grey dress (Lulus.com)
red cardigan (The Limited)
grey tights (Hue)
heels (Nine West)
Usage:
Anne-Marie here, following through on last week's promise to showcase one of my more professional recruitment event ensembles. Today our staff is hosting an open house in warm weather, so I've skipped out on my usual blazer and exchanged it for a silk cardigan in one of the university's colors. I'm hoping the splash of red will identify me as a staff member and exempt me from answering the "Do you work here?" question several dozen times. Many of the prospective students look older than I do, so it's often difficult to prove my competence to parents.
Prompts:
- How does this outfit stack up against your personal standards of professional attire?
- Am I demonstrating poor judgment by choosing these shoes? What's your take on them?
Posts
4 comments:
LOL! I am posting these shoes tomorrow! So more on that to come.
I have often felt like parents of teenagers are some kind of black hole when it comes to the semiotics of clothing. I mean, I look at this outfit and think "no high school senior would own this outfit, and would certainly not show up to a college visit day wearing it." I imagine the admitted students never mistake you for another admitted student. But parents of young adults seem to suffer some kind of disconnect. I got the same thing all the time while teaching high school. I often thought things in my head, like "how often does your 17 year old daughter leave the house in a pencil skirt?"
So while I'd like to say "nobody would look at these shoes, or this outfit, and think you were visiting student," I don't think it's true. I hope you'll come back to update us about how these shoes read at your event-- I am curious!
-Liz
I absolutely love them!
Thanks, guys!
- Anne-Marie
I.love.these.shoes. (so much so that they require special punctuation) I've told Liz that about her shoes too.
Now as someone who has worn hot pink heels to work, I might not be the best person to ask about strict professionalism and shoes :)
**I will note that my work environment is such that my co-workers are more apt to applaud footwear risks than condemn them. My boss's boss routinely compliments and admires my insane shoes. So in this hierarchy, they work, though I would never attempt it at more conservative, traditional environments. Disclaimer over.
I really do think that shoe professionalism has to do with the cultural of your office. For this situation, I think that, especially given the neutral tones in these shoes, they are absolutely fine and appropriate.
And adorable.
-Katie
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