A Working Woman's Guide to Leggings

(My favorite outfit of all time.)

My friend J asked me to do a primer about leggings in the workplace. It took me a long time to warm to the idea of leggings at work, and there are only a few circumstances where they are appropriate, but it is possible to wear them in the office, provided you use a little discretion and grace.

Caveat: all of this depends on what kind of office dress code you have. Mine is business casual, and when we are in the office at our desks, it tends to be on the looser end of business casual. When we travel out to the sites or for meetings, we step it up a notch, and for exec-level meetings, it's a suit.

Here are the guideleines I use for leggings:
1. Never ever wear them at a executive-level business meeting.  Just, don't.
2. Cropped leggings are a possibility in the summer, but I have only worn them when I knew I was doing something before or after work that required them. Otherwise they just look goofy.




3.  Long leggings are best, in dark colors. I have black and brown.




4. Wear them with a dress. They say they can be worn with tunics, but not to work. I've tried, and it just didn't look right.



5. Dresses that are too-short otherwise can get a new life when you pair them with leggings, but a regular length dress is best. The idea is to wear them almost like tights before it's cold enough for tights.



6. Wear them with flats, or sandals in the summer. It's the really the best way to wear flats with dresses without looking frumpy.



7. You can wear them tucked into boots, which I have done, but I don't see the point. Why didn't I just wear tights? To me, leggings are seasonal: spring and fall, when the weather is just between tights and bare-legged temperatures. Coincidentally, that's also (ballet) flats weather!




8. My favorite look is monochromatic. I think it's because there's that break at the ankle where skin shows again, so it's not the same as head-to-toe black in tights and boots.



9. Contrast is okay, but tricky. Angie at YLF said once to pull in that darker color up top somewhere in the outfit, and that makes a lot of sense. See? The left has that repeating color, the right doesn't.




10. Don't be afraid of patterns on top, especially if you use rule #9. The left outfit is missing dark on top, the one on the right has better color flow all the way down.



I hope this was helpful to you! Are there any tips that you use for leggings in the office that I may have missed? Do you have an office where they can be worn?

Angie has posted about leggings many times over the last couple of years. If my guidelines are too strict for your office, check out what she has had to say!

Earning My Weekend

I just posted on Facebook that this was a week in which I really earned my weekend. You know those rough ones, where you have no idea how you are going to get to the end of it? That was my week. But I made it! And after work tonight, Hubby and I are headed downtown for a luxurious weekend staying at a swanky hotel in one of the ritziest areas of the city. Our fifteenth anniversary (15! It still blows me away) is next week, so we squeezed in some time to ourselves to celebrate.

Well, ourselves, and my trusty camera so I can share it with the internet. And the thousands of tourists. Yay, alone time! :) :)

Anyway, throughout the week, I did get dressed, and I did take pictures most days! This was Monday:





Ignore the dorky smile. The next one is better, but the pose isn't as good.




I liked this outfit; I finally managed to make this new cream Gap sweater work. Instead of going for contrast with a dark piece underneath, I wore a complementary lighter top, also from Gap. But that much cream is not good for my complexion, so the teal scarf broke it up nicely. Heh, now that I think about it, the skinny black pants are Gap too, and the pewter mesh cuff and lariat necklace are Banana Republic. I really do put that Gap card to use! The only non-Gap/BR items in this one are the grey Vera Wang flats from Kohls.




Look at "Bruiser" back there watching the photo shoot. She's the best.


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Tuesday was completely insane. I don't even remember what I wore! But Wednesday was another long sweater/skinny pant combo; I am rather enjoying this new (to me) flop-proof formula this season. It's probably not trendy at all, but if I am wearing skinny pants I have to wear a long sweater over my dupa. I have tried a million tunic tops, and they are just not flattering. This works much better for my short-waist, long-legged, pear-hips self.







I absolutely LOVE this new Old Navy sweater (I wore it with a white undertop last week). It is ridiculously comfortable, and so cozy. The temps have been relatively warm this week, and unfortunately this particular day we went on a ghost tour after work, so I was a little warm in it. But the t-shirt underneath was wearable without a sweater, and by the end of the night I had the sweater back on as it cooled. So it all worked out!




This was fun, pairing up dark blues and black. The sweater is a marled combo of the two colors, and the top was from Marshalls this summer while shopping with my mom. The NYDJ skinnies came out for this, and the Clarks open-toed booties kept me cool when the temps rose. (Good thing I have a dark polish on my toes right now; it's perfect for fall wearing of open-toed shoes.) To keep it a little light, I wore two long necklaces, one with clear lucite stones, and the other with light green and light blue beach-glass stones. Plus my turquoise glasses, of course. I've been wearing them almost every day lately.

Here's a spooky picture I took on the ghost tour. We didn't see any ghosts, alas, but I made a bunch of us line up and recreate in shadows the St Valentine's Day massacre at the original site. The light really was that orangey-red behind us. Like the blood of the victims....spooky!





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Friday was...an adventure in photography.




Um...forget something?





Um...forget something else? Focus, ding-dong!

Unfortunately I did not notice until I downloaded the pics this morning, so that's the best shot of it I have. But it is the cropped Old Navy denim jacket, the Target red peacock-pattern dress, black leggings and black pointed toe flats from DSW from last year.

I did get a clean shot of the bracelet combination I put together. Several are from the Hive and Honey set from Piperlime, and the two shinier silver ones with purple and green-yellow stones are from Charming Charlie's. A new store opened up a couple of towns over. I have a couple of necklaces I can't get to work so will be returning, but I loved these bracelets. They looked way more expensive than they were!





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Have a great weekend, everyone! I will try to catch up on my blogs when I get back; I have many sitting in my tabs on Firefox. :)

The difference between my mirror and real life

Fall has arrived, people. We're suddenly in 50-60s for temperatures, and the layers have come flying out.


Wednesday was a return of my NYDJ ponte pants. I almost accidentally wore the brown instead of the black, but I noticed my mistake as I was walking out to my car, and hustled back inside to change. I also got busted by my neighbor taking photos outside, so I did one round of shots where I felt really anxious and embarrassed, then I had to resort to inside shots in my kitchen.




I liked the colors in this; the pink LOFT sweater with the draped neck gets very little wear because it's a little too baggy overall on me. Adding the draped sweater from Marshalls with its asymmetrical hem and the strands of bright, warm pearls from Nordstrom focused back up to the sweater's best feature, the draped neck. I also like the contrast of the red cutout Target flats with the pink. (Heh, Economy of Style, looks like we were on the same style page again a couple of days apart!) 




I should have done a close up, but the bracelets were a delicate combination of some pretty silver wired bangles with tiny flowers that Laura gave me, and a multi-colored stone one from Target that I picked up a year ago and promptly forgot about because it was tucked into a closed jewelry box that I never look in. I finally found a good container for my bracelets on my chest of drawers, so now I can see everything better and forgotten pieces are coming into circulation.


Thursday was...Thursday. It was well and truly cold, and I am still struggling to figure out the shoe situation with my dresses; it's not quite cold enough for tights yet, but bare legs are not going to work either. Leggings and flats are kind of it, for the moment.






I don't think the sweater color worked as well in real life as it did in the mirror; the contrast between the dark pieces (Kohls peacock dress and black jersey scarf) under and the lightness of the cream wool was too much. Even going with the light rose-gold metallic Tahari flats from DSW wasn't enough to pull it all together. It's a new sweater from Gap, and long-time readers know how much I love boyfriend style cardigans; I have a short torso and long legs, so it's a style that generally works well for me. I have a few other ideas for this that I think will work better next time.




I need to remember that when I tuck my hair back and go for a smoother look, although it has more movement and looks neater in real life, tends to look flat and lifeless in photos. Hmm.

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The other thing I need to remember is that I am a stress eater. Lunches and dinners have been all takeout and junk; the only saving grace is that my "office" space all week has been a break room table in the IT building where none of my regular snacks are available. So at least I have not been shoveling candy in my piehole too.

We're going away this weekend so I do not anticipate my options getting much better, but I'm going to look for the healthier options when I can, and I'm going to think about how to handle the coming weeks. A major, major deadline is in seven weeks and the pressure at work is only going to get worse before then. I am not going to trash everything I've been working toward, so I need to come up with a plan.

Hope you all have lovely weekends!

This is what a 20-degree difference looks like

Wednesday, in the 70s. Since my office is always crazy cold, I elected to wear my last two new pieces together. First time I've been in non-jean pants in a while!




I really liked this outfit, so expect to see variations of it this fall. That is the new Old Navy striped sweater and the Gap skinny pants. I added a chambray shirt, my orange Clarks Long Ponds, a pewter mesh bracelet from Banana Republic, and a long strand of pearls double-knotted a la Angie at YLF. The skinny pants and the chambray shirt put it on the casual end of business casual, but I can get away with that when I am not out at meetings.






By the time I got *out* of the office on Wednesday, however, we were in the midst of a late-summer heatwave. Maybe I should pay attention to weather reports more...

Thursday, then, was a return to 90 degree temps, and the face-melting summer look. Good thing, because I wanted to wear the most summery of my dresses one last time before packing them up. Looks like I got my chance to do so!





I hadn't paired the blue polka-dot Target dress with my yellow Target cutout flats yet, so this was a new combo. Normally I would not have worn the short leggings, but we were going out after work to the rooftop bar, and I learned from my trip there with Laura that the couches are too low and wide to wear a dress gracefully there. I had to bow to function over form with the leggings. On the plus side, it's the leggings that make the yellow shoes work; obviously the leggings cut my legs off funny, but the almost nude look of the shoes counteracts the worst of it, and the casual nature of the leggings make the flats look better than heels would.




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On the food front, it's been a weird, stressful week. Work has been super-crazy and I didn't prepare well last weekend for snacks and dinners. I hadn't realized how much that was saving me. Another thing I did not realize: I much prefer the grab-n-go flavored yogurts over a quart of plain. I wanted to make the switch to plain for my morning breakfasts, but it's just...one thing too much. I don't want to eat it, so I end up bypassing fruit altogether and eating just starch in the morning. So of course I am hungry faster, and it's too easy to eat crap all day instead. It doesn't help that my whole team is really stressed, and we've been indulging at lunches as a group. Then I am still stressed when I come home but not really hungry, so I have a slice of bread with spreadable cheese and call it a day.

You will notice there are no vegetables mentioned here. Not good.

So this weekend I will stock up at the farmer's market, and prepare as much of it beforehand as I can. and I will refill my stock of yogurts. :)

What are your plans for the long weekend?

You should listen to me more

When I talked to my sister last night for her birthday, she said, "You were right. I don't know why I didn't listen to you sooner."

"What did I say?" (It could have been many things. I have lots of opinions.)

"I bought some Clarks," she said happily. "They're like walking on clouds!"

Sister, you said it. Clarks are THE BEST.

Yes, they still have plenty of dowdy styles, but they've got some killer ones too. Like my other new pair.




Here they are from Zappos. On sale!

Hahaha, that cat makes me laugh. God bless ya, George. I will even post the next one even though I don't love my pose, I sure do love his!




This is the cool tunic I bought from Tina at T Minus, T Plus. What do you guys think? I love the cut and fit of it -- and it has great zippers on the sleeves, but I am really unsure about the color. I felt like I was in camouflage all day. Or like Robin Hood in Tights. :)




Maybe if I try it under a jacket or long cardigan? I'm hoping breaking up the pattern works better. I think this one can be fun if I figure it out.

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Daily Food Tracker: Monday
Breakfast: pomegranate yogurt, blackberries, fiber one cereal
That was the last healthy thing I ate all day. My only saving grace in the other junk is that my portions were reasonable.
Snack: bite-size candy bars
Lunch: slice of pepperoni pizza (birthday party for co-worker)
Snack: more danged mini candies
Dinner: pb&j with skim milk

Maybe I shouldn't have stepped on the scale this morning and realized I had lost a couple of pounds. Because I did my best the rest of the day to put them back on. Sheesh.

And on the penultimate day, there was sun

It only lasted a couple of hours, but we made the most of it!



Hee! I was showing my parents the fun of a timer and a tripod, and started horsing around. Then Mom joined in. Classic!





We had more formal photos too, but those were not nearly as fun. :) I took a few earlier for outfit details.



This is the Target dress that is sweeping the blogosphere right now. The drape is amazing, the double-wrapped self-belt hits at just the right spot, and the patterns and colors are great. I have it in this grey-and-navy stripes, and bright blue and white polka-dots. Helen just wore it the other day in the rumcake polka dots, and looked amazing!

This time I layered up because it was still cool out. Faux-denim leggings, new Target sweatshirt jacket in blue, white long-sleeved tee borrowed from my Mom, and my new yellow cutout flats and favorite pocketwatch fob necklace. I even managed a close-up shot of the details!



That night I went out to meet my old grammar school friends. Kids I went to school with from kindergarten to 8th grade; we were marveling that it had been 29 years since we'd seen each other, and we all just picked up right where we had left off. I laughed so hard at all the memories I had long-forgotten that they all reminded me of! It was the perfect, perfect ending to a great vacation.

Investment Pieces are Full of Baloney

I had to continue on with my impromptu Stripes Challenge. I could probably do a week of Polka Dots, and Florals. Anyone want to see how long I can go? :)



This is one of Target's new styles for 2011, and I love it beyond reason. My friend Jessie bought the striped version in oatmeal heather, and she is working it with some great bright greens, but I love the navy and grey stripes. (And this blue polka-dot, and I have this bright jade one on back-order. Taylor, you are not the only one who likes her duplicates!) They had it even more colors on the website, but they have been going fast. With good reason; the drape and shape of these things are stunning, the colors and patterns are fun, and they are going to be drop-dead perfect in the summer when it is sticky and gross and the thought of a layer makes me want to weep.

And they are $20. What's not to love?



I don't usually list out the cost of my outfits. I love a good deal -- this particular outfit cost me less than $50 altogether -- but I'm not a thrift shopper. My favorite outfits are the ones that mix up high-end and low-end pieces, and I don't have a problem paying money for something I like, or in the case of my ball outfit, that I need. To me, the price is only one factor of many that makes me buy the clothes I do.

But one thing I try never to kid myself about is calling something "an investment piece". That gorgeous purse I bought for the ball? It's not an investment piece; sure, it will become to go-to purse I use for fancy parties, but that's not an investment in anything. It has always grated on me when I hear that phrase in terms of clothes, but I've not really been able to articulate what about it irritated me. So I appreciated reading today's blog post about what investment pieces really are over at get Rich Slowly. Yes, that.

This is how I feel: if you're going to spend money on an item you want and can afford, then spend it and enjoy your pretty new item. Get lots of use out of it, and don't feel guilty. If you can afford it, if you've got your bills paid and your savings squared away and some money tucked away for a charity, then get the shoes, dress, purse, jewelry, that you want. Don't try to hide it behind the "investment piece" curtain. Wear it loud and proud!

And when you get a good deal, crow about that too! Like this one: the awesome Target Merona dress, Target Merona red cutout flats (on sale at the store!), denim leggings from Vera Wang at Kohls, cement grey Old Navy long sleeved layering top. Even the necklace was on sale at LOFT about 3 years ago.



Yay!

In unrelated news, here is the new sweater I wore on Tuesday and didn't get a picture of. Even the Gap Outlet is on fire this year! Such a yummy grey and rich royal purple.

Pinks and Purples and Browns

For me the best neutral to go with pinks and purples is brown. I am a warm-toned gal, and brown is a much softer look for me than black. By chance, I ended up wearing varying shades of it for the last two days; I didn't even realize it until I saw my pictures side-by-side!

Wednesday:


It finally dawned on me that I could actually hide the draped neck of this pink Gap sweater if I wanted to, and it worked great with the pretty pink-and-brown scarf gifted to me from my MIL. I've got a bit of muffin top but mostly that is the loosely-hung shape of the sweater; it's a little too long for me with pants unless it's casual outfit.

To counteract all that extra drapiness, I wore my Gap modern bootcuts (black, of course, because they don't make them in brown dammit) which slims the bottom half of my silhouette nicely. Can we take a moment to discuss the perfection of these pants? The cut is ideal for me. IDEAL. I would give anything for Gap to make these in as many fabrications as they do their perfect trousers (which are not perfect on me at all). Let's just compare the Gap pants to the only other pair of pants I have bought and kept this year -- and really, I only kept them because I desperately wanted olive pants.



No contest which look better. Gap, please, PLEASE, make more of these!

Anyway. Since I wanted to play up the browns of the scarf I added two others as my accessories: my tan Clark woven toe wedges, and my beloved Coach chocolate patent hobo (aka the World's Most Perfect Bag).



Friday:


I was inspired by an outfit from this fall that I happened upon while writing another post this week. For the first time for as long as I can remember, I copied that outfit right down to the jewelry and the shoes. But I couldn't completely duplicate so I added my Gap taupe/wassal sweater over it. I loved the way the colors all worked so well together. Milk chocolate leggings and layering top, taupe sweater, purple and brown dress. Yummy.

Gosh, I forgot all about my leggings! Time to pull those out for a bit with my new dresses.



Had a good hair day too. Huzzah!