Work dress for office days and client meetings

It’s twenty to nine, there’s a meeting at nine sharp, and the work dress you pull on still has to feel fine at six. Most of ours for the office are midi or mini with sleeves and a quiet neckline. Knits and velvet carry the cold months, and summer brings back polka dots and small prints.

Turtlenecks and rib for a formal office

If your office leans formal, go midi with a high collar. One black turtleneck midi stands in for a sweater plus a skirt. Neck covered, arms covered, out the door. We also make that shape in caramel angora-blend knit, soft and fuzzy, and it loves cream, milky white and brown around it. Keep a jacket on the back of your chair for the AC. The collar hides your neck anyway. Earrings or a bracelet, then.

Black feeling like a uniform by February? We make the turtleneck midi in pink, and in powder pink angora blend too, and both look right under a charcoal jacket.

Rib knit with a round neck is the easy everyday pick. Black or burgundy. Under a gray blazer it needs nothing else.

A short hem that still looks serious

Some offices are fine with a mini. For those, we sew a black V-neck mini with shoulder pads. It holds the shoulder line the way a blazer would. The waist is already fitted, no belt needed, and below it a pleated skirt opens up with flaps sewn on top. By day we’d wear it with thick black tights, loafers and a structured briefcase. Stilettos for dinner. At the fitting, check that the flaps lie flat over your hips without pulling.

The chocolate velvet mini is for days that end at a restaurant, when you’d rather not go home to change between the last call of the afternoon and the first glass of wine. Shoulders and arms covered, legs out, soft folds from waist to hip. Small gold hoops are plenty.

When the warm collection comes back in March, so do the polka dots. Our black polka-dot midi with long sleeves covers your knees at a client meeting, and once fall comes around it goes under a trench or a leather jacket without any fuss.

Before you decide, sit down in it and reach for an imaginary keyboard. A good work dress doesn’t ride up or pull across the back when you do. If it does, go one size up. We cut everything from XS to XL, and a US 6–8 usually starts at our M.

For looser rules on Fridays, compare our business casual picks and smart casual outfits. You might also like the straight-cut shifts or every midi we make.