Suit of the Week: McQueen
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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 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. Also: we just updated our big roundup for the best women's suits of 2026!
First: this McQueen suit is a lovely color. Second. I've always loved this jacket cut — to me it looks classic but sharp. But: THE SHOES.
Are peep-toe shoes coming back? Are shooties coming back? All we need is an ankle strap and people would've called these “swamp shoes” back in the day. Also, the heels themselves look like a weapon.
(Fun fact: Did you know that a stiletto was the 15th century name for a dagger? I saw that in a museum and wondered at it… here's the Wikipedia page if you're interested.)
Questions to ponder.
The suit itself is gorgeous and I really do think it's the prettiest shade of pink. The blazer is $2400, and the pants are $1,150.
Sales of note for 9/4 (Happy Labor Day — see our big roundup!)
- Nordstrom – End of season clearance, up to 50% off
- Anine Bing – Archive sale, up to 70% off select styles, online only
- Ann Taylor – 30% off you purchase, including new arrivals – $50 off when you spend $200. Readers love this easycare blouse and this blazer that makes a great separate.
- Anthropologie – 40% off sale! The reader favorite wide leg pants are on sale for as low as $86, including the pants I posted last week!
- Athleta – Up to 60% off + extra 30% off sale; readers love these pants
- AYR – Archive sale, up to 60% off
- Boden – 20% off everything – readers love these dresses, and their double-layer line of tees
- CVS – Epic beauty sale, $10 off when you spend $30 (Walmart is having its “Beauty Event” as well right now!)
- Design Within Reach – the semiannual sale, 25% off everything! (readers love the Herman Miller Aeron and Sayl!)
- The Fold – 20% off, limited time only
- J.Crew – 40% off your purchase
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off all stores and sitewide, PLUS extra 20% off orders over $125
- J.McLaughlin – Extra 40% off sale (ending soon)
- Lilysilk – Anniversary sale, save up to 70% (ending soon)
- Me & Em – Sale! Up to 60% off (new lines just added, exclusively online)
- M.M.LaFleur – Labor Day Sale Event, save sitewide! (Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off on other items)
- Nordstrom Rack – Thru September 7: Extra 25% off clearance! Nice selection of Vince, Veronica Beard, Reiss and Rag & Bone, a ton of affordable work dresses from Calvin Klein, Maggy London, Eliza J, and Donna Morgan
- Sarah Flint – 20% off sitewide
- Talbots – Ends 9/4: 25-40% off wear-now styles
- Theory – End of season sale is on!
- Veronica Beard – Extra 20% off sale styles with code
I love the jacket but not with those pants. And that jacket would seem to pair well with the wackadoodle: sequined mini shorts or a big poofy skirt. The proportions are challenging with a waist nipped in like that.
I thought that fact about a stiletto was widely known, but then I have never heard of swamp shoes in…whatever the context of the weird Seinfeld-esque writing above is trying to get at.
I knew the stiletto reference, but have never heard of swamp shoes either. Stank Boot yes, in the context of going barefoot in heavy footwear and the ensuing consequences.
In any event, the shoes pictured are badddd.
Thoughts on the headlines I’ve seen this afternoon that AI is going to kill us all within the next 10 years? Apparently a couple of current and former AI engineers at Anthropic have said this and it’s generating some buzz.
I mean if humans want to kill us all and decide to use AI to accomplish that, I guess AI could make it easier. Lord knows they’re better at destruction than anything else.
But it sounds like some people are just trying to shift blame in advance for all the stuff they’re planning to do anyway.
If you aren’t familiar with the singularity, effective altruism, etc. you might brush up. There are people at some of these companies who are true believers.
Are those the Sam Bankman-Fried people who are now in prison for fraud? This is like Fancy Diploma Fraud.
Some of them have definitely made their way to prison, but there are plenty more! Somebody was telling me about the book Nerd Reich and it all sounded like a lot of the same kind of stuff.
I have thought this for a while.
There is a great article in the Atlantic about how the tech barons are living out their childhood sci-fi dreams without understanding what those stories really meant.
This is the classic short story for where they see things heading with the help of AI: https://www.skyhunter.com/marcs/GentleSeduction.html
The story carefully sidesteps the predicted human costs.
People sometimes make fun of Nikolai Fedorov for his level of faith in technology (and, well, faith), but I feel impressed by how quick he was to predict the potential political fall out of technological advances. I wish our tech barons had learned anything from his cautions.
Haven’t seen those headlines but the fact that AI can make new deadly viruses and engage in massive cyberwarfare while also draining our limited water supplies in the West is pretty f*cked.
I cannot engage in this without freaking out a bit.
Like every other industry, we need to elect politicians and advocate for policies that put restrictions on AI use. I’m a big AI user but I agree that we shouldn’t rely on the idea that the people with the biggest financial gains are going to self-regulate.
As a point of clarity, one guy said it, as part of his resignation, and he put it as “>10% chance” (which is substantially different from “is the most likely outcome” or “will almost certainly happen”)
For what it’s worth, 10% seems high to me for *completely* wiping us out; I’d still put that around 2%. But you can have a lot of catastrophic outcomes – say, 90% death rates – outside of that.
In terms of how I deal with that, I imagine it’s like living in the height of the Cold War. You might nuclear-wintered. That would really suck. There’s also only so much influence you as an individual have – you do what’s in your power (ie. voting and advocacy) and you accept you cannot guarantee the future.
The other thing I keep in mind is: no matter what happens to *the world*, *my world* will almost certainly end in the next 70 years (per actuarial table). You will die, and someday, all the people whose lives you influenced will die too. Given that, how are you going to live? What does your life mean? What do you value?
Wrestling with that question is the core of what makes us human, and AI doesn’t change that.
Extremely specific question: Does anyone have the perfect copycat recipe for the dressing on the Thai Crunch Salad at California Pizza Kitchen? My searches have not yielded anything worth making again.
With the caveat that I’ve never had that particular salad. The key for restaurant quality salad dressings is often using a msg as well as a thickening and binding agent like corn starch or tapioca starch. For some reasons most ‘recipe developers’ with blogs don’t do that (I’m guessing because theyve never actually worked in a kitchen or gotten culinary training?)
Well this explains why I despise restaurant salad dressings.
Or, more likely, because they’re aimed at home cooks who are looking for the internet on instruction and are likely to be put off by techniques and ingredients that seem complex or out of their reach.
Corn starch and MSG don’t seem that exotic to me.
I gotta say, we use a little bit of MSG in our home cooking pretty often. It doesn’t take very much to add a lot of flavor. It’s too bad that it has (incorrectly) been blamed for all kinds of health stuff, because I think more home cooks would use it if that hadn’t happened.
Continuing my closet clean out . . .what do we do with old bridesmaid dresses/wedding guest dresses?
I’ve been lucky that all of my bridesmaid dress codes have been “any dress you want in X colors” and the colors have been normal, so I actually like most of these dresses. Although I don’t need this much emerald green in my life. Some of them are very pretty, but I don’t really see an occasion to wear ALL of them coming up. I re-wear them as much as possible, but alas my life is not full of galas.
Do you sell dresses like these? Donate them? Maybe I’ll look up that org that takes prom dresses – some of the bridesmaids dresses would work great for that.
Donate. I’m not really crafty and not into the time suck to sell things.
I’d say to keep your favorite few and donate the rest–unless you attend a ton of weddings. Bonus points for simple lines and less memorable colors, so you can wear them for various levels of formality and more than once.
I’m guessing you don’t have any relatives who want them…but I put off donating these things so long my niece grew into them. They look fabulous on her and she has all of that fancy dress stuff in front of her.
Just a warning that as soon as you don’t have any galas, you end up at a workplace that loves a good awards gala and Christmas formal. (Prioritize the green.)
What does a beta reader do? A friend has written a book and asked me to be a beta reader. I was super excited for her and said yes. I’m reading the book and… there are a ton of typos and grammatical errors. I don’t really want to edit 400+ pages of text. And also, if I’m looking for edits then I’m not really reading the book for higher level comments like character development and plot gaps. I should focus on the high level comments and ignore the typos, right?
Leave the proofreading / typo errors to be caught in the editing, copy editing, and proofreading phases. You can also google “beta reader” to learn more about what she might be hoping for.
I would return your edits for high level issues with a note that tyou did not copy-edit, and it needs copy-editing/a tight proofread. Honestly, it’s lame of someone to give a book to another to read if it’s full of errors, IMO.
You could ask her what beta readers do. However, there’s a risk that she thinks that means copy-edit, so proceed with caution.
I would ask her. You could have one over-arching comment like “There are tons of typos and grammatical errors that will distract readers. I strongly encourage you hire a professional copy editor before moving forward.” Then you can focus on the higher level comments. My relative wrote a book and it was ripe with those and went out with them! The second had a copy edit and it was much better.
I’d ask her what she wants you to focus on. If this is her first book, she may be looking for high level feedback, or not want to hire a copy editor, or not have a great idea of what she wants beyond kudos for finishing.
Please do not come at me but catching typos and grammatical errors is one of my few use cases for AI.
Ask your friend. How are any of us going to know what she wants?
How do you have your bank accounts (particularly investment accounts like Vanguard) secured? 2FA? QR code? App?
In a vault duh
A very long pw that I don’t use anywhere else, plus 2FA.
If you’re going to use 2FA, get a real authenticator. 2FA via sms is….mayyyyybe better than nothing?
I have only ever fantasized about killing one person and the method in those daydreams was a stiletto to the neck.