Corporate Girl Summer

With August slowly coming to a close, I can successfully say that I have completed my not-so-brat corporate girl summer. While I didn’t exactly crunch numbers, the business casual dress code surely suggested otherwise. The highlight of my internship, putting the actual work aside, was the ambiance I created around my corporate life. Rather than begrudgingly going to work every day and frowning through the blazers and no socks with loafers lifestyle, I embraced it. The only way to get through it is to go through it!

Ultimately, I had a ball trying to find ways to make a business casual dress code less business and more fab. Last summer I worked at a smaller company where style was just as prioritized as the actual work you were doing; people would come in dressed to the nines in outfits that a die-hard Paloma Wool archivist could only dream of. This summer, I had to be professional. Demure, if you will.

I sat in a row at a new desk every day, in a sea of collared shirts. The weirdest part was … I was relatively into it. My schoolgirl aesthetic started to explode out of me, along with a reading on the Q-train and getting off at Herald Square new personality. Bye bye, Canal Street station! This girl is now in-office with a badge to prove it. I’d walk into the building at 9 AM on the dot and close my ThinkPad at 5, no exceptions. Everything was perfectly organized.

              So how then, you ask, can an &toster survive, let alone feel fashionably satiated, in the corporate workplace? Let’s talk.

              The first thing that I gravitated towards was black and white. In my head, the corporate world was monochromatic. I ate up all of J. Crew’s black and white dresses and found perfectly baggy trousers from Kalimera that I tailored to fall right on the floor, only leaving enough space for my statement red pointy-toe boots to pop out. To me, glasses became a saving grace. I became infatuated with Warby Parker and its insurance accepting frames. I switched out my chunky golden glasses for a skinny pair of metallic aviators depending on what funky Brooklynite gallery owner vibe I was trying to emulate. In a similar vein, I found freedom with loud, multi-metal jewelry, a Lila statement if ever. All of these small accessories turned my basic outfits into more unique, personal creations, and let’s just say, there’s no harm in being remembered as the intern who works hard in her thrifted Marni button up with flared sleeves.

              I would be remiss to only highlight the better parts of my corporate dress life. If I were to stand in front of a crowd of liberal arts students, I would lie and say that I wore a stylish tote bag to work every day. But gun to my head, and this just stays between us? I got pick pocketed on none other than the UWS (gasp) wearing that tote bag and lost my favorite cowhide wallet. The outcome is that halfway through my internship, climbing my way up to the Empire State Building every Monday through Friday, I sported none other than the dark side’s favorite accomplice: the Longchamp Le Pliage Original L Navy Blue Tote bag.

I don’t really want to expand upon this, and because it’s my damn blog, I don’t have to. All I’ll say is that it has a zipper and it fits my clunky laptop. No, it’s not my first choice. Hell, it’s not even my fifteenth choice, but if you are so offended, please feel free to Venmo me funds for a classy suede work bag. That’s right. Go right ahead. My Venmo is @lilaking

Now that I have cleared my conscious, I can finally put this corporate chapter of my life to an end. Till next summer, NYC!