfortable wardrobe.
My feet are so happy now. They’re pretty much always in sneakers these days, or if not, Danskos or Birkenstocks.
I need some help/advice. I’ve gone to my boss about it and she wants to “wait and see” while being sympathetic, and I’ll follow that but in the meantime I guess how to handle interactions with this person for now.
I was pulled in as an expert consultant to a high profile poorly managed project. I wound up creating a deliverable (with a partner) that got rave reviews, and approvals every step of the way. The project manager that’s the person I don’t want to deal with was on 90% of these calls and had every opportunity to express concern, suggest edits, take a meeting with me privately, anything.
She jumped on a call after the final draft was approved and right before publication expressing multiple vague concerns in an insulting manner (like “has anyone *else* seen this?”) and asking basic questions that were answered by the materials (design document, storyboard, etc.) and on the multiple calls (indicating that she hadn’t actually read the deliverable). My design partner and I were left confused and angry, but the PM said she’d “take this to leadership” as the call was ostensibly about a completely different deliverable. We were left with the impression that the PM would be presenting our materials as part of an overall argument that the single deliverable was sufficient for the client’s needs.
I handled this as best I could and chalked it up to stress, but kept it in the back of my mind. No direct, clear action items or instructions were created from that meeting. My partner went ahead and published the deliverable according to the deadline we were given earlier in the project.
This person then took our draft object from before publication, added some of their own items to it, and did not get our approval, permission, or involvement and presented it to management during that meeting that me and my design partner were not included in. This action and choice was so far outside the scope of PM duties I’m flabbergasted. My design partner and I were not shown the “edited” document (or even told about it!)–and they created a separate document instead of making edits on the master copy and I think that’s a pretty clear indication they knew that this was shady AF.
It’s akin to someone being in a group project and not participating, then taking a completed paper off “Turnitin”, taking big chunks out, re-writing it, and then re-submitting because they “didn’t like” sections of it. It’s deeply, deeply disrespectful and bad business.
Anyhoo, this is all not *that* big of a deal except this person has been attached in a casual way to a super high profile project that is my brainchild, baby, and that leadership considers a “crown jewel”. I don’t want their disrespect and incompetence anywhere *near* this thing.
I did say as much to my boss in “polite corpo speak” but I have a meeting with this person tomorrow about the first project (not my “pet project”) and I’m fuming.
Of course I can’t cover all the specifics here and I don’t want to sound defensive and like I’m justifying something, but believe me, this person is acting in an alarming and disrespectful way.
Tips on keeping it polite and tips on dealing with such a person if management decides they’ll be the PM for my “pet project”?
That’s super frustrating and straight out of the BadPM handbook.
What’s the overall relationship like between product and your org (sounds like engineering or design)? How far up the chain do you have to go before you have shared leadership (like it sounds like your manager doesn’t manage the Bad PM but eg. does their manager report to your manager’s manager? Or is it something like your org reports into the CTO and there into a CPO and never the two shall meet?
I know you know this but scrupulously professional is always the way to go when someone else is behaving badly. Give them zero ammunition at your meeting tomorrow.
It does sound really unfair. However, I think there is a lens through which you might consider looking at situation. There may be more information that you don’t have that this PM does. (Ex, Client be a little wacko about certain issues.) so, the PM hastily made changes and didn’t have time to align, and the PM was embarrassed because the PM should have made those important realizations earlier. Having made what the PM thought were critical contributions rescuing the situation, the PM forgot to give due credit. All I am saying is that there might be more going on than you realize, and in the PM’s mind the PM was just trying to do the right thing. You might ask PM about the reasons behind the changes and why the team didn’t see those earlier. Maybe I am way off base, though. Might just be a total jerk.
I’m following this with interest- I’m weaning my last baby from breastfeeding and have been telling myself for the past 4 years of pregnancy and breastfeeding I’d refresh my wardrobe when I was done. Now that we’re here- I have no clue how to do it! I’m planning on going to a proper bra fitting boutique and have been googling “toddler mom weekend outfits” trying to get a grasp of what I can wear that’s washable, comfortable and hopefully a little bit cuter than the joggers and nursing tops I’m currently wearing.