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Updated: Aug 29, 2023 69 Comments · by

Suit of the Week: Zadig & Voltaire

Suit of the Week

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unusual black velvet suit with embroidered animals on it very rockstar worn with lacy camisole

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.

Happy Wednesday! Today I'm liking this somewhat crazy suit from French brand Zadig & Voltaire — I always look at their clothes and am delighted to tell you that this suit does NOT have a large crystal skull on the back of the blazer, or their usual, er, punk looks — huzzah!

I like the dark chocolate color, as well as the tiny embroidered flowers — while the suit as a whole is a Lot of Look, I think it works (and then the blazer makes a great festive blazer, back when there is an occasion to wear those again). The blazer is $698 at Nordstrom, and you can find lucky sizes of the pants at the (new to me) site Orchard Mile.

Psst: They're not “fun suits” at all, but Lands' End has a nice collection of washable wool suiting that I'm noticing as I'm updating our suits post…

Sales of note for 9.10.24

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Comments

  1. anon

    On this morning’s thread, a few people expressed interest in a Discord server for those of us that WFH. If anyone more tech-savvy than me knows how to do that and ends up creating a server, please post the link and I will definitely join!

    • Anonymous

      What IS Discord? I see references to it on Reddit and the like but how is it different as a platform?

      • Anonymous

        it’s basically a big group chat/messaging system – honestly to me it feels super similar to slack but mostly it’s used not for work. you can create channels/sub-chats by topic and chat, share photos, share links etc and im sure there’s fancier stuff you can do. my college friends and I have one where we share pics from trips, family, pets, work/life happenings, etc

        • anonshmanon

          plus you can also set up video or audio calls through it. In my circle of friends we use it to chat while playing board games online.
          A neighbor also pointed me to this hilarious nerdy channel where people do live readings of Shakespeare plays and make snarky comments in chat at the same time.

        • Anonymous

          THANK YOU FOR EXPLAINING!! I’m not OP, but I have wondered for about a year now what Discord is and why everyone loves it and how to use it, because everywhere else people are condescending to you if you ask them to explain Discord…

      • Anon

        My son set up a discord channel for video game trash talking with his friends. He has a Dj-style mic and everything. My poor neighbors, whose bedroom window is about 20 feet from his!

  2. Anon

    Can anyone share their recent experience with SoFi’s student loan refinancing? My loans are at Common Bond right now with a fairly high interest rate. My income has increased (and credit score gone up) in the last few years and I can now qualify for a much lower rate with either lender. SoFi’s rates are about .5% better and I’m trying to decide if there’s any reason (awful customer service? Etc.) not to make the switch. Thanks!

    • Colette

      SoFi is great, no reason not to switch.

      Also, i’d check rates at more than two companies. I found that there was broader divergence then i expected.

      Finally, once you have a broad away of rates, I’d contact through all of the ones that you got quotes from to see if they will beat your current lowest quoted rate. I successfully got the rate reduced an additional .25% doing this!

    • An.On.

      I refinanced with SoFi about two years ago and the process was incredibly smooth and easy. I swear I am not a paid shill, but they’re great. My only complaint is that they only show the last twelve months of payments online, and I like more detail about payments and running balances, but minor issue. Also, they’re usually running bonuses for referrals, so check around if you can either get someone you know a referral bonus, or get one yourself.

    • Anonymous

      I also seamlessly and (almost) effortlessly refinanced from Nelnet/FedGov to SoFi. Highly recommend.

  3. Anon

    Minor problem. I bought some hothouse raspberries that look perfect but are too tart to eat as-is. What are your favorite raspberry recipes? I only have one regular 6 oz container

  4. Anon

    Ha — this morning we discussed embroidered lobsters and now we have this.

    One thing that I do like is that the models in Talbots catalogs are always smiling. They don’t look doped up or like they all passed out after a party. And you can see what the clothes actually look like. I know if a fashion photographer (vs catalog photographer) shot the catalog they could make the models and clothes look very different (ditto Talbots photographer on more outre brands).

    • Anon

      “doped up or like they all passed out after a party” = every Zara model ever

    • Anon

      I also like that they’ve used some of the same models for many, many years now.

      • Anon

        I love that Nikki Taylor is one of their go-to models. IDK why but she was always one of my favorite early 90s supermodels.

          • Anon

            Oh, no. I remember when her sister died. Haven’t kept up but squealed when I saw her in a Talbots catalog I got in the mail one day.

    • AIMS

      I always think of the Talbots catalog models as being the nice to your face but secretly hateful and/or gossipy wife no. 2/stepmother type.

      This also works for the J McLaughlin and Brooks Bros. catalogs. So much drama in those!

      • Anon

        I always think that the Brooks Brothers models skew way younger than the typical BB customer.

        My mom talks about how LL Bean used to use employees in its catalogs, which I think must have been great (here is Bob from accounting in his duck boots! here is Linda from packaging in something made of Gore Tex! here are Lisa’s cute puppies on a dog bed!).

        • Anon

          Wal-Mart used to do the same thing for their ads (back in the Sam Walton days).

        • Monday

          As a Mainer, I’d love to see this come back. But I can see why the employees probably didn’t pass muster as “models” once LL Bean wanted to go slightly more fashion.

          • Anon

            Weren’t some companies doing this b/c of COVID? I vaguely recall reading an article about employees in ads or something like that.

        • Anon

          I don’t know about human employees but I know LL Bean used to feature their employees’ dogs in the catalogs. It would say like “this is Jane from HR’s dog Denali” on a picture of a dog on a dog bed. I vaguely recall there was some way to submit a photo of your dog on an LL Bean dog bed for a possible catalog feature too? I think we did that with my childhood dog.

    • Anon

      As a third-generation Extreme RBFer, I find that the doped-up angry models are relevant to my interests.

      • Anon

        Fine, but could they be well-lit and vertical, standing, with front/back views? And can they give height/size? If something is midi on a tall model, it is probably floor-grazing on me and the waist is at hip-level. OTOH, a “mini” skirt may just be a normal skirt on me.

        If I can’t go to a mall or the mall stores continue to be empty or you don’t have anything in my city I can try on for size, dimly-lit arty poses aren’t really helping you sell me clothes. I can deal with the RBF. I have it also and no mask can defeat you being aware that it’s lurking beneath.

        Also, can I just say that I love that the Gap family of companies poses models of many different sizes for many items? It really helps me imagine more how an item would look on me. Yes, the women are models, but they are more like me than not.

        • Anon

          Except short. Apparently women can now wear a larger size, but every moddel must still be at 3-7 inches taller than the average woman in the US.

    • Anon

      I get so frustrated when they photograph the models in really weird active poses.. Looking at you old navy
      I cannot tell how the clothes really fit when they are doubled over
      The online lands end models are hilarious to me. They almost look like frowning paper dolls.

      • Anon

        They at least pose to show the clothes on how they’d look on a standing person, no?

        I often think with bathing suit pics anywhere: pls show me this item on a person bending down to pick up a wet squirming toddler, picking up said toddler, and then also trying to reach up and adjust a sun umbrella and LMK if anything busts a seam or any body parts fall out. I’ll wait.

      • Anon

        The Land’s End models aren’t real models. The clothing is put on mannequins and then they apply some sort of skin/filter to make it look like the mannequin is actually a human model, instead of a blank mannequin figurine. If you’re not sure a company is doing this a good way to figure it out is to look at their hands.

        • Anon

          That makes sense. My mind wasn’t computing how they all held the same pose and my guess had been that the clothes were somehow photoshopped on to cut down on fees but this makes more sense.

          • Anon

            Ah, yes, thanks for explaining! I was trying to figure out how and why the models looked so awful. I actually haven’t bought anything from LE in a few years because their website turns me off.

            Talbots has a new model I saw in the January catalog and I looked at her, and I thought, “Oh my gosh, I want to be friends with her!” Not super skinny, looked friendly and fun – I just really liked her. And I do feel like I “know” some of the models they’ve been using for years.

        • Betsy

          Yes! I hope this is just a temporary Covid thing because I absolutely hate the photoshopped “models” and I find it really hard to tell what the clothes will actually look like. Then again, I think Lands End has slipped a lot in recent years, so it’s possible I am no longer their target audience.

          • Anon

            I’m pretty sure they’ve been doing it for years as a money saving measure. There are a few other big retailers who do it too but I don’t remember who they are off of the top of my head.

        • Anonymous

          I just went to go check out the Lands End models for the “skin/filter” and now I am horrified by the page. I’ll never be able to look at those mannequins again!

      • Anonymous

        The half-tuck shirt or jacket wide open or mostly to the side drives me bananas. In real life, it’s great. When I’m trying to figure out if a top or blazer skews wide/shapeless, it’s so frustrating.

    • pugsnbourbon

      Same. I’m not Alexa Chung and it’s laughably out of my budget, but it’s great.

    • Anon

      It’s delightfully hideous, which is right up my alley. (Also a good description of my shoe closet, circa 92-98.)

  6. Tara

    My office is fully WFH right now, generally very flexible, I’m mid-level.
    Typically people work from 9 – 5/6pm
    Do you think it would be reasonable to ask if I can leave at 4pm some days to make it to the pool at the gym before it gets too crowded, and then finish work afterwords?
    Obviously if there are meeting scheduled etc I wouldn’t do this.

    I probably would leave at 5 for the pool without saying anything and if there was overflow would do it after I came back.

    • Anon

      I wouldn’t even ask, I would just do it, assuming you have no meeting scheduled during that timeframe.

    • Anonymous

      yes – go you!! I would totally do it!! Just block out your calendar (and you can keep it private though YMMV – at my work tons of people do this for childcare pick up, to go workout ,etc) so no one is waiting on anything from you during that window

    • anonymous

      Yes, I think this would be fine. I do stuff like that all the time. One of the perks of WFH.

    • MechanicalKeyboard

      Absolutely! I’d argue that if you can’t leave an hour later on some days then your place isn’t actually very flexible. Go ahead and block that time off!

      • Tara

        It’s very flexible in that I don’t think I have to ask for 1 hr early (5pm) and I definitely start whenever I want and my coworker posted at 4:15pm today that he is leaving to take his dog to the vet. 2 hrs earlier just felt like it couldd be pushing it.

    • Anonymous

      I do this for an activity and I have never asked. I block it on my calendar and go. It’s never been an issue.

    • Coach Laura

      I do this every day- and I never ask. WFH and walk my dog in the daylight at 2:30 or 3. Work late. But I’m tied to my cell phone and work email via iPhone and I can always check while I’m walking or even take a call. Of course, my boss has authorized it for us all, as long as we get our work done.

    • Anonymous

      Yes. I’m not sure I’d even ask. I regularly stop work at 5 [I’m a firm lawyer, this is early], go ride, then log back on for an hour or two in the evenings. I know other people do midday workouts. No one seems to notice/care.

  7. Anon

    random TV show recommendation, if you haven’t seen it

    The Patriot on Amazon Prime, 2017, two seasons

    It was a recommendation from the r/succession sub about “what do we watch now that Succession is over for the season?” and it’s a good one. A great one. It took us a while to get into the rhythm of the humor but it’s so, so well done.

    • Lyssa

      I loved that show so much! Was really disappointed it was only 2 seasons, though I definitely see how it wouldn’t be a lot of people’s cup of tea. Anytime someone bumps their head, I go back to the bit In the second season where he had to jump.

      • Anon

        I haven’t seen season 2 yet, trying to savor it, but will watch for the head bump/jump!

        My favorite favorite scenes are where they’re doing sales pitches for pipe systems and it just sounds like nonsense talk!

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