Suit of the Week
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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, which should be as classic and basic as you get — instead, this feature is about the slightly different suit that is fashionable, yet professional.
Happy Wednesday! Today we're liking this herringbone suit from Ted Baker, available at Nordstrom. The skirt was what caught our eye first, with the interesting button detailing up the side, as well as the great color of gray. We like the single, highly placed button, and we're curious to see the “vintage lining.” Lovely! The jacket (Ted Baker ‘Meriado' Wool Blend Herringbone Jacket) is $350, and the skirt (Ted Baker London ‘Vanni' Herringbone Pencil Skirt) is $185.
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Really liked this until I saw the buttons on the skirt. I’m not a fan of those.
I also think that unbuttoning them wouldn’t create a “more dramatic slit” it would just look sloppy (besides being too much leg for the office).
Oh, what a beautiful suit, and i love the side buttons! Ted Baker is my favorite brand by far. They manage to make their clothes classic yet edgy. And their quality is impeccable, in my experience.
I love the side buttons :-) I think the gray and the rest of the suit’s classic lines would keep it from being too over the top.
Love the suit minus the buttons. Buttons never seem to stay on my clothes.
Love the suit, hate the price. I loved the button details until you brought up this point – I can never have the buttons stay put after buying a suit! This suit quadruples that problem.
I love this suit wholeheartedly. Clearly the buttons on the skirt would stay fastened in the office, and I like the decorative touch they add. The strange numeric sizing throws me off a bit, does anyone have experience with how Ted Baker fits?
TB tends to run small by American standards. If you are a small size 4, I would be getting a suit in 1.
Thanks Dasha!
Love it! Just enough personality with the buttons, but not cheesy or cheap looking.
Beautiful in every way! If only I could afford it. Any chance it’ll ever be on sale?
I can’t speak for the US sadly but in the UK Ted Baker stuff goes to half price (usually) in June and in December – post Christmas.
So pretty! I really like the detailing. I was going to say that surely the buttons are not functional, bc no one would ever actually unbutton them, but checked out the site and they totally are – ha!
This is actually still cracking me up. I am picturing the day-to-evening possibilities where you just unbutton the dramatic slit in your gray suit and voila. Hello, gentlemen!
Haha! I can imagine the infomercial now…
I gotta admit… I totally dig this suit and would buy it in a heartbeat if the skirt weren’t cut on the bias which isn’t the most flattering cut on me. The skirts is beautiful and I would definitely unbutton the buttons (not all of them, of course!) if I were meeting my husband for a nice after-work dinner and cocktail on a Friday evening. Speaking of which, I should call him and see what he’s doing on Friday….
Not to be ignorant but what does “cut on the bias” mean?
It’s the way the fabric is cut. I’m no expert, but in this case the fabric of the skirt is cut so that the weave of the fabric is on a 45 degree angle to the seams (as opposed to perpendicular). It’s a very sexy and classic cut that is intended to “accentuate curves”.. but I have curves a plenty it just seems to cling a bit too much on me. Of course, this is only my opinion. I love the look on red carpet dresses worn by movie stars – it just doesn’t usually work for me.
I could be wrong, but I think it means that the fabric is cut against the grain. Meaning that if the fabric is woven it has a set up and down weave pattern, and when the tailor “cuts it on the bias” she sort of cuts diagonally at an angle to the weave pattern. Does that make sense? it changes the way the fabric lays on a person, usually making it more flowy so it skims the body smoothly.
That is what cut on the bias means, but in my experience it has the opposite effect. Rather than skimming the body, it attacks my curves (and I am not particularly curvy) and hugs them and then looks overly tight there and loose everywhere else. Highly unflattering.
woven fabric has warp threads and weft threads that are interlocked together to create the fabric.
when something is cut on the bias, it’s cut with the pattern set at a diagonal to the straight edges of the fabric. so instead of the warp and weft threads running horizontally and vertically relative to your body when the garment is worn, the threads are at an angle. if you look carefully at the skirt above, you can see the darker threads running diagonally from top left to bottom right.
bias cut garments have different draping, fit and stretch compared to garments cut along the “grain.”
Thanks all, very helpful :)
I LOVE those buttons! I was very bored with the suit until I saw them.
Yes, I like this as well.
Bound buttonholes. Impressive. Easy to reinforce the sewing on the skirt buttons. Or get a tailor to slip-stitch it shut good and solid from the inside.
I love this!
I love this, too! Great job with this one, Kat.
New motivation to find a job- need to buy this suit!
Hi. I’m still in college, but because I am planning a career as a lawyer, I’ve been frequenting this site with alarming regularity. All of the advice on this website is amazing.
I’ve noticed that Corporette recommends a lot of suit-skirts, and if there’s one thing I hate more than crocs, it is a suit-skirt. Odd, because I love dressing up in teeny skirts for nights out. However, I usually avoid wearing skirts because I have athletic calves and I feel more comfortable (especially when dressing up) in sleek pants. Would it be detrimental to a career in law if I don’t invest in skirt suits? (Just as a sidenote, I plan on being an intellectual property lawyer, not a courthouse lawyer.)
transactional biglaw attorney here (originally planned on IP, discovered I didn’t really like the work, now doing corporate/tech transactions) — I haven’t worn a suit at all (except for the occasional networking event) since my first day of work. No, I haven’t been underdressed for any client meetings. Stick with pantsuits!
This is great. But I need to ask, what was it about IP that you didn’t like? Was it the kind of work you had to take on? Or did you end up just more interested in corporate/tech transactions? (I really don’t know what that means, er…) I’m just wondering, because I enjoy contracts, editing, copyrights, and the fact that ideas are considered property – things I would be able to play around with or manipulate – and that’s why I got interested in IP. Do you have any advice about the field in the real world?
IP law just doesn’t appeal to everyone. I have friends doing patent prosecution now and one loves the patent process while the other finds it to be monotonous/boring. Patent litigation can be more interesting, but many firms want people with very specific backgrounds. One year a firm may be looking to hire people with chemical or electrical engineering degrees, or even master’s degrees in engineering. Most firms will also want to see your undergraduate transcript to ensure that you did well in your IP-related courses.
Are you going into patent? I think there are limits on how far you can go as an IP lawyer if you aren’t a patent lawyer.
I’d recommend one or two for interviews, but other than that, you should be fine with pant suits.
If you read some of the other posts on this site you’ll see that there are still a few judges, senior partners, etc. who think that skirt suits are more formal, and we Corporette readers debate whether you should cater to them (will it really matter? should you wear pants anyway to stand up for your right to do so even if it does matter?).
But for everyday office-type activities, a nice pant suit is fine. I wear them to job interviews, client meetings, court, etc.
I’m not a fan of skirtsuits either…mostly because I hate wearing stockings, and being cold in the winter…
I would stock up on at least one, or invest in suit separates – jacket, pants, and skirt that match, so you can swap out the pants/skirt if you run into a judge/job interview/etc. where all indicators point towards a skirt being a distinctively better choice.
I’m a business litigator in BigLaw. I wear skirt suits on rare occasions, when in front of judges that expect it. Otherwise, I live in pantsuits and, for days when I’m not leaving the office, separates. I would say that you should invest in one “just in case” skirt suit. Otherwise, you’ll be fine with a wardrobe of pantsuits and/or separates – depending upon how dressy your office is. The IP lawyers at my firm are all over the place from really casual business casual to suits every day, but a pantsuit would be perfectly appropriate.
I’m an attorney, and the only place I feel I must wear a skirt suit is in front of a jury. I think you’ll be fine with all pantsuits.
Be warned that Ted Baker runs small – I was guilty of buying a suit rather hurriedly in the sales, getting my usual size, not looking carefully in the changing room to see how it draped, etc. I can wear the suit but I’d never wear it to first meeting with a client, etc – it’s just too tight.