Weekly News Update
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– The WSJ looks at the new power suit for women.
– OnlineMBA has some advice for how to build a business wardrobe from the bottom up.
– Dina at Eye4Style has some great advice on how to interview for a job in fashion (along with some great general advice).
– The Careerist reviews the dismal numbers for senior women in BigLaw. (Can anyone point me to a survey of what women do AFTER BigLaw? I seem to remember seeing something about how no one tracks it.)
– SavvySugar has an exact script for you to use to negotiate your starting salary.
– (Old news, but it's now online: Real Simple has an article about what not to wear to work, and features me as an expert. Thank you, Real Simple!)
Did we miss anything? Add 'em here, or send them to news@corporette.com. Thank you!
Thanks for the WSJ link on suits, especially the picture. I just bought two new suits from BR to replace ones that I had worn out over the course of 5 or so years, and I thought the BR jackets seemed long. Now I can see that that’s the trend and I’m not so concerned that I mistakenly bought something dowdy.
Yes! I was afraid that I was the only one who thought the suits shown in that article were dowdy – they all looked like they fit terribly and were not flattering. Seriously, Claire Danes’s pants were pooling around her feet and you could see the pockets showing through the pant legs on the woman in the three-piece suit. And apparently I’m not the only one who looks bad in high-waisted pants and a long double-breasted jacket.
I might be rethinking my Tom James position if this style of suit lingers…
It may be the trend but it still looks dowdy. I hate those suits. They all look like little girls playing in dad’s clothes.
Bitter rant: I really hate articles that seem to act like finding work basics is simple for women, particularly women on a new graduate’s budget (this is re: online MBA). It’s much much easier to write in an article that fit and tailoring is essential if you’re not the one ordering 3-4 different sizes of things in unfamiliar to you brands (I certainly didn’t wear brooks brothers in college) and then hoping that the return goes thru before your credit card bill is due and that the tailor won’t screw it up and ruin your investment (tailors were also unfamiliar – when I graduated from college, the only thing I had previously had altered was a bridesmaid dress).
I am jealous of how easy it is for men and wish stores would cut it out with the petites/tall online only. I mourn the perfect pants that needed to be taken in at the waist and were ruined by a tailor who couldn’t handle women’s bodies. I dread shopping for basics, and have broken down into full ugly cry in the mall after I couldn’t find a single pair of dress pants that came close to fitting.
So yay! Just go out and buy three pairs of dress pants and a tailored suit and a fitted white shirt, ladies (still haven’t found a button-down one that fits my chest and waist simultaneously). And don’t forget a foundation that matches your skin tone perfectly in natural light! (end rant. Thanks for letting me get that off my hard to fit chest).
Agreed x1000.
Never mind that most button-downs gape horribly on every woman who isn’t a small-busted size zero. Biggest wardrobe mistake ever: “investing” in button-downs for work.
Agreed. I unintentionally tried on some Black Fleece stuff at BB last week. The sales associate informed me that tailoring would be free, as if it was really putting them out to offer this. The jacket was $750 (!) and I said “I should hope so for $750. Men get free tailoring all the time.” And, I konw BB does free tailoring, but it was her tone which made it annoying to hear.
I sometimes think men have it easy, and then I look at the men I see around and a lot of their clothes fit like cr*p too. So many khakis and baggy Dad jeans that give them “elephant butt” and so many suit pants hemmed too short.
Yes, but men have more and better choices at the cheaper and mid-priced parts of the clothing spectrum. If they’re picking the wrong things, it’s b.c. they’re making poor choices.
For women, it’s more that there’s a dearth of good choices in this price range.
And men’s clothing is better made across the board, and their bodies change less drastically over time, and above all men’s appearance just doesn’t matter as much. Someone can post a reply making fun of my angry feminism if they want.