2024 Work Uniform (for Colder Months)

TL;DR I wear clothes to work. Generally a dress, leggings, and some accessories. 

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I usually work in the office five days a week. I can work from home once in a while, but I meet in-person with students with some frequency and I like to have all the days available so that I can be as flexible as possible to make it work for their schedules. I want to know what I'm going to wear in the morning with minimal thinking. So it's a dress and leggings for me. I have a pair of boots that I leave in my office that I change into every day - just call me Fred Rogers.  

Requirements for my "winter" dresses: sleeves and pockets. I prefer a wrap or faux wrap, but those are challenging to find, so I wear a lot of A-line dresses. I strongly prefer natural fabrics - cotton and wool mostly.  Here's what I wore to work last week.

(I tried to link to exact items of clothing if they're still made. Otherwise I just linked the company.)

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Monday:

Just as we were about to leave work for the day, there was a tornado warning (in early March! egads!). My husband and I headed to an interior office (we purposefully did not go to an actual tornado shelter because all the other people would be there) and it was So Loud and So Long and I started doing a mini-photo shoot for the purpose of this blog post. I love that my husband is laughing at me in this photo as if he is still surprised by my nonsense all these years later. 

Dress: Mata Traders
Leggings: Duluth Trading Company (mini review - comfortable leggings with pockets and a wide waistband that doesn't roll - they do fade quickly, so wash them on cool and line-dry them)
Shoes: CYDWOK (I'm not wearing my boots here because we were on our way out the door when the sirens went off and I'd already changed out of them, but I'm wearing my CYDWOK Mary Janes - this link is not an exact match because CYDWOK doesn't make these exact shoes anymore, but I've had them for more than a decade, so they are well worth the investment - I will evangelize for this company for the rest of my life)

Accessories: Twisted Silver bracelet (not this exact one), handmade daisy beaded bracelet

I have a thin black belt I sometimes wear with this dress to give it/me more of a waist.

Tuesday:

I was at a fair on another campus this day, so I didn't go into the office. No photos, but I wore some dark wash boot cut jeans (Duluth Trading Company), brown boots (Redwing Heritage Collection), sleeveless purple shirt (Limited from fourteen years ago - see this post!), black cardigan (from White House Black Market literally decades ago when they only sold white and black items), and brown belt (Gap from a decade ago).  

Wednesday:

Dress: Toad & Co. (the pocket in this dress is less than ideal, but it's there)

Leggings: Duluth Trading Company

Boots: CYDWOK 

Scarf: Present from my friend Essen in grad school 

Accessories: Twisted Silver bracelet (not this exact one), handmade daisy beaded bracelet

Thursday:

Dress: Mata Traders 

Leggings: Duluth Trading Company

Boots: CYDWOK

Scarf: I have long since removed the tag, so I don't know the designer, but I bought it at Helen Winnemore's, a cute shop in Columbus, Ohio

Friday:

Dress: Mata Traders

Leggings: Duluth Trading Company

Boots: CYDWOK

Accessories: Twisted Silver bracelet (not this exact one), handmade daisy beaded bracelet

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Here is a close-up of my boots. I am super picky about shoes because of my bad leg and I can wear these shoes all day and not be in pain. No insoles or anything. Yes, I spent hundreds of dollars on these, but I wear them every day and they are amazing. (For those of you who read MBF for CBBC, I always think about how they are handmade!)

Here are my Mary Janes. I took them to get resoled in January of this year and my cobbler said that his first ticket on them was from 2014, so they are at least a decade old. I wear them a lot. They've also been resoled and repaired a number of times.

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In my office, I have a grey infinity scarf (winterweight), a lightweight pink scarf (summerweight), and a grey cardigan (from H&M that I bought in an emergency when I was underdressed during a summer trip) that I store in a cabinet in case I'm ever underdressed and cold. The cardigan is polyester and violates my natural fabric rule, but it was purchased before I had that rule in place.

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I have two other three-quarter length sleeve dresses with pockets (see below) that I didn't wear this week, so I have a total of six "winter" dresses. I'd like one or two more to fill out my collection, but there's no rush on it since the season is winding down.

On the left: Betabrand dress (from years ago, so they no longer stock it)

On the right: Audrey dress from O'Connell's - This is 100% the most flattering dress I own. It doesn't have great hangar appeal, but it's amazing on me. 

And that's it. Dress, leggings, maybe a scarf. Bracelets. CYDWOK boots.  

My "everyday" bracelets.

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Note that most weeks I do a lunchtime stretch class three days a week via Zoom wearing these clothes. Occasionally, I actually go to a yoga class at the student union for a 30 minute video and I do not change my clothes - I just wear my dress and leggings. People sometimes act like it's a big deal to wear a dress, but I swear to you that it's just as comfortable for me as my pajamas. 

I have a handful of blazers and cardigans I will wear over dresses if I'm doing something formal like a conference or teaching (or if I'm just cold). Here they are.

Black cardigan: This is the one from White House Black Market from decades ago. I bought it at the WHBM at the Mall of American when I lived in Minnesota. (Also is polyester.)

Purple cardigan: Salaam Clothing (maybe a decade old? - certainly not on their website anymore) (Also is polyester.)

Orange blazer: I.N.C. from Macy's - I bought this when I was on a work trip to Chicago years and years ago and I was very, very cold. The lining is shredded, but it's a cute piece.

Silver blazer: Ann Taylor from fourteen years ago - I can date this one because I bought it for my twin niece and nephew's baptism and they are fifteen now. My nephew puked on it at the ceremony and you can still see the slight stain if you know what to look for. Hasn't stopped me from wearing that blazer about a million times since then. 

I would definitely lint roll this before I left the house in it. It is clear I have a cat, right?

This is a jacket from O'Connell's. It goes amazingly well with just about any black dress, but when I pair it with the Audrey or Toad & Co. dress, it is sheer perfection.

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I rarely pay full price for anything, outside of my shoes and leggings, and I could probably get the leggings on sale if I paid more attention. I think maybe my husband paid full price for my silver bracelet, but I wear it most days and have for years and years, so I think it's probably paid for itself. Everything else that I've shown here I bought on discount of one sort or another. I try to get clothes at end-of-season sales. (I know I should thrift more. The thing is that I live in a relatively low-income rural area and the thrift shops here are full of fast fashion junk with oddly high prices. I could drive an hour or so away for nicer places, but I literally do not have time to hunt down the "good" thrift shops and I have so far refused to make it a priority. I don't enjoy being in thrift stores and the process of clothes shopping is already painful enough.)

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Now, I don't anticipate changing much about this as the weather gets warmer because the AC means my office is the same temperature. We'll see. Maybe I'll be doing this to talk about what I wear during the summer later on. Same uniform with eight short-sleeved dresses!

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Do you have a work uniform?  Does getting dressed in the morning require a lot of thought for you?