So, if you know me (which by now, a lot of you probably do), you know that I am dressed in yoga pants and an oversized t-shirt more than 90% of the time. It’s definitely not a professional look; I’m of the belief that I can kick your ass in identifying sociological theories and knocking down the patriarchy and combating systemic racism in our society while wearing clothes that make me look like I have done absolutely nothing for the day.
I mean, it’s so comfortable.
My two other problems stemmed from the fact that for the longest time I had to deal with excessive underarm sweating, until I started getting Botox injections to treat it. Wearing dress clothes accentuated the sweat rings that would form, and they would become ruined really easily, wasting my money.
The other issue was that I’m Plus-sized. And the business market doesn’t cater to the PS Woman, let me be clear on that. Pretty much everything makes you look like a grandma (don’t even get me started on shoulder pads), and the stuff that doesn’t is like $50 and up (looking at you Lane Bryant & Torrid).
Long story short, I started an awesome internship this year on campus, but I would need to be in business casual for all the events & staff meetings I attended. I owned practically no business casual clothes, and so I set out to bite the bullet and invest in a few pieces from the more expensive places I mentioned above and tried to be business casual for the week. My weekday was over between 5-7 pm, so if I had anything to do after that, you can be damn sure I was in jeans, running shorts, or yoga pants.
Monday
Monday I wore this awesome ensemble. An oversized chambray shirt from Target’s clearance rack, a $30 t-shirt from Lane Bryant (cringe), a pair of black stretch ankle pants from Target, and nude flats from Payless. This was definitely my most comfortable of all the business casual clothes I wore, except for the fact that I had to keep pulling my shirt up so I wasn’t showing all the cleavage to the world.
Tuesday
Tuesday I wore this pair of straight-cut grey pants from Target and a satin dark green shirt (channeling my inner-Slytherin) with the nude heels again. That was the day I started my job in the Writing Center, so I wanted to be a bit nicer dressed. The satin shirt definitely made me sweat on the walk from Rapp to everywhere, though, thanks to my book bag.
Wednesday
Wednesday I wore this t-shirt dress I got on sale from Kohl’s over the summer and the oversized chambray shirt again. I used another pair of nude flats that were pointed toe. It was simple, and the dress kept riding up a bit too much for my liking (then again, I hate wearing dresses so the fact that I wore it from 8:30am to 7:30pm must mean something), but I got a lot of compliments on it.
Thursday
Thursday I wore this sheer coral top, patterned kimono, dark denim jeans, and the same nude flats from Wednesday. The top did dip down a bit too much for my liking, and was a little snug since the last time I’d worn it senior year of high school, but I still liked it. Thankfully I could wrap the kimono around me to hide the bulge that was my stomach.
Friday
There isn’t a picture for Friday because I didn’t dress up — I called it “Casual Friday.” I wore jeans and an oversized Comfort Colors t-shirt, which is actually a bit more dressed up since I don’t usually wear jeans. I also wore some stud earrings, so that dressed it up a bit.
Overall, it wasn’t as hard to dress business casual as I thought. I still prefer wearing shorts & a t-shirt, but at least I know I can wear business-ish clothes and not fall to pieces during the day.