Suit of the Week: Max Mara

72 Comments

1. what is the best updated version of those older lip paints where it felt like dried dirt on your lips but the color stayed for hours and hours? I’m more interested in a real color not a subtle stain, which is everything I seem to find.

   1. Have you tried the Superstay options from Maybelline? I have a couple of the “vinyl” (non-matte) ones and they’re pretty long lasting without drying. You have to shake them before application.

   2. I have some from Chanel that fits this description. It has been a minute since I last purchased.

      1. Agree with the Chanel rec (LE ROUGE DUO ULTRA TENUE) as a very good option.

         For a much cheaper dupe, I like L’Oréal Paris Infallible Liquid Lipstick (I prefer the matte version as the shiny is a bit sticky, but still long lasting)

   3. I recently discovered Kulfi Lip Staining Lip Oil and I am obsessed. Pigmented, moisturizing, lasts for hours. It’s at Sephora

   4. Fenty Poutsicle lip stain

   5. Chanel lip duo. Lasts forever but doesn’t dry your lips. The Maybelline Vinyl is a little more drying but good staying power if you are looking for drugstore. Things like the peel off stains or benetint don’t really last IMHO

   6. I use Revlon Colorstay, the one with color on one side and gloss on the other. The gloss prevents the dry lips.

      1. Same but I skip the gloss.

2. I have an interview coming up for a senior position. I’m in banking, not a lawyer. Is the interview advice still to wear a suit? I do not wear suits in my current job, and I don’t wear dress pants either (I tend to wear longer, flowy dresses). I’m struggling with what type of dress to wear with a suit jacket or blazer. Do I just buy the typical suiting material dress with a matching jacket? I feel like those are all in a sheath silhouette, which looks terrible on me (I have a belly and huge boobs). Help!

   1. in law, not banking, but many senior women are wearing a ‘column of color’ (pants and top) with a non-matching jacket for high-profile meetings.

   2. buy a suit or nice pants and a jacket. there’s no way you will go wrong.

      1. +1

   3. You still need to wear suiting pieces (so no flowy dresses), but you do not need to wear a matching suit. To wit, a statement blazer with a pair of slacks or a dress. IMO, it’s perfectly ok to wear pieces in colors like eggplant or pine.

      1. This. I’d also lean more towards more substantial fabrics than what you see in men suiting. The thin tropical suiting is more seen in the court room and younger team members, whereas you are aiming for something with a bit more weight (literally) to it.

      2. Agree. I’m in i-banking. This is the right advice. I don’t wear a suit but interviewing someone not in a suit would stand out (rightly or wrongly).

   4. Interviews are putting on a performance! Get the suit, and the manicure, and wear the bland uncomfortable shirt! You don’t need to reflect your true daily attire you need to make them think you fit their box.

      1. Why force yourself to wear an uncomfortable shirt? There are plenty of polished, perfectly appropriate styles that don’t leave you feeling frumpy or make you stand out for fidgeting with gapes.

   5. OP here…I’m still struggling to picture the type of dress that I should wear with a suit. Sheath dress, even though it looks horrible on me? Can anyone post links or photos?

      1. if you don’t want to wear a sheath type of dress, then you should wear pants for the interview.

      2. If you want to wear a dress, I think a sheath dress with a blazer is the best option for an interview. Like Cat said, if you don’t want to wear a sheath dress, you should wear pants.

      3. You need a pants suit.

      4. You can potentially get away with a non-sheath dress, one that has an A-line shape, however it is important for it to be in a heavy fabric or suiting fabric and a solid color. Some M M La Fleur dresses fit the bill.

3. How much longer do you think the Nancy Guthrie case is going to continue to get this level of police resources? A woman went missing here (her car was discovered by a trailhead in a state park after video showed her with a strange man) and police stopped looking after 4 days. The family’s now-routine plea in the town FB group yesterday made me think of the discrepancy between her and Nancy, when the families are both suffering the same, but Nancy’s got fame on her side.

   1. Police stopping is different than media stopping. I feel like we don’t know what the police are doing, but we know what the media is doing. For a small town near many jurisdictions, it’s not clear to me what else might need to be done (grim regardless).

   2. Fame and resources have everything to do with it, along with national media attention. With the spotlight on the Guthrie case, police can’t drop their investigation.
      Without those resources, a missing person is subject to local resources and the efforts of family to maintain police focus. There are plenty of true crime cases where the perpetrator was brought to justice because the family hounded detectives to stay on the case. Many others where the family’s constant calls were ignored or not prioritized.
      It is not fair, or evenly distributed. Often a body needs to be found before the case is given additional attention.
      My heart goes out to the families missing loved ones.
      A friend went missing in 2000, her case was investigated for weeks but leads dried up fairly quickly, it was assumed she had taken her own life since she had a history of mental illness. Her body turned up in a trailer months later, she had been kidnapped, then shot. The body of a man was also found at that location. Their killer was found and is now in prison. But there was a significant break in the investigation between her going missing and her car being located, leading to the discovery of her body and the other man’s remains as well. Horrifying stuff.

      1. There is a case near me of a woman who went missing and was found dead at the bottom of a canyon. The police also decided it was a suicide, but her family does not agree. It makes you wonder how common this is. If you can blame it on mental health, it’s a convenient conclusion when the case is going nowhere.

         1. There’s a case near me where a woman went missing and was found shot dead in a ditch. They never found the gun but almost immediately (like the next day’s headline) wrapped the case up as suicide, though family and friends didn’t agree.

            I think it’s not just about convenience; I think it’s about propping up property values with better crime stats.

            1. I have always been interested in investigations and detective work, since reading all of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys and any associates YA mysteries as a kid, to Forensic Files and that ilk as an adult. These stories are harrowing, and the majority of them have a conclusion, with the bad guy (in the gender neutral sense) behind bars.
               The unanswered questions are their own awful flavor of unsettling.
               Some folks understandably prefer to avoid these stories, they are upsetting. I prefer to know what my fellow humans are capable of. Killers can be highly prepared – real life Dexters. Or they can bumble their way through. Either way, they look like anyone else – there’s no identifying them based on looks or manner. Sobering.

   3. This is a separate but true reality that attractive white women often get more attention than women of color. Wealthier people get more attention. Savannah Guthrie is very well connected so a large share of attention and resources are available to her. But even that may not result in better outcomes or effective law enforcement work.

4. Help me understand how PT works.

   I am the emergency contact for an elderly relative with no other family. He has a 2-story house, but due to frailty and a recent hospital stay, can’t really go back there. The thinking is to transition him to an apartment in my city where he can use elevators and it’s all on one level. PT thinks both that 1) he can’t go back to his house due to all bedrooms / bathrooms being upstairs and difficulty with things like taking trashcans to the street AND 2) that he is fine, even though he doesn’t have the walking speed to navigate a 4-lane urban street in the time that walk signs are on (timed to traffic lights). So they (the PT people), don’t want to ask to get him approved for more PT working on . . . whatever you need to work on re functional walking speed.

   IDK how you can be both “fine” and not fine and really want to scream into the void. I’m a native English speaker. But not medical or PT speak. What words do I need to use to urge them to keep going with the PT? I feel that bodies are “use or lose” and that if they abandon him, he will really not be able to manage even an apartment.

   1. Is this about what PT wants to provide or about what insurance will cover? Generally I think insurance will not cover PT to return someone all the way to their previous level of functioning. There is either a limit on the number of sessions covered annually or on the level of function allowed before PT is discontinued.

   2. Gently, your relative is elderly. Not being able to cross the crosswalk in the allotted time is a perfectly normal diminution of abilities. That doesn’t mean he can’t plod around an 800 sq ft apartment and make himself a PBJ and shower with a grab bar. I’m not sure what the urban crosswalk has to do with him getting an apartment, but at this stage, plans need to be made for the future decline in abilities.

   3. I think you need to ask for different terminology than “fine” because that’s clearly subjective and maybe not even applicable to the situation. Some patients go to rehab or a nursing home after being in the hospital until their bodies are capable of functioning safely in their homes, if they have no help navigating stairs/bathrooms/daily life activities. Is that an option for your relative? Some insurance will cover it (you can ask). It could take weeks for your relative to be able to manage stairs or build walking speed. Perhaps the PTs know this, and they don’t want this person to be in an unsafe environment during that time? It isn’t that they are giving up on this person, they just know this person needs a different environment for the time being for safety reasons? You might also want to ask if it’s a refusal due to insurance or because of other reasons. Sometimes insurance restricts the amount of PT a patient can get if they show no improvement.

      1. It’s unclear. It feels like they are annoyed at being asked questions.

         He lived at home prior to what I think was maybe a TIA that resolved, that led to a hospital stay. He became really weak then and was probably malnourished for a month or so prior to that (some chicken and egg going on, but he was anemic but with very high sugars when he was found one day in a bad state). So I think that this isn’t PT to get back to his youth, but to give him a chance to see if his recent loss of functioning (which had been high for an older man) can be regained. Or if this is permanent.

         PT insists that he needs 24/7 to return home as he isn’t “safe” but he wouldn’t be safe in an urban environment, so the need to be very stable on his feet isn’t really going away. Or as stable as possible.

         I have said that he / we could pay for PT if insurance doesn’t cover it, but they say it’s unethical for them to work that way (which sounds crazy to me — I know PTs in my city and how sports PT works and can’t believe that this is true). It’s almost like I would prefer to hire an elder-care personal trainer for him, if that exists. But if his walking and balance is problematic, a fall will take him out dealing with sidewalks and just a few steps if the traffic doesn’t.

         1. Part of a PTs job is to educate clients, so the fact that they seemed annoyed at your questions isn’t good. I would get another assessment from a different PT at another company. But keep in mind sports/outpatient PT isn’t the same thing as providing PT to patients who just got out of the hospital. There are probably different goals and expectations, and levels of risk and limits to what insurance will cover. I think you need to come up with a list of questions, and set up a time to calmly go through them with the PT, or the PT’s manager. They may have important information for you that you aren’t understanding.

         2. I don’t want to discourage you, but restoring full function is rarely a thing that happens with elderly patients. Some functioning is considered a success. They’re nicely telling you to temper your expectations. Even with ongoing PT, you’re really looking at maintenance and restoring some, but not most, functioning. That’s why they’re saying it would be unethical to continue. Your goals are fundamentally different.

   4. Unfortunately, this is normal.

      Medicare only pays for therapy when you are showing improvement at the mysterious rate they decide is acceptable, and in some instances/diagnoses, to prevent further decline. Medicare only cares about function inside the home at this point. And someone with his level of disability probably should not be crossing busy streets alone at a crosswalk anyway.

      As someone who took care of my parents intensively, I have had many struggles with PT to get more therapy. You basically need to be there at the therapy appointments, learning what the goals of therapy are and suggesting knew ones, within the guidelines of Medicare. You need to be very nice, and push the therapists for more. A phone call from afar when you don’t realize that “crossing a busy street” is not an acceptable Medicare goal, unfortunately doesn’t help. It took me time to learn what to do and how to fight for my parents situations, which were each different.

      What can you do? If he is doing PT in the home right now, you can ask his PCP to write a script for outpatient PT. Then you have to take him to outpatient appointments at a local PT. Inconvenient for you, so you could hire someone to take him. Expensive. Or you could hire a private PT/trainer to work with him at home. Many wealthy people do this. My rich relatives pay PTs and pilates instructors to come to their homes indefinitely to keep them moving.

      You should have a social worker involved at this point trying to find out what resources are available to seniors in your city. Hopefully meals on wheels, a shuttle bus to help him get around (if that is safe), and possibly subsidized homecare visits if he qualifies in your State’s Department of Aging programs.

      Good luck. It is very hard.

   5. I think the operative questions would be under what circumstances they would say he could go back to his house. If his balance were better? If his blood pressure didn’t fluctuate so much? If he had more muscles and was less frail? Those aren’t necessarily things PT can work on but it will clarify the issue in your mind. You can also pay out of pocket for PT, I’ve done that in the past.

      If he’s over 75 though this is probably for the best.

   6. Caution that an apartment has its challenges too. Consider a first floor apartment (or at least a building with multiple elevators). I’ve seen my elderly neighbors here on the second floor struggle mightily on the stairs when the elevator was disabled for a few days. They also have trouble walking down the hallway to the elevator or from the elevator to the entrance. And how would they exit during a fire or other emergency?

      1. Deliveries can be a real issue in upper story apartments too (just because something is supposed to be delivered to someone’s door doesn’t mean it happens).

   7. Translated in simple English and bluntly – he needs bedroom, kitchen, bathroom on some level plus to be near family who can drive him to the grocery store and check on him regularly. The latter could potentially be outsourced with money, and it seems like the former can’t be solved in his current house. All the other items (walking out for the trash, walking across the street) are the tail wagging the dog. Moving to an apartment in your city is the quickest way to solve the first sentence. It’s tough but they are subtly telling you, he needs to live near you or in some form of assisted living.

      1. This. They’re saying he should not be living alone unless his house is set up to accommodate that and family members are willing to help. A lot. The “not crossing the street” thing is kind of irrelevant. Even with PT, at his age, that is not likely to happen again.

      2. Agree with this that he needs a physical environment to age in place. Is there a reason it needs to be in your city? Asking because he may have friends and a community where he is now. There are some options depending on real estate and finances. One is he could stay at home with a caregiver and a lift. Two, he can sell the house, and rent an assisted living apartment that includes meals. They’re expensive – where I live, there $8k-$20k a month so you have to do a hard assessment on finances and health.

   8. Honestly? Step back and listen to yourself. He’s not a car engine and PT is not a mechanic. He’s an aging human with a body that doesn’t work like it used to. He’s not declining AT you.

5. How do you handle job applications when there are two roles that are similar but not overlapping, and you qualify for both? This is at a large corporation where I don’t have any contacts and can’t get a sense of how they might screen applicants. They are in the same functional area, but I can’t tell if they are in the same reporting line.
   Job A is listed for someone with 8-12 years experience and focuses on special projects.
   Job B is more of a SME in a narrower area, calling for 5-8 years of experience.

   I have 10 years experience, good expertise doing broad special projects in the related field – early in my career I worked in the narrower area but have branched out since then. But I’m interested in both, genuinely, and would be happy doing either to get my foot in the door at this company.

   Do I just apply for both and see what happens? Reference the fact that I’m applying to both in a cover letter (required)? Only pick the more senior one and hope for the best?

   1. I’d apply to the more senior one, but note in your cover letter that you also saw Job B, and are open to a discussion for that role if the company thinks that’s a better fit for your skills.

      1. I don’t think you can assume your resume/cover letter will be read by a person in the initial stages so I’d apply to both. That way hopefully you get moved to the next steps for at least one of the positions. As Cat says, I’d reference in the cover letter that you’re interested in both.

   2. Apply for both. The company recruiter might be the same since they’re in the same functional area, but the SME review, who will see your resume, and the hiring panels will be different. Good luck!

6. What’s everyone having for dinner tonight? Tortilla fish for us, probably with roasted broccoli.

   1. Rice pilaf, roasted broccoli, smothered chicken breasts with crushed tomatoes/bacon.

      1. I’m on my way, want me to pick up anything? :)

   2. cheese and crackers :)

   3. Beet pickled eggs with sour cream and broad bread toast, maybe some canned fish.

   4. Chicken drum sticks with a paprika marinade, baked in the oven on a huge bed of all veggies I could find (bell pepper, carrots, chickpeas, cocktail tomatoes, zucchini, all tossed with the same marinade). My family will probably demand pasta with it.

   5. Homemade tomato soup. Left over lamb. Bread.

   6. Blue Apron. Probably “sheet pan Asian crispy shrimp.”

   7. Pasta, Gardein, veggies.

      Vegetarian and Catholic, so I don’t have cheese on Fridays during Lent and Ash Wednesday.

   8. Leftover spaghetti bolognaise, with a sugary cranberry scone for dessert.

7. I love this suit!

   1. me too

8. Can I brag a little? I can’t really tell anybody IRL yet, but I just got the call that I’ve been approved to join the board of a nonprofit I’ve supported for a long time, and really admire, and is very prominent in my town. It won’t happen until the beginning of their fiscal year in July, but I’m VERY EXCITED!! Yay!!

   1. It’s late, so I wanted to make sure you got a very joyful congratulations!!!!!

   2. Congrats!!!

   3. Congratulations, Senior Attorney! That is wonderful!

   4. Fantastic — congratulations!

   5. So exciting!! Congrats!!

   6. What wonderful news! Congratulations!

   7. Congrats!!

   8. Go, YOU! Well deserved! Wishing you success!

   9. Aw, thanks, everybody!

   10. Congrats!

Comments are closed.