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Suit of the Week: White House | Black Market

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. This simple houndstooth set from White House | Black Market looks lovely. I like the ruffle detail on the skirt, as well as the fact that the blazer has three buttons. The jacket (Houndstooth Suiting Blazer) is $170, and the skirt (Houndstooth Skirt) is $99. There are matching pants in regular and curvy fits, which I'm sorry to tell you, are cuffed. (Lots of good sales happening on the site if you like the fit — this purple velvet blazer looks like nice, and lots of their reversible dresses are in the sale section.) 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

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

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36 Comments

  1. Cuffed pants totally have their place (see: Katherine Hepburn), and I think this menswear-inspired suit is just the place for it. Cuffed pants come and go in popularity, but I don’t think they’re ever really out of style.

    1. I love cuffed pants and used to wear them until I caught the heel of my shoe on my cuff and fell down a flight of stairs at work. No more cuffs for this girl.

  2. Does anyone have recommendations for a workout app? I’m looking for something that I can use during strength training. Ideally something that I can set up and it’ll essentially count down my sets, and give me a timer for rest periods etc.

    I used the Sweat App before and I did really like it but none of the programs are exactly what I’m looking for.

    1. I love Les Mills. I just pick a workout and length, press play and then follow a set of instructors. They have HIIT, strength training and biking plus many more. They offer a free trial week.

    2. This is not strictley an app, but I have a FITBIT and there is an app that tracks alot of things. Dad has access to my FITBIT results on his ipad so I cannot getaway without exercising w/o him seeing what I am doing. He watches me logging my steps and also sees my heart rate. It also tracks my period. I have to take my Fitbit off if I have any male guests overnight b/c he can detect my heart pulse rate goeing up when it should be goeing down. It’s almost like a baby monitor, tho I wish it would help me get a baby, even if the guys are not able to give me one. YAY!!

    4. It’s called Seconds Free (or you can pay for Seconds Pro and save your timers). I use the circuit timer for setting up my weightlifting sets. It tells you when the set or rest is over with vibration and voice. It also displays a big clock on your phone screen.

    3. Eh, I like it. But I’m much bigger on the top than on the bottom, so I give myself a lot of leeway on peplums, ruffles, etc.

    4. This should have been featured on yesterday’s thread about trends that are inappropriate for the workplace. IMO, ruffle skirts are universally awful.

      1. It might not be your thing but I have difficulty accepting that this particular suit is inappropriate for the workplace.

        1. Agree w Never too many shoes that it’s office appropriate, coming from a lawyer who wears traditional suits and pantyhose 3x a week in a somewhere-between-biz-casual-and-biz-formal firm.

      2. Yeah, there’s a difference between you-don’t-like-it and not-office-appropriate

        1. Agree. I don’t like it and think it’s kind of dated and also slightly young — but I don’t think it’s omgunprofessional.

    5. I like it! It’s a pretty sedate ruffle, seems perfectly office appropriate to me.

      1. Yeah it’s office appropriate. Just like it was — what? Ten years ago? When I was wearing ruffle-bottom skirt suits to the office.

  4. Reversible dresses don’t sound all that useful to me for work. I don’t wash my work clothes too often and I know I’m leaving deodorant marks all over the insides of my clothes.

    1. I don’t really understand reversible dresses. On all the ones I’ve seen, you can see the outline of the other side’s color/pattern around the neckline and sleeve openings, so it *looks* like it’s reversible (which seems strange to me).

      1. Totally agree. Also feel the same way about dresses that are reversible front to back, with different necklines that you can supposedly switch. One side always looks backwards.

        1. plus, my front shape =/= my back shape, so I’m not sure what those darts do when they aren’t filled out. And my butt and tummy are not shaped the same or at similar altitudes.

          1. Ok I’ve never had a front to back reversible dress, but I had a top like that. You were supposed to be able to wear a crew neck or a v neck by turning it around. The reason it worked was because it was knit and had no shaping. I only ever wore it the v neck way anyway.

            Although, that taught me that all my tops are basically reversible this way. The knit ones anyway. I have used this when I’ve wanted a really high neckline for whatever reason – sometimes that’s the look I want with a particular piece of jewelry, one time I was intent on covering a rash on my chest. I just carefully cut the tags off the back of the neck and voila, a reversible top.

  5. I’m sure there’s a post somewhere about this, but I can’t seem to find it. What do you wear on round 2 or 3 interviews when you’ve already worn the classic navy skirt suit on round 1? Can I get away with a dress and different colored blazer? How about a burgundy or red suit?

    1. Depends – where are you interviewing? If it’s a highly formal workplace I would stick to suits in classic colors (black, dark grey) although pantsuits are generally find in my jurisdiction (I know this can vary regionally). If it’s a more casual place dress + blazer or suit in a more “fun” (but still appropriate) color will work.

    2. For a 2nd interview, wear the navy suit again with a noticeably different top. I wouldn’t repeat it 3 times though. I would go with a neutral dress and jacket rather than a red or burgundy suit.

    3. You can wear the same suit with a different top – like a brighter or darker color than the first time to make it read differently. You can wear a different suit. You can wear a dress with a blazer. I would think any are fine.

    4. How long has it been since the first round interview? Could you just change your shoes and shirt? Dark tights/nude pantyhose? How many women are you seeing both times? The men will not notice. And they rewear same suits constantly with no one noticing.

      1. OP here – pretty casual work environment. Been a month since first interview. Only men at this company to meet with. I guess I could wear the same suit and no one would know. I just felt really overdressed before when everyone else was in jeans.

    5. Not a lawyer (IT-adjacent): my rule of thumb for 2nd round in-person interviews is to dress how I would on my most formal-day in the office if I got the job – e.g. giving a key presentation or something. I scale it on what previous interviewers were wearing (erring on the side of “more” formal if there’s any doubt), as a subtle cue for “you can imagine me here”.

  6. Hi hive, what are your suggestions about being a burnt out young lawyer? There’s currently nothing objectively abusive or unhealthy about my work environment, but I find very few things fun or fulfilling about insurance defense these days. The only strong emotion work seems to be able to elicit from me is a fear of failure and being booted into unemployment, even though my boss had only good things to say about my “talent,” work ethic, and work product at my first review.

    For context without being too specific, I’m currently a third year in a major market who made a switch from general PI/liability to insurance defense 7 months ago. I stayed at my last firm 4.5 years inclusive of student clerking time, and rose up from minimum wage as a clerk to well above market pay as a junior associate because I got lucky and well liked by a few main clients. In my last 1.5 years (most of my actually licensed working time) management slowly became…a shamble, including verbal harassment, borderline racism and passive aggressive emails filled with swear words in the place of rational responses to literally anything. However, I remained on for a total of 2 years as a licensed attorney there because I was of the understanding that one does not move on from one’s job until at least 2 years, no matter the circumstances, although I spent many a day swearing back at my managers alternating with crying in the bathroom .

    Eventually, I left the firm because I got a decent offer at my current firm. It was a significant pay cut from above market to the low end of market pay but I was doing no appreciable legal work for weeks, just trying to keep things administratively afloat. My current job is a younger firm that used to only hire attorneys with at least 5-7 years experience, so I’m not really sure how I ended up here. The bosses are genuinely nice people who remember what is told to them, so there isn’t open abuse or shenanigans. However, this new system seems to require 7 layers of approval for everything and as a young cog in the machine, I’m often twiddling my thumbs or forwarding emails repeatedly with no response. It may not be intentional on anyone’s part, but this dissonance and 180 attitude switch is basically making me resent the whole situation.

    I luckily have paid off my loans from my previous high paid job (lived at home since law school and paid at least 85% of take home every month) so no huge financial concerns. I’m not sure what the answer is, whether it’s to stick it out another year and take it as a long adjustment period, or if this is a sign I should have another plan.

  7. Reviewing resumes, did a spit take when I saw some list gardening as a hobby.

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