When I was first starting out in building my workwear closet I was broke. I had a few work appropriate dresses and one skirt suit from law school and maybe a few blouses that I could wear with the suit, but that was it. I remember rotating those dresses and that suit for the first two weeks before getting my first paycheck. Once that got deposited I had to figure out, budget wise, what exactly I could reasonably afford to spend on workwear that wasn’t towards rent, food, Winston, student loans, and savings. I also needed to find a place that had affordable workwear!
I felt like Rachel Green when she firsts looks at her paycheck and is like where is it all going?! Same Rachel, same. I took a hard look at my closet to see what I could wear to work, not that I necessarily wanted to wear, but what could I wear. Could I wear those tanks under a blazer, yes, did I want to keep a blazer on all the time, no, but that meant I could pass on blouses. I had a few with sleeves so while I might have wanted new ones I didn’t need them.
A new suit and two pairs of slacks were greatly needed. I was going to be in trial so I needed suits. I had a black dress and blazer so my plan was to find a navy suit and then buy a pair of navy and black slacks. I knew the blacks weren’t going to match but hopefully if I found everything at the same place then the navys would. If I could afford a grey blazer I also wanted to add that but I knew that I could wait two weeks and add that.
Next was to figure out exactly where to go because it wasn’t like I had a bunch of money set aside for this. I thought about TJ Max and Ross but I knew that if I happened to find a suit, chances were very low that I would find slacks that were the exact color. I decided to do a little bit of online browser shopping so I could maybe find a place and head there to try on everything. I went through a few sites but landed squarely on old navy. I went to the store in Dallas (which is huge) and walked out with a navy suit, navy slacks that matched, black slacks, and my grey blazer! Everything was under $200 and I was STOKED.
For the next two years Old Navy was the backbone of my workwear closet. I’d pick up a dress, fun blazer, or blouse at Target or J Crew Factory or TJ Max but Old Navy was seriously my go to. I wore OUT their pants – literally tiny holes because I wore them so much. When I was looking at going back to purchase my third pair of black pants I knew I needed to upgrade and buy a pair that would last a little longer, but for two+ years, I was the poster child for Old Navy.
I tell you this story because I know I wear a lot of Ann Taylor, Tuckernuck, Nordstrom, J Crew etc now but workwear doesn’t have to be expensive and I definitely still look at shops like Old Navy, H&M, Target, and TJ Max. Now I’d probably add Quince and any factory store (J Crew Factory, Banana Republic Factory, or Ann Taylor Factory) to that list. I’ve rounded up a few current workwear pieces from these affordable stores below, because, and I’ll say it forever, Workwear Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive!
Shop Old Navy Workwear
Shop H&M Workwear
Shop Target Workwear
Shop Quince Workwear
*while I know I’m not the biggest fan of Quince (see my review here) it is a good place for affordable workwear that can stretch your closet*
Shop J Crew Factory Workwear
Shop Banana Republic Factory Workwear
