Earning My Stripes

Today is the 7th day of the workweek for me, so I'll keep it brief. I finally got to work the suit and lone suit jacket from my last post into the wardrobe rotation.

As it turns out, I *only* needed to wear suits 4 days out of the week. The first 2 days I went with some pretty typical ensembles that I've worn before, then it was time to get a little more creative. As much as I like dressing up, suits do start to get boring after a while.

Luckily, I got a little break on Wednesday since the appearance I was supposed to make was off-calendar. I've been wanting to wear the cute, nautically-trendy Gap camisole. The straps and trim has blue and white stripes As cute as the top is, it's too casual to wear by itself to work, so I layered it over a gray t-shirt. Then I got another idea--why not wear my new gray blazer over it? The color matches with the t-shirt but contrasts with the camisole, and it worked like a charm.

The next day was back to the suits, but one day's worth of colrfulness gave me some creative energy to work with. Instead of my usual matching jacket and bottoms, I decided to go with an all-black ensemble underneath and top it off with the same gray charcoal gray blazer from the day before. I really like it--colors are still conservative, but it's youthful and different.

Friday I finally got to wear my new striped suit, which is a great variation to all the solid suits I own. I had to get the pants shortened because they were a few inches too long. I'm really happy with the result. The suit is a very dark brown, almost black; the color is very amenable to colored shirts, particularly the purple one I chose for the day.

These $100 suits are fabulous when I can find them. I'm not a label snob, but I now officially swear by BCBG suits (at least the jackets) because 1) the fit is great and 2) the quality is really good vis-a-vis the sale price. Maybe I'll brave the line for the BCBG warehouse sale this year after passing it up for a few years. I'm gonna need a lot of suits, and even though I'm not as broke as I was before, I still refuse to pay an arm and a leg for them. If I can get the jackets for $25-50 again, it'll be worth the long lines, the long walk (from far-flung parking spots), and having to wake up at the crack of dawn.