Thanks to Michelle Obama and Kate Middleton, print dress are big, big, big. Throw out your grey separates. Black pants are so Hillary. Get something with a big loud pattern and add a cardigan and flats.
The Return of the Print Dress
37 thoughts on “The Return of the Print Dress”
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Apt. 11d 
Is Hillary not hip and in any more? I thought we were just texting with her last week.
Kate and Michelle are pretty and all, but Hillary can cut off your foreign aid.
I guess you have to decide if you want to dress for the great job or the great husband, because Michelle, Kate, and Hillary are three data points saying that you can’t have both.
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The dresses aren’t professional, though. That’s why we’re talking about KM & MO for style. Hillary couldn’t wear that dress to a State Department meeting. Michelle Obama (no matter how much I love her) current job, especially on the campaign trail, is “wife” (as, incidentally, is KM’s). As such, they’re wearing wife clothing, not lawyer clothing.
Hillary has to wear lawyer clothing.
I love the print dresses but have never really been able to pull them off.
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“I love the print dresses but have never really been able to pull them off.”
Oh man, me too. I’m a flowery dress personality stuck in a classic solid color body.
(Tangent: My daughter is watching War Horse right now. Hiddleston and Cumberbatch in the same scene? In uniforms? My ovaries exploded.)
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Michelle rocks flats cuz girl is, like, 14 feet tall. NTTAWWT.
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These dresses require you not have an ample blossom. Strike 1….
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Question for the group: would you ever wear any dress at all (much less a print dress) to work? And what industry are you in?
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Software, so yes and yes. When the dress code is “Clothes, Clean”, a flowered dress is nothing 🙂
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“Question for the group: would you ever wear any dress at all (much less a print dress) to work? And what industry are you in?”
When I was teaching, certainly. If you added a cardigan to MO’s ensemble (as Laura suggests), it would be perfectly acceptable for K-12 and adult ESL (although teachers in the very early grades may prefer pants for better range of motion). Not sure about college.
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I never wear a dress to work.
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MH, you are clearly denying your colleagues one of life’s greater pleasures.
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Maybe. Some of the women I work with wear dresses, some don’t. I think maybe dress-wearing here correlates negatively with having a working class family of origin.
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I’m a lawyer and I live in dresses all summer if I don’t have court — none flowered, but I’ve got a couple of bright plaid numbers. But I work for the state, and no one gives a damn what we’re wearing.
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And I would totally wear exactly the dress Michelle Obama has on in that picture to work. Maybe pick a different color — literal red and white check, while it’s working on her, I think might turn into a tablecloth on me. But that cut and that scale pattern, absolutely.
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I can wear dresses to work. College prof. Our dress code is business-y. Not suits, but skirts, dress pants and dresses are encouraged.
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I am a high school teacher and LOVE wearing dresses to work–easier dressing the morning than assembling an outfit out of separates!
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I’m a dress whore, and a skirt slut. As a college prof there is a fair amount of latitude as to what one wears. In NYC I see lots of women in dresses, dressed for work. In what industry don’t women wear dresses?
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I could wear it to work, but wouldn’t. It feels too Betty Draper.
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I work in IT services, similar to software but more client interaction. For client-facing events the women in my office have almost a uniform: black or gray dress pants, dress shirt. Sometimes I add chunky jewelry or an embroidered sweater at the most. For days with no client meetings most of the women wear khaki or denim pants and some sort of fairly muted top. Honestly it all seems designed to not be noticed at all. My attorney, accounting, and manufacturing friends seem to do the same.
But I will totally wear this kind of thing on the weekend or evening. Really the shots of Kate and Michelle show them vacationing, essentially, as opposed to working. And they’re also much younger than Hillary; it’s the rare 65-year-old who can carry off a floral print without looking like Aunt Gertie.
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I think prints are fine, it’s more the retro cut that would make me uncomfortable to wear it teaching or on campus. For some reason, the hourglass/A-line skirt shape seems unprofessional, even though an hourglass shape with a pencil skirt seems ok to me (as long as it’s not too tight), though I couldn’t give a good reason why. I am probably very extreme in my discomfort, but I try to avoid wearing anything that is overtly curve emphasizing on campus.
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B.I. Can I ask what part of the country you teach in? I’m in the northeast outside of NYC, so form fitting is the “norm” and anything else seems frumpy or dated.
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Macaroni,
Large city, midwest, so probably not the cutting edge of fashion (unless jeans with white sneakers is now hip). I’m not against certain forms of form fitting (skinny jeans), but it has to be balanced with non form fitting (like a loose shirt), and there’s something about emphasizing the hourglass figure that I’m not totally comfortable with, though I’m pretty sure this is mostly a personal idiosyncrasy.
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BI, I think you’re on to something. I don’t want anything in the workplace that draws attention to my appearance, either positively or negatively. The whole appearance thing needs to be taken completely off the table if you want to be treated fairly.
When I was younger I felt I was not taken seriously because I was surreptitiously being scoped as potential dating fodder. Then I was being monitored to make sure my parental responsibilities were not impacting my focus at work. (God forbid I have a spit-up stain on my shoulder … when my male colleagues regularly came in with blood stains from shaving incidents.) Nowadays I’m old enough that if I’m viewed as a woman first I fall into the “Tina Fey crazy lady” category.
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when my male colleagues regularly came in with blood stains from shaving incidents
That’s nothing. I’ve worn essentially the same clothing since 1995. Underwear aside, I’ve worn exactly the same clothing since Tuesday.
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I just dumped (passed onto two girls from Spain) about a dozen button down Oxford shirts, my former workplace uniform. The morning routine was so awful that I needed to not think about matching or coordinating outfits.. Now, I’m going to writing and Internet functions. It’s creative and if you want to establish yourself as a brand, you have to look unique. Malcolm Gladwell’s hair explains 75% of his success.
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Isn’t the pencil skirt hard to move around in? Wikipedia describes it as a descendant of the hobble skirt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobble_(device)
“Now, I’m going to writing and Internet functions. It’s creative and if you want to establish yourself as a brand, you have to look unique.”
So, the opposite of jen’s camouflage strategy.
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I’m getting promoted to university administration and I”m trying to figure out what that means about what I wear. I used to do ‘college professor but put together’ with a lot of those little cardigans from Target and dark pants — but now I feel like I need to start wearing suits. Has anybody ever used one of those shoppers at Nordstrom who gives you fashion advice? I’ve also lost 25 pounds recently, so everything looks kind of odd on me right now anyway. (The sleeves are now too long on all my suits and I’m trying to decide whether to take them to the tailor or just give up and buy new ones).
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First, don’t buy work clothes at Target or anywhere else that sells Cheez-Its. Second, “college professor but put together” is one of the best passive-aggressive insults that I’ve heard in weeks.
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“Has anybody ever used one of those shoppers at Nordstrom who gives you fashion advice?”
Years ago (when I was just a kid/teen), and it was very helpful. (I’m a Washingtonian, so going to Nordstrom’s was a form of tradition and local patriotism, rather than conspicuous consumption.) Prepare to spend a lot of money, though.
“First, don’t buy work clothes at Target or anywhere else that sells Cheez-Its.”
You can still get things that go under things at Target, but probably not the main pieces.
I go to the faculty club for lunch a lot with my husband and I don’t think there are any women in actual suits, although you do see the occasional man doing so. There are nicely dressed women (who may very well be administrators), but not women in suits. This is Texas, though, and it’s still in the high 90s.
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By suit, do you mean a skirt suit? Those to me look very dated. I’m not sure even attorneys wear those any more, and attorneys IMO dress more formally than anyone else.
Most women I see in positions of authority wear dress pants and a jacket, but these two items are not made of the same material and thus are not a suit per se.
I’ve definitely gone to Bloomie’s or Nordstrom’s and just asked the sales clerk to bring me things. I don’t use the official shopper service; it works out just fine with the sales clerk in my experience. Describe the dress code and see what they bring you, and keep an open mind.
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Yeah, isn’t it weird how men’s fashions seem never to change but women’s do? I can’t quite figure out what women wear these days, since as you said women don’t seem to wear suits whereas men still do, at least where I work. (Some of the law people and b-school people on our campus, however, still dress quite formally, particularly the administrators). I haven’t worn pantyhose in years, and I’m kind of freaked out at the thought. I’m thinking about a couple more pairs of solid colored pants that fit well, along with some good blazers. My husband has taken to buying me good jewelry lately, which is nice and works well. But the advice about no longer buying me clothes anywhere that sells cheez-its is priceless! And is probably an awesome rule of thumb. From now on, clothing needs to come from clothing stores. (Does that list include Sam’s club? I’ve gotten some really cute shoes there in the past?)
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jen,
Yes, now that I think of it, you’re quite right about skirt suits. When I hear “suit” I think top-and-bottom matched, and I really haven’t seen much of that lately on women. I guess that’s gone the way of the floppy bow…
I haven’t been there for years, but Nordstrom’s brand has traditionally been to provide elaborate service to all comers, putting together outfits that are perfect to the last detail. (Years ago, I remember reading a story in a Seattle paper about a bag lady at Nordstrom’s getting the full treatment.)
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Louisa,
I’m not sure if this is quite on the level of MH’s Cheez-Its advice, but here’s my contribution: “Don’t wear anything that looks like you’re going to have fun in it.”
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I like J Crew & Eddie Bauer “suits” if they fit. I think in the mid-west & west, a skirt is almost never necessary for a professional at an university (I think we can thank Hillary for that). I have a suspicion that the mileage may vary in the south, and the Northeast has its own requirements (and NY even more specific ones).
I agree that Target is the wrong place to look for basic pieces (skirts/pants/jackets, especially). One might be able to get away with it if your body is pretty perfect, otherwise problematic.
Regarding old suits, my guess is start over. I was trying on some of my pre-kid suits recently and realized that suits are subtly different now — the main thing I noticed was the shoulders, which are narrower on current jackets. But, I’m sure there are multiple other details to look out for, including lapels, cuffs, buttons, fabric, . . . .
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PS: When I was last in DC, there were a surprising number of sleeveless sheaths on the street (with women in them). It was very hot. My guess is that the look was adopted by mid level adminstrator types (but maybe lower level), but I also think the style was drifting upward in the hierarchy, with better fabrics/fitting/bodies.
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“One might be able to get away with it if your body is pretty perfect, otherwise problematic.”
That’s another issue I have with the pencil skirt, the danger of accidentally achieving the “sausage casing” look.
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A few years back I realized that my habit of wearing stockings was making it clear I was born before the Carter administration. So I stopped. But going bare-legged in the office still scandalizes me … which is my way of saying I haven’t shown up in the office in a skirt or dress that shows leg since like 2005. But NO ONE has noticed this, it’s so common to just do pants every day.
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“A few years back I realized that my habit of wearing stockings was making it clear I was born before the Carter administration.”
Funny, but very good to know!
I wish there were some sort of automated texting service that would send this sort of crucial demographic information (“No one under 30 in your zip code has been getting a permanent wave for several years now.”). So much more useful than “this season’s hot color is puce.”
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