I decided to take advantage of President’s Day sales today by going to Kohl’s to buy myself a young working woman’s wardrobe.  I have only ever held two jobs that required professional attire – one was an internship that I went to twice a week and one was a summer job that had business casual days two or three times a week.  This job in Singapore will be the first time that I need enough fancy clothes to wear five or six days a week for many long hours!

I have a bunch ofnice shirts that are borderline “going out” and some that look nice, but just don’t look… grown up enough.  I am also sorely lacking in slacks – I have four and the ones for two business suits.  So, today I marched myself out of the house and spent THREE HOURS rifling through the racks, trying on various sizes and colors of various styles.  All in all, it was a productive time and I came out with eight shirts (though two are casual for day-to-day wear), three pants, one suit jacket to match one of the pants, three dresses (one for work and two for formal parties), and some small personal items.

I tried to arrange everything in a way that would show their features best, but alas, I had too many things squeezing into too little space.  As you can see I went a little crazy with the gray pinstripes…

I have feared this shopping trip for far too long and it’s nice to finally get it out of the way.  I always knew it was coming, but I never really needed to stock up, so I never had the patience to spend so much time sorting through what I wanted and what I didn’t.  Why did I fear it?  Because “business casual” is a very hard term to define nowadays.  Traditionally it was business formal attire minus the outer jacket, but with trends influencing what we wear, there are my nice button-up shirts that are also inappropriate for the office.  Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between what adds a nice stylish flair to your outfit and what gives off the entirely wrong impression.  It’s a fine line to walk.

Whatever happened to the good old days when things were simple and straightforward?  Now it’s just a complicated mess that you can’t generalize and things like these can vary by personal preference.  I hope my choices were classy enough without being too straightedge.  And if they were expecting longer sleeves… I’m screwed.  But hey, it’s Singapore!  Their temperature is currently in the high 80s!