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Weekend Open Thread: Kut from the Kloth

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woman wears brownish straight-leg cords with sneaks

Something on your mind? Chat about it here.

I saw some Reel yesterday that said that in order to update your Fall 2025 look for 2026, you should get rid of wide leg jeans and swap for straight leg… and I rolled my eyes. I feel like wide leg jeans are still really popular! But… I will say that wearing wide legs in winter can really suck, especially with corduroy. Last year I felt torn… I didn’t want to wear my skinny cords again, but my wider legs and botcuts were just a bit too close to the ground to make it through snow and slush unscathed.

So I’m excited to see these straight-leg cords from Kut from the Kloth. They’re affordable, they’re on trend as much as wide leg, and they’re practical for the season. They even come in petites — huzzah!

The cords are available in six colors, sizes 00-18 in regular and petites, for $89.

Psst: I was originally going to post these Spanx pants, which I thought looked really chic for sweatpants… but then I realized it’s not a stripe down the side, but a totally different color in the back. Thoughts?

Sales of note for 10/30

  • Nordstrom – Extra 20% off clearance
  • Ann Taylor – 30% off your purchase + extra 15% off your $200+ purchase
  • Brooklinen – Friends & Family – 20% off sitewide and 50% off select bundles
  • J.Crew – 2700+ markdowns
  • J.Crew Factory – Extra 50% off clearance
  • M.M.LaFleur – Save 20% on suiting and dresses! Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off on other items)
  • Talbots – Enjoy 30% off your entire purchase

80 Comments

  1. Straight leg is the worst. If long enough to not stump-ify, there’s not enough fabric to make a nice break across the front of the foot. If hemmed like the model’s, it doesn’t feel like enough difference in shape between leg and shoe to give me any dimension. And if shorter, it just looks like Urkel pants rather than intentional.

    1. These just look too short to my eye. They need another inch or inch and a half on the model.

      1. I agree, but the leg opening also looks too narrow to break nicely. This is my problem with ‘straight’ legs, they’re often too narrow at the bottom and turn into tapers over my thicker calves.

      2. I feel like they are a good start for 2026. I’m just 5-4 and so many pants show my whole ankle. That’s fine in July for summer pants, but not for year-round work pants.

        1. My hack for this is buying a Tall length for cropped pants, which is often the perfect inseam for flats for me :)

      3. I have one pair of winter pants just like this and i can’t stand the gap between the shoe and the hem where the sock shows. I agree it makes them look too short. I only wear them with short boots (flat Chelsea boots). And with the right boot, I just love them,

    2. I honestly feel like no pant shape these days works well on me. I’m wearing sweats today though (WFH)! Win!

  2. Style help please. The current trend of wide leg or barrel pants with a fitted waist flatter my lower body. My challenge is pairing them with the right top. I’m 5’4, about 135#, 34D, with a small waist and heavy thighs. Tucked in shirts (especially crew neck) make my torso look super short. Boxier or oversized shirts make me look a lot thicker than I really am. I don’t want to wear something tight on top that over-accentuates my boobs. I’m 57 and my wardrobe needs are mostly casual/elevated casual. Fitted sweaters are a good option, but looking for other ideas. Thanks for any suggestions!

    1. How about a medium loose top with a half tuck in front? Not too long or oversized, perhaps something that hits an inch or two below your waistband so there is something to tuck, but not so much volume that it billows around you.

    2. Chanel style lady jacket with crew neck, for shape.
      If boxy jacket – cropped and open over a slim, fitted undershirt.

  3. This is such an unimportant question, but: what kind of bag/purse do you carry for your casual, everyday needs? I currently am using a knockoff Lulu belt bag…which is crazy to say. But I work from home and often leave the house without a need for a bag at all so now I’ve kept this one for a couple years and…it’s high time to upgrade.

    What I want: something fairly casual (I do have cute clutches for dressier occasions, to be clear), on the small side, and ideally somewhat hands-free, though I understand that’s not quite the look these days. What the heck should I be looking at?! Please help. Even just telling me what your everyday bag is — even if it doesn’t align with my needs — would be helpful!

    1. I have a small Madewell camera bag that I can wear crossbody or over my shoulder. It’s casual enough for weekend errands while still fine to be seen in my professional office.

    3. I have a Lo & Sons Ayoama black nylon bag and it is really useful. I would love a more bougie bag, and have plenty of clutches, but can’t seem to motivate as the capacity doesn’t ever seem quite right (or the pocketing) and mistakes can be expensive :(

    4. It does not fit your criteria at all but I do like it a lot – all year I’ve been carrying a Portland Leather Sloan Doctor Bag in Forest Green / Oversized. I just used the handles, I think a bag like that looks weird on me when using the crossbody strap. The forest green is really pretty.

      Before this I carried the Portland Leather Circle Crossbody (nutmeg/small) for a couple of years and liked that. It’s hands-free since it’s a crossbody.

      When I want a lighter weight bag, I have the Athleta Diem Crossbody bag that I really like. It fits a decent amount and isn’t as ubiquitous as the belt bag. It sits a lot lower on me than it does on the model on the Athleta site right now.

    5. right now I’ve got a See by Chloe bag – I think the Joan? burgundy, crossbody with a shorter strap, really love it. I live in a car culture now so bags matter so little these days, everything lives in the car unless I want points for status or style or something.

    6. I use a midrange leather crossbody. 95% of my life is on foot or bike and shoulder bags, while trendier, just annoy me since I can’t use them one-handed.

    7. I know crossbodies are out, but it’s hard to quit them. To look more current, I just bought a shoulder bag in sort of a moon shape (Rag & Bone large Hudson).

    8. LV Noenoe. Strap is convertible to a cross body and even on the shorter setting I can still reach in with one hand. I am not precious with it, and it’s held up well to my throwing it everywhere and loading it up (occasional laptop or camera stuff).

    9. Kate Spade aubrey top handle. I like that the two main sections are snap closure (easy to reach into with one hand) but there are zipper compartments for small items.

    10. I generally carry either a Lo & Sons Waverley or a Pearl. I did buy a cheap straw half-moon shaped bag for the summer because I wanted something that looked more summery, but I’m back to the Pearl this week.

      1. My MAGA-hating soul loves this comment. Those psychos can pry my LV NF from my cold, d3ad hands!

      2. I’m not rich enough for this but it would also be my choice if I had this kind of money for a bag. I like the look.

    14. I just got a Bellroy City Pouch and I really like it. Cross-body, because I just don’t need to spend my life hitching my bag back up on my shoulder.

    16. About six months ago I bought a small canvas bag with handles and a crossbody strap off Thredup. It had no branding so I don’t know where it’s from. The estimated dimensions are: 6” wide, 4” tall and the bottom is 2” so it’s stands up by itself if you put it on the floor. I have a pretty black leather shoulder bag from Madewell, but I have realized I hate shoulder bags and a huge leather bag looks silly with my athleisure wear

    17. I still love my Clare v Fanny and get lots of compliments. At this point my price per wear is low and the quality is high.

    3. I don’t know where I got the recipe anymore, but I LOVE the recipe I have for a copycat Olive Garden chicken and gnocchi soup/

    4. Split pea soup with ham, following a recipe I cobbled together from various source recipes. Cooks up much faster than other bean soups (other than lentils).

  5. I went to college back in Ye Olden Days. Some friends have kids in college now. It seems to me, very outside looking in, but also reading the newspapers still, that there are largely two flavors of students now at 4-year schools (of the sort where kids who start stay to completion and finish in 4 years, which is a distinct subset of all colleges), where a bunch are all-business: studying, very career-minded, maybe some fun on a Friday night or Saturday, or very hard-core partying throughout the week, with not a lot in between. Did something fundamentally shift during COVID? Or is how expensive college now making people mindful of the future? It just feels very different now, like they are all anxious young people when they come home to visit (and then a topic of conversation by the parents after the kids go back from fall break).

    1. I went to a commuter college but knew I only had four years to get it done so I did. I studied hard enough to get by, partied enough to have a decent social life, but wasn’t trying to excel in either of these areas. Mostly I was trying to be employed and set myself up for post-graduation employment through internships and knew there was no reason to stress for an A when a B or C would work just as well towards graduating.

      1. I am currently taking a class at a community college that is a pre-req for many healthcare fields and it is brutal. It’s so hard to get upper-level slots that anything less than a full A gets you so low on the priority list that many repeat for a higher grade. And unlike fancy colleges, they will fail you and not feel bad about it. No one’s dad is writing the dean and you can just retake it or work on skills and then retake it.

        I think that there was a lot of learning loss that started with COVID and those kids are now old enough to feel the pain of that with their writing and math and anything that is cumulative as far as skills go.

        1. Teachers have complained that students are either super stars or hopelessly behind, with very little in between. A lot of teacher training is aimed at reaching the “in between” who used to be the majority of students, so apparently it’s become tricky, and isn’t something previously encountered. I don’t know if it’s true that it’s still just the fallout of how time was spent during the school closures (getting ahead vs. falling behind).

    2. What would you call in between? I’m both an old and a recent grad of a flagship state U and don’t really understand what “in between” you’re getting at. I think for those who are either paying for school themselves or need the personal connections and network college can help with, it’s clearer now than it ever was how high the stakes are and that it’s essential that you make the most of your opportunities while in school.

      1. As a counterpoint to this prevailing wisdom, my son graduated in May from a small mid-tier Midwestern college, and he and all of his friends have jobs in their majors. He and his friends did not major in liberal arts, but liberal arts grads’ having a hard time getting hired is a tale as old as time. (So old that I mentioned it in my law school admissions essay about it back in the 80s.) I don’t know the actual stats, of course, but I do know that many, many new grads are getting jobs.

        1. Nice story. Here’s some stats:

          Postings & Shrinking Pipelines: U.S. entry-level and junior job postings are down roughly 29% to 35% compared to prior years, with recent college graduates (ages 22–27) facing an unemployment rate around 5.6%.

          The share of salaried jobs open to candidates with no experience has fallen 73% in four years. Inexperienced candidates are now welcomed in just one in 50 openings, down from one in 15 in 2022.

          https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2026/08/02/what-the-changes-in-entry-level-jobs-mean-for-new-college-graduates/

    4. That’s how I remember college in the olden days. The people who were going to graduate and the people who might not!

      1. I had some friends checking to see if they had the 2.0 they needed to graduate. IDK why since they were as smart as I was and have been reasonably successful grownups with jobs. Maybe “just graduate” was seen as an adequate goal then vs now it seems that kids want to have good grades (good = A; I was happy with A/B grades and a happy social life).

        1. There’s been a lot of credential creep, so I wonder if more students expect they’ll need additional schooling and a transcript / recommendation letters to support that.

        2. “Good = straight A’s” could pretty easily reflect the same level of academic performance as “Good = mostly B’s” did not so long ago

    5. I have one a year out of college and two in college. I have one in your first category, one working somewhat hard but also having a fair amount of fun, and one working very hard but also having lots of fun. So I’d say two in the middle but at different intensities, if that makes sense. I can’t really say how accurately that reflects the overall college scene.
      I feel like only a certain demographic can get away with being in your second category – either you’re rich or you just don’t care. My kids know that we are feeling the impact of paying for college, and we have required them to take the basic student loans that are offered so they have some skin in the game, so they know that there is an expectation that they put in the work to get good grades.
      My two were home for fall break last weekend and I would not call them anxious. We talked about classes they were somewhat worried about or seeking out more help with, but I wouldn’t call either of them an anxious mess and their friends don’t seem to be either.

      1. In our eastern third of the country, it seems that many kids want to go to big SEC/ACC schools. Girls who might be indifferent don’t want to go to a college that is over 70% female. So there are some kids at what could be party schools for some because of non-party reasons (including that these schools are the “good” in-state options). It’s complicated. I do know some hard-working kids who are having fun at, oddly, engineering-type “tech” universities, but it may also be that they are happy not stepping over vomit in the morning and having good job prospects. Hard to say.

        1. I had a lot of fun at my very engineering, very tech school! And absolutely, there were parties and kids who enjoyed partying and kids who didn’t. But all of us enjoyed building stuff. Don’t study engineering if you hate it, but if you like it and college manages to suck the joy out of it (which is very different from: sometimes a hard class is hard), that’s either a bad school or a bad fit!

    6. I mean, I also went to university *checks notes* 20 years ago and I was very anxious and studious and unfun. I barely had fun at all, didn’t party until occasionally during my senior year, and was anxious all the time. I overstudied, overworked, and overworried. It was not a great time. I did well in college and have done well in my career but I didn’t get much personal or social growth out of it as I probably could have and don’t look back on it with fond memories. But I also knew so many people who were more like me, at least in that they didn’t party much, or even at all. They studied, they did research, they worked. So I don’t think this is new. But kids like me aren’t interesting or troublesome, so we don’t make the news or have think pieces written about them. Whether the “in betweens” still exist now, I can’t comment on.

    7. I feel like this was always the model, especially at big state universities. Being unique for having a place for all the “in between” students has been a major part of the brand of SLACs and to a lesser extent academically selective private universities, since I went to college 25 years ago.

    8. Honestly, it’s social media. Either you have embraced a I’m Cool Because I Party personality or an I’m Cool Because I Focus And Grind personality. And you are very aware that you can be caught in the background on someone else’s stories, Snaps, etc., so you want to be in alignment with whatever persona you’re curating.

      I was a library kid who also drank hard on Wednesdays and weekends for at least two of the years. But you’re right, that doesn’t seem to coexist as much among my younger cousins. It’s like they’re curating their image already, instead of still trying on different personalities to see what fits. Idk how to describe it.

    9. I have a kid in college and so do most of my friends. In my observation it is not the ones who are constantly studying who are anxious. It is the ones who don’t know how to study or can’t make themselves and are always behind. The ones who are on top of things are relaxed and confident.

    1. Agree. Corduroy is inherently ugly. Maybe it’s trauma from being a kid of the 70s, but I hate it.

  7. I have to go to a gala-type event with my husband and his coworkers, who I don’t really know at all. I am nervous. Historically, despite trying, I always miss the mark in terms of how I look and am dressed. I am reserved and never the life of the party. In short, events like this bring out whatever latent social anxiety that I have because I’m not the cool girl. It’s important to my DH that I go to this but I am dreading it. The dress code is one of those that is weirdly specific and yet very open to interpretation, shall we say.

    1. What kind of venue? Historic hotel/robber baron mansion? Trendy restaurant? Fundraiser or the firm is patting itself on its back? What exactly is the dress code?

      I’d ask a friend to go with you to a good department store like Nordstrom or Dillards or even Saks.

      1. Cowboy chic is the theme. I have boots but the rest is a mystery. Casual? Dressy? Gala is what they call it, but DH says it’s way more casual than that.

        1. Oy. Don’t even try to play along with that. Unless you are in Texas this is just silly. Shame on the organizers. Clearly one of them thinks she has the perfect outfit, but has nowhere to wear it so has set this theme up to highlight herself, while making everyone else jump through hoops and look ridiculous.

        2. Bandana scarves are actually on trend right now (like, not a costume bandana, a dressier version) so that could be a way to nod to the theme but buy something actually useful?

        3. SEUS here, and cowboy chic is having a moment. It’s boots and a dress or boots and fancy jeans with a fringed vest. If you have cowboy boots, you’re half-way there. Add something with fringe or a flounce, and you’re set.

          1. Agree. Look at what the country music stars are wearing to the grammys, and take it 2 steps down from that.

        4. Understanding you may not want to tell us the exact name, can you google it to see pictures from past years? if its a fundraiser they usually will have a photographer.

          also look at the venue and the pictures- if its a restuarant for example you should be able to see pics of the inside to get a sense.

          If you look up the Boden Juliet Jersey midi dress dark cherry- I might do that with boots (not cowboy boots unless you already have them).

          or at Ann taylor loft: the Border Floral Ruffle Neck Midi dress (on sale today). loft actually has a few things that might work

      1. Having attended multiple cowboy chic-themed events, those are too dressy. Maybe not in other cities.

      2. These don’t look cowboy chic at all to me.

        I’d wear some kind of house on the prairie floral nap dress still hanging around my closet, a western passing shirt dress, or one of the fringe or tassel trimmed cocktail dresses they’re selling now.

      1. Amen to this. And if you ask people questions about themselves, they will think you are a cool girl.

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