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Suit of the Week: Chloé

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.

December tends to be a pretty slow time for new suits, so here's another designer option for some inspiration: I'm loving the nubby wool of this Chloé suit, as well as the general vibe — the off-center satin tie on the blazer, the loose, fluted skirt, the way the entire outfit is styled. Love love love. (Here's a link to that bag or the boots if you're curious.)

The blazer is $3895, and the skirt is $2595 at Matches.com.

This post contains affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. For more details see here. Thank you so much for your support!

Sales of note for 12.5

Sales of note for 12.5

And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!

Some of our latest threadjacks include:

89 Comments

  1. On a much lighter note, I am ready to binge-watch all the Christmas movies. Not the classics, but dare I say, more of the rom-com Hallmark variety. I need something lighthearted! Any ideas? I just watched Single All the Way on Netflix. It’s super campy and not realistic, but I enjoyed it anyway.

      1. Second this! Just rewatched it yesterday. Something so cozy about Norwegian Christmas traditions and of course the characters are great.

    2. I like Danica McKellar b/c she is out and proud about being a girl who likes math. I love her books. She has a bunch of Hallmark (or Hallmark-ish) holiday movies and I watch even though it’s not my thing so that her movies are seen to do well.

    3. Is that the one with the girl from vampire diaries? That was cute, I enjoyed it!

    8. For about $6 you can add the Hallmark Channel to your Prime membership and watch all the holiday flicks. Cancel after a month.

    9. If you’re a Peloton fan, the Hallmark movie One Royal Holiday has my favorite Peloton actor/instructor Bradley Rose. He’s really funny as an instructor and it was nice to see him as an actor.

    10. The Knight Before Christmas on Netflix is really stupid but incredibly cute and funny.

      1. OMG that was hilarious! My favorite part was the medieval knight totally learning how to operate the big screen TV like he’d been doing it all his life!

    11. The 12 Dates of Christmas on Amazon Prime. Mark Paul Gosselaar and Amy Smart – adorable.

  2. Has anyone bought anything from Buru? I saw an item on the Mom Edit and now I want all of the (washable) things. Especially if they have smocked waists. OTOH, I can’t figure out when I’d wear b/c I can get away with looking sloppy even at the office (I’m not a fan of sloppy, but my office is very cold, so it is very turtleneck + cords right now unless I need to look very Responsible). Has anyone bought anything from them?

  3. Talk to me about dermaplaning. The little blond hairs seem to be getting more noticeable, but is this one of those things like shaving where it only gets worse and you can’t ever stop shaving once you start?

    1. Dermaplaning is shaving, and no it doesn’t make the hairs worse.

      I have had this done at a spa, and the difference between doing it there and at home with a tinkle razor was negligible. Definitely wasn’t worth paying that much, in my opinion. I just use the tinkle razor once a month, and it takes about 5 mins. You can look up dermaplaning on YouTube for lots of videos.

    2. I thought that was a myth about shaving? In any event, yes your hair will keep growing like it is now, so if you don’t like the way it is now then you will need to keep up with removing it.

    3. I’m about to do it today. The hairs don’t become stubbly like your leg hairs but I will say I notice them more when they grow back in, maybe because they’re all the same length? Anyway, I just keep up with it because I like being smooth and also appreciate the gentle exfoliation effect.

    4. It doesn’t make the hairs worse at all. That said, I didn’t love it. My skin was really wind burnt feeling afterward, and the prickly feeling of it growing back in really bothered me. Personally, I didn’t feel there was a lot of benefit in how my makeup went on or how my products worked. So, I’m back to living with the little blond peach fuzz. I know a lot of people who love it though–I think I’m an outlier.

  4. Has anyone bought chairs from Levity Home (dot com)? They are in my social media feed and their deal seems to be washable chair cushion covers (definitely a plus for me, as I cannot generally have nice things). I gather you order vs trying on in a show room but the comments are generally “good and easy to put together; covers washed well.” I need a chair and plain wood would not be comfy enough. Not an office chair per se, but I read prospectuses better if I can be comfy and snuggled under a blanket.

  5. The boots seem nice, but are about $1000 more than my Fryes which don’t look that different.

    1. Agree. I will spend $$ on unique or high-quality classic shoes, but I would not spend $$$ or $$$$ on shoes for which there is a quality duplicate for much less. These definitely fall into that category. I think they look rather shapeless, actually, which is not what I would pay for in very high-end shoes.

      1. It me appreciate my Fryes more (and they were spendy for me at the time). The purse looks like a change purse on steroids. I’m sure that someone like Queen Maxima could totally pull it off though.

  6. The husband/tampon thread this morning got me thinking, where is the line between normalizing/destigmatizing talk about hygiene products versus protecting girls from inappropriate interactions with grown men? I think there’s something very troubling about telling young girls, it’s ok for grown men to make you uncomfortable (by talking about intimate/hygiene products).

    Fwiw something similar happened to me when I was a kid. My uncle did a lot of weird boundary pushing stuff throughout my childhood. When I was 12, he asked me where pads were located in the grocery store because he was getting some for his wife. I turned bright red and fumbled with an “idk” and he was all, what you’re a girl why are you embarrassed? I was chastised (by my mother and other family members) for not just answering the question – even though I wasn’t exactly doing my own grocery shopping at 12 so I had no idea where to find them. He also did things like burst into my locked bedroom without knocking, not realizing that I was changing, and then acted like it’s nbd because he’s family. I’ve been reflecting a lot on how these types of interactions led me to second guess my instincts when it came to being uncomfortable around men.

    1. Ugh. I’m sorry about your uncle grooming you and your family not seeming to protect you.

      I think about this question a lot too. I have a 12 year old step daughter and the balance of what is appropriate and what isn’t is difficult. For example, she will proudly tell me and her dad that her first day of her period is a heavy flow. Like, unprompted and unrelated to any conversation we are having. I try to say “periods are great but some information is private – you don’t need to tell us that.” But like, and I the ahole in that? Is that shaming?

      1. I think that you didn’t want to know that, but its also no grosser than your kid giving you some non-period-related TMI about her life. I had a reproductive issue as a teenager, told my dad absolutely everything because it was a medical issue like absolutley any other, including once that the doctor wanted me to get a v*ginal ultrasound and I didn’t want to, and I am so so grateful that he did not treat it as anything weird/strange/different from any other medical issue.

        So, thinking it through, I do think that you were overreacting to TMI about her period vs other TMI.

        1. I agree with this. I think it’s actually a good thing that she’s sharing this information. She is probably trying to gauge whether her experience is normal, even if she’s not saying that or asking directly. Imagine if instead of telling you that the first day is a heavy flow, she said that she has 6 or 7 days of heavy flow. Would that raise a flag for you that her periods were a little unusual and maybe there was a medical issue going on? Or that she had really unbearable cramps, even after taking pain relievers? Maybe you can tell her that you don’t need to know how her flow is for every period, but you do want her to tell you if it changes in any way, since that could signal a problem.

          1. I agree. I would so much rather my kid overshare than undershare. A lot of period symptoms can cause physical and mental anguish and I would hate for my kid to be suffering from a treatable ailment in silence.

        2. +1 I think you’re overreacting. My dad will stick his hands in his ears and go lalalala whenever I say anything about my period/menstruation, even if it’s in context and I’m now almost 40, and it drives me CRAZY. Girls (and women) shouldn’t be forced to talk about their periods when they don’t want to, but they shouldn’t be shamed for talking about it either.

        3. One of my male neighbors is an RN. He had no idea (none) that periods can be so debilitating as to needing to stay home from work or even render the woman immobile. Married with daughters. He had no clue about PMS in general.

      2. I have a similar situation with my partner’s teen daughter, who shares a lot about her flow. I assume she is just telling us that because she trusts us and feels comfortable, which is a good thing. I’ve never suspected that she talks like that to anyone who isn’t family or very close friends.

      3. The world has — thank God! — changed at least a little. My 11 year old daughter does not love talking about her period or getting it in the first place, but she and her friends are much more comfortable having these conversations (including references to flow and cramps) than I ever was! I think it’s a wonderful thing and am trying to follow her lead.

      4. I don’t think it’s a big deal that your 12 year old talks about her heavy flow to you, her parents. If she’s telling some older relatives and making them uncomfortable, maybe that’s worth a conversation, but menstruation is a normal bodily function and new to her and it’s not suprising she’s talking about it with her family members. I think you’re trying to shame her about it and that’s a terrible idea.

        My 20 year old college student daughter tells me and her dad pretty much equally about period related things (cramps, being out of tampons, etc) though she leans more toward asking me specific questions about things. I think she and her friends all pretty freely talk about it as well. I’m so glad they’re not ashamed of the fact that they have periods, and they don’t think it’s something to hide.

        So, Roxie, yes you are the a-hole here. Lighten up.

    2. I tell my daughters that no grownup needs to ask a kid for help and that they should be suspicious and bring in a grown up. A kind adult who means no harm won’t be offended by, “I can’t help you with that but I’m going to go get someone who can.” They aren’t yet old enough to work, but I think it can apply then also.

      1. If they have a paid job in retail, then I would think it’s far fetched to claim any adult asking them for help is suspicious.

    3. The line is definitely not at the drug store employee. OP’s husband sounds like a bit of an idiot, but I don’t think we should assume he was crossing a boundary without more info.

      1. I don’t think anyone was saying that OP’s husband crossed a line! It’s more that it’s safe to assume that other men do, and that’s context for the employee’s reaction.

        Men who do this start off by saying something innocuous and then push the line a little farther with their next statement, and so on, to test reactions and make women feel like they’re “overreacting” if they don’t go along. So even when somebody says something innocuous, that’s how the inappropriate interactions often began.

        1. Yes, this! I worked a job like this in high school and had the same thing happen to me. There were lots of men who loved to come in and just mess with me about things because I was a captive audience for them and couldn’t just walk away or easily tell them off. Luckily none of them crossed over into outright abuse or even something I could report to anyone without looking silly, but men who deliberately tried to make me uncomfortable were extremely common. I don’t think the OP’s husband was one of these people, but I absolutely understand why a teenage girl would be nervous in this situation.

      2. I don’t think the OP’s husband intended to be a creep by any means. But sometimes men (people?) unintentionally trip over someone else’s boundary. The question is how do they react to a girl’s expression of discomfort. From our third hand knowledge of that interaction, it seems like the giggling was an expression of discomfort, and the husband withdrew from the interaction, which is exactly what he should’ve done.

        You raise an interested point though – How much does it matter that she was an employee? Would it change your mind if a man asked for help finding c!ndoms vs tampons? Imho just because a minor can stock shelves doesn’t mean it’s fair game to ask them about anything in the store, considering there are other adult employees you could ask.

    4. I mean… I think a creepy relative who “accidentally” walks in on you changing is very different than a customer asking you for help finding tampons when you’re working your retail pharmacy job.

    5. There was a troubling case in Canada of a man who wanted to offer tampon assistance to young girls while in public bathrooms with them and unfortunately, it took quite some time for people to recognize that behavior as predatory. Obviously most cases aren’t going to rise to the clear sex offender level, but I think it’s important for girls to a) understand that their own boundaries are absolute and not a point for negotiation and b) practice saying specific phrases, like “I don’t discuss that with strangers,” until it becomes second nature (seriously – practice makes perfect and helps you say the right thing in a split-second situation). Only girls and women get to decide if they are okay with men (family or otherwise) talking about menstruation or tampons.

      1. A friend worked in a Rite Aid or similar store and the manager let his teen employees wear name tags with not their real names on it b/c some customers were outright creepy with especially the female teen employees. So my friend was “Rita” when she was there.

      2. People thought it was ok for a man to “offer tampon assistance” at a public restroom????

        2. my thoughts exactly, on what planet would anyone find that situation appropriate ever?!

        3. Yeah, I’m sorry to report that many people are still defending his “right” to do that. The man is clearly very troubled and it’s scary that many people don’t see that.

      3. See, thats straight weird.
        Making it more acceptable to talk about periods doesn’t mean you, individually, or your daughter or wife or sister or whoever, specifically have to. I feel like that should be obvious. OF COURSE you don’t talk to the strange dude in the bathroom, and if you’re in charge, tell him off. It’s just that periods are natural bodily functions, not something strange or embarrassing.

    6. Your uncle is disgusting, but that sounds like a long pattern of inappropriate behavior and I’m sorry that happened to you. In the case of the poster’s DH, he was in a store asking a question of an employee. It would’ve been far grosser and more inappropriate if he’d asked some rando teenage girl who was doing her shopping. That’s said, I don’t fault the young worker AT ALL for having a nervous, giggly reaction to be asked that question by an older male. Lord knows I would’ve been horribly embarrassed as a teen, had I found myself in that situation.

    7. I think this is a really important perspective.

      Your uncle was a creepy jerk, I hope you don’t have to have anything do do with him still.

    8. I will forever be grateful to my first fast food manager, he would agressively tell off any customer that was being creepy towards his 15 year old employees. That set a precedent which made me comfortable enough to tell creepy guys off myself. I can’t even imagine the bad stuff that could have happened without him.

      1. There are far too few men like your former manager. Bless him!

        I encourage girls always to err on the side of their safety and comfort. If anything seems even a little weird, go with your gut. It’s possible that the drugstore employee felt uncomfortable, and giggling and not being helpful got her out of the situation. We don’t know whether she had any reason to feel unsafe, and who knows whether she did. But most comments this morning said to let her off the hook regardless of what she might have been thinking, and I agree.

    9. I think you’re conflating a few things. Your uncle sounds creepy, but young girls are not told that its okay that they feel uncomfortable or that they have to talk to grown men. It’s just that if your grandpa asks why you’re not feeling well, “stomachache” and “period cramps” should both be socially fine to say. Pads aren’t gross, its just a part of life, there are boundaries always but periods shouldnt be seen as particularly dirty.

    10. I don’t know what the line is, but I think part of it is an age difference and nature of relationship issue. I have no problem talking about my period and associated supplies with my husband. But at 40 years old, I still don’t want to buy tampons when I’m visiting my parents and at the grocery store with my dad (even though I recognize my dad clearly knows I have a period). Similarly, my step-daughter is 13, and my husband is responsible for handling all the logistics associated with her being at our house. Except she tells me when she needs more pads and I make sure she is stocked (she was always bringing some from her mom’s house and so I told her she could let me know which brand she prefers and when she is running low and I buy them). Likewise, her dad/my DH knows she has a period, but she doesn’t want to talk to him about it.

  7. I moved offices and holy cow, the partner I share a wall with is LOUD. I can hear him and all client conversations through the wall, even if our doors are closed. Are the white noise machines worth it? Is there anything I can get to help dampen sound?

    1. White noise machines are great, and yes, they’re worth it.

      I use this mynoise .net as a sub, at work. There’s a phone app, too.

    2. You can wear noise canceling headphones if that’s acceptable in your office culture. But basically no.

    3. The only really effective way to dampen sound is to blow insulation into the wall. In most scenarios those acoustic panels aren’t worth it.

    4. I used to work next to a LOUD dude — kept my door closed all the time. You might want to look into noise-canceling earbuds like Loop.

  8. AAM- Did this person really work with cheap a$$ rolls or is this some weirdo wanting to be help column famous?

    2. Sadly, that site has gone so majorly downhill. It’s all bizarre one-offs that have no applicability to most employees (“my boss wants to watch me shower and threatened to tell my grandma, what do I do?!”), letters that are obviously fake (with clear overlap with my first point), and extreme social anxiety. I am really grateful to Allison for writing good advice on improving resumes and cover letters back in the day, but the site has jumped the shark for me in a major way.

      1. Totally. Also I don’t think Allison has been in the “real” working world for quite some time now.

        1. Yeah, I am glad that Allison is sensitive to and really thinks about how mental or physical health concerns, being non-neurotypical, having a nontraditional background for your field, etc. can affect a lot of workplace interactions. However, the comments section is so heavily dominated by people that fall into those categories, that it’s all exceptions and no rule, if that makes sense. It’s not representative of the vast majority of the working population and so the commenter advice and the expectations they seem to have of the workplace are just really, really out of step.

          1. omg +1000, I used to be a daily reader but it’s too unbelievable or specific to be fun anymore.

          2. I think the service dog question was real and I thought Allison gave good advice back-when, if any of you want to check that one out.

            I once had a major issue with an HR exec that resulted in said HR exec “seeking other opportunities”, though in my case it didn’t go all the way to the board, so maybe that’s why that one resonated with me.

          3. The comments section is a RIDE. I don’t know how most of those commenters function in a workplace. Alison’s advice is usually good but I hear you on the scenarios seeming very far fetched.

      2. I kind of think that is happening here. Some of the comments this morning about the woman who didn’t want to date the guy who made less than her were super weird and offensive (comments agreeing with her POV) and even the OP on that sounded fake to me. And the husband buying tampons thing seemed fake too. Who would try to get a teenager fired for giggling?

      3. I disagree. There are plenty of entertaining crazy stories, but there are always also the normal things ‘my colleague takes too many smoke breaks’, micromanaging bosses, dress code questions and what have you.
        I agree that the commentariat is a special group of people.

    3. Wow, that was a wild ride. I don’t tend to buy rolls, but I guess I will now regard any grocery store rolls that aren’t King’s as “cheap ass rolls.”

  9. Can anyone recommend granny panties in size 5X? My mom is looking. Not cotton, she likes the polyester stuff. Thank you! (She is also looking for shapewear like bikini bottoms, not high waisted.)

  10. Can anyone suggest a really good strapless bra? My bridesmaid dress for my sister’s wedding is a halter, so I need to go strapless. I want one that I’m not going to be fidgeting with all night. Also, I’m plus size, so it needs to come in big band sizes. If it matters, I’m between a C and D cup. TIA!

    2. Go to a local bra store and bounce around in some things. Fwiw I think longline bras work better but it’s a little frustrating to find in plus sizes. You may want to call ahead to a couple of stores to make sure they’ll have your size.

    3. You might look at convertible bras where you can turn the straps into various styles, including halter, for more support.

      I’m also plus size and I think Elomi makes the best bras for larger band sizes. Nordstrom carries a few styles in store, if there’s a Nordstrom near you, but there are more available online. Honestly once I know a particular style fits me, I tend to look online and see which retailers have the best prices.

      I can’t help you with a specific strapless or convertible style, unfortunately, but if you want a great rec, ask redd1t/abtf.

    4. Second the Wacoal rec — look for the Hollywood strapless. They run up to a 44 band and have a wide cup range for the busty.

    5. Recommendation I received once was to buy strapless in a band size 1 size smaller than your usual. It actually worked — whereas before I’d always gone longline for strapless, going one size smaller for the band let me use just a regular strapless. I’m not plus size, but I am DD or DDD, so need real support.

  11. Our office just canceled our 1/18 return date and didn’t set another date. Said we would get at least 6 weeks notice before we are expected to return.

    1. My office had the same scheduled return date and we received notice of postponement recently, as well.

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