Suit of the Week: The Fold

83 Comments

1. Cate Blanchett would look phenomenal in this suit.

   1. Oh, she sure would. I, alas, would not. So I will admire from afar.

   2. it’s so well coordinated with the background picture though. Without that backdrop I think it’s much less striking.

   3. She would. I’m a tall size 16 so only similar to her in height (and age) but I think it would also look good one someone my size and shape. But not as a go to work suit. Like a keynote address suit. (fantasy shopping for the life I no longer have!)

   4. Ooh, I actually disagree (which is sort of ludicruos, I know, but since it’s a fashion blog…). I recently saw Cate Blanchett on stage in London, and based on that I think both the colour and proportions would be awkward on her. The drama, yes! The actual suit, no! The proportions would be lovely on somebody ike Tilda Swinton, but again, I think this blue is awkward and a little banal, like a watercolour porcelain plate. Purple, battleship grey, cinnamon, chartreuse, dusty khaki, there are loads of colours that would be so much better for this suit, IMO. Love Cate Blanchett in a suit, though, she does oversizes and slightly off so well.

2. a close local friend just told me that she and her partner are splitting up for various reasons. we haven’t actually been friends for that long, but really hit it off when we met so became close fast so i dont know every detail of her backstory. But that it all came to a head over the weekend when he pushed her and she ended up falling and hitting her head and needing to call an ambulance. They were not married, but have a kid together. They have a child together, and she has a child from a prior marriage. I have never supported a friend through a divorce (though this isnt technically a divorce) or one who experienced any kind of abuse. i offered to send her a meal or have a playdate if that is helpful, but any tips for supporting a friend through this?

   1. Offering meals and playdates is so kind! I would definitely keep that as an ongoing offer. Also – she may feel uncomfortable saying yes if offered dinner, so cooking a lasagna and bringing it over unprompted might be nice as well.

      Apart from that, be there for her as much as you can emotionally. Text to check in, set up times to meet and allow her to vent, be supportive and nonjudgmental. People tend to avoid those going through tragedy, so even just showing up in any capacity is huge. You are a good friend.

      1. i went through a terrible divorce when my kids were small. the most appreciated offer would have been to take my kids, come over after i put them to bed so i could go out, offered to go somewhere with us etc.

         1. i dont know if her son will want to come over, but i will most certainly offer! and i like the idea of offering to come over after her kid goes to bed, so she can go out as much as I can (my DH travels a ton for work, but easy for me to do when he is home). idk the financial situation exactly, but is it weird or inappropriate for me to offer to pay for something if we do an activity with the kids? i know mother’s day is on sunday and idk what her plans are, but i’d love to find a way to be supportive. she won’t have an adult celebrating her and given how fresh this is, idk if there has been time for someone else to take her kid to purchase a card or flowers for her. my child’s bday is on sunday as well, so i can’t be with her, but is it weird to bring her flowers or something?

            1. no!!! not weird at all. she can always say no but trust me her finances are impacted no matter how affluent she remains. oh! and yes! i hate mothers days because its a holiday where husbands celebrate their wives. Really nice idea to offer to do something.

   2. Remember that some women leave the first time, and others take multiple times to leave. Choose your words carefully about what you say about her former-partner since she might go back. Focus on supporting her and giving a voice to what’s normal and not normal, rather than focusing your statements on trashing him or statements like why did it take you so long to leave. You want to be a sounding reality board for her, even if she goes back, so eventually she gets out for good.

      1. +1000. A close cousin and I became distant after she had decided to leave her husband (I had not offered any kind of opinion during the long debating of this) and we were having dinner and she PRESSED me into telling her if I thought she was making the right decision in leaving him. I repeatedly said that it was up to her, and she swore she had already decided and wanted to know honestly what I thought. I told her I definitely thought she was making the right decision for her, him, and the kids. I didn’t even trash him at all because that wasn’t the situation (there isn’t a bad guy in the situation – she is just really really unhappy in that marriage).

         Anddddd then she stayed with him, faded from me, moved, and doesn’t return my texts when I occasionally try to reach out. A couple years have went by at this point. Frankly it was a bit manipulative of her how she went about the conversation, and then froze me out, but she’s so unhappy that I don’t even take it personally at all.

         Never share what you think about a person’s relationship, even if they swear they’ve already made up their mind. Just affirm that they know what is best for them, and by following their own intuition and feelings that is the right thing to do. Leave your own thoughts and feelings out of it.

         1. I have fallen into that trap so many times.

            Friend: my partner treats me terribly

            Me: no one should treat you terribly!

            Friend:

            I think it’s embarrassment.

            1. OOPS, that was supposed to say

               Friend: stays with partner – I have to learn not to use the greater than/less than signs here!

         2. Yup, that’s a pretty common story – they vent to you all about the maybe-soon-to-be-ex-spouse and you affirm their feelings and then they decide to stay and feel embarrassed about everything they said and distance themselves from you. I’ve seen it happen a bunch.

         3. I left friends whose opinion was not asked for, and said opinion was that I was mentally ill for leaving.

            Ex is abusive.

      2. This was me. I was saying I wanted to leave and I tried 4 times. Fifth time worked.

         The biggest help was having a friend who could help me by holding documents. My friend scanned in 1000s of documents and let me use her internet to log in to a different email so I could organize everything.

         My friend also ordered all books from the library for me and I read them at her house.

3. Oooh I love this so much.

4. The theater post this morning reminded me of the best advice I’ve ever received about marriage. Which is that: there is no prize for being ‘right’ or aggrieved, and by stewing in resentments, regardless of how justified, you are just making the relationship a miserable place to be.

   If the person is intolerable to you and unwilling to change, leave. If they are willing to change and you want to be with them, you have to give them grace if you want a loving relationship. The quickest ticket to an unhappy household is to feel like there is righteous glory in staying mad and taking it out on them, no matter how ‘right’ you may be.

   1. I think I read it here – if you’re still angry/aggrieved after 3 days you need to get over it or talk about it.

   2. 1000% agree.

   3. Also, it’s amazing how much that poster believed her husband was the problem in the relationship. If you’re that contemptuous of your partner, you are at least 50% of the problem.

      1. This is not fair. Some partners really are that terrible that they are 90% of the problem and make their spouse feel like this morning’s poster. But I do think she needs to just leave him – the marriage isn’t recoverable at this point given how much she hates him.

         1. If you hate your husband and haven’t left him, you have become 50% of the problem, even if the hatred was originally justified. You’ve let his shittiness become your shittiness too, and you’re just going to be passing the shittiness baton back and forth all your lives until someone kicks the bucket.

            (Signed, someone with multiple copies of this marriage in her family tree.)

         2. I don’t think it’s fair to say she hates him just from that one snippet of their lives. You can think your partner is absolutely insufferable when it comes to X and still love them and have a good relationship overall. You just avoid X. But when they push their way into X like he’s doing, it’s like pretty rational to get annoyed!

            1. Based on her comments? She hates him. At minimum, she doesn’t love him.

               People with a “good relationship” don’t talk that way about each other.

   4. I agree that it would be best if the poster this morning were able to set the past aside and attend with her husband as a peace-offering. But I’m surprised so many people gave her such a hard time about being obviously upset. I don’t think the poster this morning has been stewing about it, it sounded more like she’d made her peace with the situation until husband poked at an old bruise and then compounded it by his frustration when she wasn’t immediately pleased.

   5. I continue to be surprised by the reactions to that thread. She always goes to the theater alone. Knowing that, he spent hundreds of dollars on tickets to “surprise” her. Then he got mad that she already had a ticket and wasn’t thrilled that he has wasted a bunch of money. He should’ve checked with her before buying tickets. And he shouldn’t be mad that she wasn’t falling over herself with praise for him doing something “for” her that she already did for herself.

      My most charitable take on this is that he’s a 90s sitcom caricature of a husband. He wants all the praise, look what I did for you!, when he didn’t actually do anything for her (she was already going to the play) and will probably make the experience less fun. So not only does he not do anything for her, he rains on her parade, and wants her to throw him a parade in gratitude. And then gets mad and sulky when she doesn’t respond that way.

      My ungenerous take is he doesn’t like that she has a fun thing to do without him and he wants to ruin it while getting brownie points with any third party she might complain to — as shown by the comments this morning.

      1. Oh man, I was pretty hard on her in that thread, but I give him no brownie points. They both sound like they are fostering negative behaviors in the other and they should never talk again. Problem solved. They both will probably be much better people outside the orbit of each other.

      2. 100%

      3. Yep. This is my take as well. That childish man person does not deserve the benefit of the doubt given to him in that thread. It seems that he is displeased that OP is able to enjoy her hobby perfectly well without him.

         I do agree that it would be a good idea for OP to consider if she actually wants to keep him, from an outside POV he does not seem to be a keeper.

         1. Going to the theater isn’t a hobby any more than watching tv is hobby.

      4. This was my take as well.

      5. If that’s the most charitable take, they need to already be divorced. Yikes.

5. What’s the easiest airport to fly into for traveling to NYC in the fall? Coming from San Francisco, no particular allegiance to any airline.

   1. LaGuardia is the easiest to get into Manhattan from.

      1. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskNYC/comments/waaax6/whats_nyc_best_airport_overall/

      2. There are not direct flights from SFO to LGA (or anywhere from the west coast to LGA). I would absolutely take a direct flight to either JFK or Newark. Newark is a hot mess right now, but hopefully will be better by the fall.

   2. LGA

   3. depends on time of day and how you want to get into the city. LGA is closest to the city, but is a nightmare during rush hour. Newark is currently a disaster, but easy to take the train into the city and can be less time consuming during rush hour

      1. What it is with Newark this week? Seems very Soviet era flying experience.

   4. yeah LaGuardia is the closest to Manhattan, with JFK next and Newark the farthest. But I would be inclined to prioritize non-stop flights over drive time to the city, which I think means JFK coming from the west coast.

      Newark is having issues currently, but in general I don’t hate it as much as a lot of people do. My in-laws live in NYC and we’re United people so we’re at EWR a lot, and it’s really not that bad for a US airport (barring current air traffic control issues).

   5. LGA is my favorite, but if you don’t have non-stop options there, JFK is in second place and Newark a very distant third. I have no faith that Newark’s troubles will be improved by fall, because my understanding is that they stem from both outdated technology that needs replacement and a lack of trained air traffic controllers willing to work out of Philadelphia (no shade to Philly, just reporting what I heard on the news!)

      I’ll add that if you use JFK, it’s faster and easier to use the AirTrain than to take a cab/rideshare to and from the airport.

   6. I have no preference between LGA and JFK.

   7. JFK and LGA are both fine. Newark has the issues in the press, though fwiw I flew into it recently and it was fine. I try to avoid Newark only because it takes longer to Manhattan and the cab fare is generally more expensive.

   8. Depends on where you’re going in NYC. I am usually headed to lower Manhattan/ Financial district/Wall Street, and I find Newark the easiest.

   9. I like jfk because I prefer the AirTran and lirr to a car. But Im a Long Islander so the lirr is my comfort zone , at least as much as it can be anyone’s.

6. What shoes are you planning to wear to the office this summer? Semi-formal law firm. Thank you!

   1. I’m at BigLaw casual, but I like pointy toe flats on me as a look. Hoping for some more flat shoe options but IMO footwear is hard to get for workwear in 2025. So many sneakers.

      1. depending on the firm you might be able to wear clean and neat white sneakers. mary janes are on trend, loafers…

   2. mules aka backless loafers – I’m looking at adding a linen / woven style.

      1. The closed toe ones always remind me of slippers and I can’t unsee it. There was a particularly sloppy lawyer that would shuffle into court in them last summer and I think ruined the look for me.

         1. I just saw a dapper business-looking man on the tube today wearing backless leather loafers with pink socks to go with his trousers and shirt. I honestly didn’t know what to think of that other than wonder how loud the flip-flop noise of such long shoes only attached at the front of the foot would be in an office environment.

7. Considering an in person job after 4 years of mostly remote. Job is a ten minute walk away, it would be 8-5. My current role has a ton of flexibility so I’m able to put in a work out during the day, pick up my kid, etc. In person job is far far more stable, would be a better fit for me and a good step in my career. If you’ve transitioned back to in person, what made it work? Tell me the upsides.

   1. That commute is a dream, but I’d think long and hard about giving up flexibility. Is it 8-5 in-office with a culture of flexibility otherwise (no one will look askance if you need to step out) or is it butt-in-seat during those hours? If the latter, how is the sick time benefit?

   2. From March 2020 to Spring 2023, I was almost entirely remote due to covid or a remote job. I went to a hybrid (3 office/2 home) job and it’s been OK, but that’s party because the job as a whole is better than my last one.
      Pluses: Low stakes positive interactions with my team (not just teams interactions when one of us needed something) is good for team building, free food at the office, overall improved work environment compared to my dysfunction remote job, & the 2 days a week at home mean that I can still do a dentist appt or pick up a kid when I need to without burning PTO (and generous PTO when I need it).
      Minuses: commuting does just s.u.c.k – I hate the lost time and being subject to factors outside my control, I don’t like feeling like I have to dress up/do hair and makeup on site (which I do less consistently at home), generally feeling like I have less control over my day because I have to sit in an office even though I may be on teams with people during that time, & I did have to invest in some new work clothes because of COVID15 and styles changing.
      TLDR: It’s not terrible, but there are definitely trade offs. If you like the job and the people, it may even be better, but think through how being in person may affect your schedule.

   3. I’d be really hesitant to give up that flexibility, especially with a school age kid. It’s been such a positive change for my life and my kid’s life and at this point I don’t think I would go back to five day a week in person unless it was literally the only way to put food on the table.

      1. Agreed. 8-5 is a long day too.

   4. Upside is ability to limit work to those hours and to the office. Obviously this is not always true, but I find it easier to turn off work mode and focus on home when I go to an office. The reverse is also true; I am far more attentive to work when I am in an office and not trying to throw in a load of laundry, start dinner or tend to a child.

   5. I have a short commute like that too which makes it a lot easier to go back!

      pros-
      – having trickier conversations or gauging mood is a lot easier when you can walk by the person and get a sense of how their day is going before you approach them on something
      – post-meeting debriefs are a lot more natural
      – can keep all the Work Stuff at work (maybe after being remote so long it doesn’t apply to you, but I had physical binders for some projects that I loved evicting from the corner of my living room desk!)
      – if I need to step out for an appointment or whatever, it is nbd. Being in the office doesn’t mean I can’t leave my seat all day. Similarly if I need to work a half day from home on a normal office day, that’s fine.

      cons-
      – ‘getting ready time’ is longer for office days than not
      – not being home to just retrieve a package immediately, but neighbors help with this
      – more interruptions; my weeks are more lopsided now as I save focus & detail oriented work for WFH days

   6. Why is it 9 hours in office? That’s a red flag. No one takes a full hour for lunch …

      1. Lmfao at this being a “red flag.”

         1. Same! This seems very very normal.

8. How do Adidas Sambas run? I need a new pair of casual sneakers. One foot runs slightly wide in the toe box after an accident.

   1. I bought a pair of Sambas and never wear them because they’re so uncomfortable (can’t remember what size, but I think they were true to size). On the other hand, I bought a pair of the Spezials (kids version, but I assume adult version is the same) and they are super comfy out of the box and, I think, cuter.

   2. I have a bunch of different Adidas sneakers. All super comfy. All run a half size larger than my other shoes.

9. Conclave Round 1 was black smoke. As a cradle Catholic, I love the pomp and circumstance of a conclave!

   1. I’m Jewish, but fascinated by the process!

   2. Same! My 4yo and I watched for a few hours, while flipping through the kids book “We have a Pope” to follow along. He even fell asleep during the litany chanting. (Gosh I loved Francis, I was getting very emotional watching. AMDG.)

   3. Same!

10. anyone have any favorite crockpot dishes for summer? trying to be better about getting something started early in the day and we’re getting tired of salsa chicken… thanks!

11. Has anyone worked with a career coach they’d recommend? I’m feeling stuck and like I need someone to help me figure out what needs to change, and avenues that maybe I haven’t thought about.

    1. Jackie Cascarano / Your Mindset Coach – she is great!

    2. Kim Meninger–particularly good if you suffer from imposter syndrome or are in a tech or tech-adjacent field

12. Uggggh — need to whine for a second. I’m job-hunting, and I just submitted an application that asked me if I’d ever been “terminated.” Technically, I have — my position was eliminated a few years ago. So I said yes, because it seemed better to be overly honest and risk getting dropped than to fudge the truth and risk a big dramatic ~thing~ later on. But a) now I’m second- and third-guessing myself; and b) it’s so disheartening to think that this layoff will be an albatross around my neck for the rest of my working life.

    1. I read terminated as different from eliminated. Can you either resubmit or reach out and say that you clicked that in error?

    2. “Terminated” generally means fired; if your job was eliminated, you were laid off. You might not be able to correct the most recent application, but going forward I think you are perfectly fine answering that question “no.”

       Sending good wishes for the job search.

    3. I don’t think a layoff is a termination in this sense. I mean I guess it is literally a termination of the employer-employee relationship, but I think they’re asking if you’ve been let go for performance reasons. If you haven’t, I would have said no.
       A layoff is not an albatross around your neck for the rest of your working life. I feel like more people have been laid off at some point than not; certainly many competent people have been laid off, and no one is going to refuse to hire you because of a layoff several years ago. Even if you’ve been fired for cause, it’s not going to ruin the rest of your life and a layoff is way more common and understandable.

    4. That’s such a weird question. I’m interested to hear from others if there’s a right way to answer.

       FWIW I probably would’ve answered no and explained that I thought terminated meant fired. You hear so much about HR using search tools to filter out applicants, I’d be worried that they were using that option as an easy filter.

    5. I have had positions eliminated plenty of times due to organizational issues. If you have a space to explain that in application as a layoff, I don’t think people view that as a negative. Fired for cause is different.

    6. I think you answered incorrectly. Any employee who leaves our company is “terminated” in the system but that means they’re just gone. I think they’re asking “terminated” in the “you’re fired, here’s the door” sense. Is there any way to follow up with a hiring person? Sorry, OP. That is such a weird question. I’ve seen it written as “unwillingly terminated” or something like that to specific that it wasn’t a choice and you were in fact fired.

    7. Like others I would have answered no here. Is there a contact you can email to explain?

    8. You weren’t terminated! That’s not what they mean. Pretty much everyone has been laid off at this point. It’s not a black mark on your record. Contact them and explain.

Comments are closed.