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Life of Colleen: Random wardrobe meanderings part 10
Random wardrobe meanderings part 10
posted by Colleen Shirazi
on
Thursday, June 24, 2010
at 9:33 PM (Pacific)
Once in a while, I will kind of remember that I work in a male-dominated field.
I say "kind of," because it doesn't matter. People in my field don't care. I have rarely encountered another programmer, who was any good, who cared who you were or what you looked like. Actually I can think of only one, and he lost his job (instructor at my school). I suspect some of the grad students complained...he gave a guy I was tutoring an A+ (which he thought was ridiculous), and he gave me a B-. At the time I didn't care. How many employers ask what your GPA was? Is this guy gonna ruin my day? But, to this day, I can admit I never understood that instructor. A mediocre programmer can be prejudiced. A good one shouldn't be.
From the beginning, I consciously decided not to dress like a man for this job. To me that wouldn't make any sense. What would I be saying, that only men can be taken seriously as programmers? Exactly which part of being a man is necessary for you to write code? (I've asked my co-worker this question, but...remember? He doesn't care.)
Hermmm...I'm slowly winding down here. I have boatloads of clothes, collected over a period of time. I realize I've "organized" them around several neutral "families."
Neutrals are boring and nobody likes them, but so often it's the unseen parts of something that make it work.
I realized this a while ago, while looking for shirts. At the time, it was difficult finding a nice white shirt that wasn't completely dull. There were tons of colored shirts, it was tempting to buy those, but what worked best in many a situation was a white or off-white blouse.
So it's like...I have several grey items that sort of go together. They're not the same shade of grey, but then they don't have to be.
I have navy blue items, black items, brown items, and off-white items. I'm currently seeking an olive-green jacket or cardigan to go with the olive-green skirts I own.
Are you asleep yet?????!!! I told you this stuff was boring. Yet, once you have pieces in your favorite neutral shades, it's pretty easy putting together an outfit in the morning.
That's where you can bring in colored items, in your favorite colors. It's rather the equivalent of a man's "power tie." You've got your well-fitting neutral things on, so the colored items jump out at you.
Or you can go entirely neutral, which isn't as horrible as it sounds. Here the items have to be good quality, otherwise this look falls totally flat.
Okay, so today I had on one of these gabardine skirts:
...in grey. It's lighter than the swatch. And this:
A bit lighter. The two grey pieces don't match; it's not a suit.
Along with these, a greyish-green boatneck top, and this necklace:
...which I made myself, grey tights and Cydwoq boots.
That's it. I can't say it's a genius outfit, particularly, but it's comfortable and looks good.Labels: cydwoq, indie, jcrew, shoes, wardrobe
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