Washable Workwear Wednesday: The Ciela Dress
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Bring on the plaid!
This tailored, midi-length dress is my pick from M.M.LaFleur’s fall collection. The machine-washable, travel-friendly dress is a great choice for the conference circuit. It’s made from a soft knit fabric and has jacket-friendly half sleeves and a flattering pleated wrap waist. Pass the hors d’oeuvres!
The Ciela Dress is $365 and comes in sizes 00-20. If plaid isn’t your thing, it also comes in several other colors, some of which are on sale (lucky sizes only)!
Looking for other washable workwear? See all of our recent recommendations for washable clothes for work, or check out our roundup of the best brands for washable workwear.
Sales of note for 9.10.24
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Ann Taylor – 30% off your purchase
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – 15% off new styles
- Eloquii – $29 and up select styles; up to 50% off everything else
- J.Crew – Up to 50% off wear-to-work styles; extra 30% off sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – 40-60% off everything; extra 60% off clearance
- Lands’ End – 30% off full-price styles
- Loft – Extra 40% off sale styles
- Talbots – BOGO 50% everything, includes markdowns
- Target – Car-seat trade-in event through 9/28 — bring in an old car seat to get a 20% discount on other baby/toddler stuff.
- Zappos – 26,000+ women’s sale items! (check out these reader-favorite workwear brands on sale, and some of our favorite kids’ shoe brands on sale)
Kid/Family Sales
- Carter’s – Birthday sale, 40-50% off & extra 20% off select styles
- Hanna Andersson – Up to 50% off all baby; up to 40% off all Halloween
- J.Crew Crewcuts – Extra 30% off sale styles
- Old Navy – 40% off everything
- Target – BOGO 25% off select haircare, up to 25% off floor care items; up to 30% off indoor furniture up to 20% off TVs
I like this dress but I just CANNOT with the below-the-knee length that all dresses seem to be right now (“midi,” I guess it’s called). I think it looks lovely on other people but I feel like it makes me look so stumpy and frumpy. I wish “just above the knee” would come back in style for work dresses; I feel like it’s much harder to find these days.
Has anyone seen a public school district successfully push back on “holiday creep”? Our town has only 24 five-day weeks in a 44 week school year, which seems like it really inhibits the consistency needed for successful education. Some of these days off are recent adds in an effort to be more inclusive but isn’t the most inclusive to not elevate any religious holidays, not to add a few every couple of years whenever the next most populous group that’s not represented mobilizes around it? I’d happily give back my religion’s holidays to have my kids in more continuous weeks of school (and we are more religious than all but one family we know in our kids’ grades)… when we see so many families pull their kids out for vacations but insist they need a given day officially off for everyone, it feels very disingenuous.
Help me with an issue that seems simple, but feels more complex given historical family dynamics at play. My 5 year old daughter loves being “silly” with certain people — usually coaches or older kids (this means saying something like “you’re an eyeball!” to the coach who is managing her soccer clinic or whatever, then a minute later “just kidding!”). But for some reason, with my mom (who we see about 5 times a year), she also leans into sillyness, but it’s right on the border of being mean. So, they will be playing a game, and my daughter will say “You don’t have a turn! You lose! You can’t play!” and then my mom will react, also in a silly way, until my daughter says “just kidding!” Or, my mom will try to be warm and loving to my daughter, and my daughter will say something silly, borderline unkind to my mom.
I suppose it all seems somewhat innocuous in the moment, but it’s clear it bugs my mom, and she doesn’t feel as close to my daughter as a result. She’ll say things on phone calls with me like “[my daughter] doesn’t like me.” If I correct my daughter in the moment (“that’s not nice! let’s try something kinder”), my daughter will double down about just “joking” or being silly. Then she will ignore my mom, probably bc she feels like she got in trouble. For whatever reason, my mom is the only family member with whom she has this dynamic.
My parents are coming next week, and I want to get out in front of this. On one hand, I do think my mom can be overly sensitive to the “joking,” which brings up memories from my childhood where she just absolutely trained me to be Midwest Nice. I spent most of my 30s unlearning how to avoid confrontation and working on being assertive. I also spent a lot of time feeling responsible for how I made my mom feel, which is a cycle I’m trying to break too. I’m also not dying to train my daughter to be “Nice” at all costs (I swear my mom policed every word that came out of my mouth when I was younger, especially if it had a tone of being unkind to it), but I also feel like the sillyness has created a really weird dynamic with my mom that sets her and me on edge. It also really can, on balance, be right on the edge of annoying or unkind (or I know it is hurting my mom’s feelings).
My question, I guess, how do I talk about this with my daughter? I know I’m coming at this with baggage, so how do I address this with my daughter in a way that doesn’t make her feel like she can’t be silly or that she’s done something Wrong (the one time I tried to talk to her about it, I think I overcorrected and botched it bc for like two weeks after my mom’s visit, she would say at random intervals, apropos of nothing “I’m not being mean. Grammy likes it when I’m silly.” ) I dunno, help?
I’m the weekend poster about books to read to an almost five year old. Thank you for the responses and the follow-up this week! Good thoughts on the picture books, too. I will likely talk to a children’s librarian about picture books. And speaking of libraries – really silly question here – we usually check out chapter books, but when I was a kid I enjoyed reading the same books over and over again. When do parents know it’s time to buy a book for kids versus check it out at the library? Should I start building our home chapter book collection now?
Lately I’m being overwhelmed by the constant ‘you’re doing it wrong’ messaging. Not just social media – teachers complaining about kids, child free friends complaining how nobody parents, getting notes home for kid behavioral issues.
I feel like 60% of the kids I know are on medication (including one of mine) for impulse control, plus every parent I know is stressing about outdoor time, making food from scratch, limiting screens, and setting boundaries.
And yet… I feel like everyone is telling me how parents aren’t parenting. I mean… short of beating our kids, I feel like I don’t understand why every parent I know is somehow feeling like they’re doing ‘a bad job’ – including me.
I don’t know – having a ‘what did I do wrong’ day because a 4 year old is struggling.
Lately, I have felt like my schedule for the week is merely a suggestion. A kid gets sick, and suddenly there are lessons or appointments that have to be moved or canceled at the last minute. (So many places have strict attendance policies, which I understand, but it’s an added stressor for sure.) DH has to make a day trip across the state on short notice, so suddenly I’m scrambling to move work meetings so I can do school pickups since he won’t get home until early evening (or I’m trying to line up another driver). These are just two recent examples, but it feels like schedule rearrangements are happening all the time lately, and it’s driving me a little crazy. It’s nobody’s fault, but I’m struggling to feel like I own any of my time and it’s been really disruptive to my work. I haven’t felt this scrambled since my kids were tiny, honestly.
Solidarity? Words of encouragement that I’m just in a hard season? Calendar management is already hard enough without the curveballs!
Party favor/craft idea for 8 year olds that would appeal to boys and girls? I know there was a recent discussion about this but I couldn’t find it.
My kids are in first grade. This is the first year they are bringing home graded schoolwork/tests. My kids don’t seem to have any idea of what an 85 vs. 95 means and I truly don’t care as long as they are understanding the concepts. Some of the work is ridiculous (like my daughter got a 70 on an assignment that matched a picture of a running horse with an arrow in front of it as ‘straight’ rather than fast). I was a high achieving perfectionist kiddo and don’t want that for my kids (one really leans this way), but at the same time, my other daughter has really really messy handwriting and is often losing points for that, so how do I get her to care about writing neatly in a way that doesn’t make her fixate on grades/perfectionism?
Can anyone help me find a coming-home outfit for a newborn? Looking for something white or cream and classic, maybe with tiny polka dots or similar, and ideally organic cotton. We’d like to get something cute for photos on that special first day, but a lot of what I’m seeing from the brands I know (Burt’s Bees, HA, etc.) have a lot of prints or bright colors that aren’t quite the vibe.
I have a lot of people to shop for at Xmas so I have to start early. My nephew is 14 and never lets us know what he wants. He likes soccer and starting to get into basketball. Past gifts that have gone over well are a Messi Miami jersey, jersey from local soccer team, light up basketball and LED lights for basketball hoop. Our local NBA basketball team is not doing well so he probably won’t want their merch. Must be a physical gift. I was thinking about a Team USA soccer jersey but may get that for him next year, right before the World Cup. Any other ideas?
Any suggestions for how to help an early elementary age child who has disproportionate reactions to minor problems? This child has always been very strong-willed and sensitive, and their emotional regulation has improved a lot in the last few years. But they still struggle with big reactions to perceived unfairness, and I can see it impacting their friendships because they can’t seem to let things roll off their back the way other kids can. We’ve had conversations about it but I don’t seem to be getting through.