What Stages Have Your Work Wardrobe Gone Through?

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I was intrigued by a recent Reddit discussion about “phase 1 corporate clothing”* — and I thought we should discuss. Considering your work clothes — can you parse your work wardrobe into stages (or, for the Swifties, eras) like your intern stage, your “first job” phase, and beyond? (Pandemic stage? RTO stage?) It caught my attention because clearly there are differences between an intern's wardrobe and a CEO's wardrobe… but the steps in between can be a bit confusing for some.

We have a super, super basic graphic on “how to wear a suit” that I share sometimes — to me this is classic “phase 1 corporate clothing.” Black/gray/navy suits, white/blue/pink shirts, sleek black accessories.

I'm not saying that there aren't still times when a more senior working woman would want to wear these clothes — after all, they're clean, sharp, all business. I just think that after a few years you start to realize where you can branch out, what clothes you like the best, where you can show personality.

Personally, my intern era was… pretty cringeworthy, fashionwise. I did evolve within that era — the long button-front dresses with cardigan that I wore to my newspaper internship at age 18 was different than the black suits I wore to my summer associate gig as a 2L at 25… but the whole era was very much defined by a concern for propriety, meeting expectations, and in general cosplaying as an adult.

My early years working in BigLaw were fun ones for me (I'm sure you're shocked to hear that) — but I really enjoyed finding my personality as a lawyer. It helped that I had a lot of disposable income.

When I switched to nonprofit work, I knew I was in a new era, but struggled to find my footing, fashion-wise — at the time I was newly married, we were house poor, and kids were on the horizon. Furthermore, because the blog was growing I wasn't sure how long I'd be keeping the nonprofit job.

Those are some of my big work wardrobe eras — over to you, readers! What stages or eras have your work wardrobes gone through? Do you remember them fondly or do you cringe?

*The actual Redditor's question concerned where to rehome Phase 1 Corporate Clothing, which we've actually covered before in this post on where to recycle, sell, or donate your old work clothes.