What I Wore to Work #1
Plus-size office outfits
Hello, readers!
It’s been a while since I’ve felt the urge to write on this Substack. I can hardly believe we’ve reached the back half of 2025! It’s been a season or more of needing to focus elsewhere in my life, though I’m extremely proud and pleased to say that after over 6 months of job searching I quit my stressful, toxic job in May and joined a startup in June! I’m so happy to be in this new professional era as I’ve felt for a while that a small startup would be the best working environment for me - and so far, I’ve been right! Three weeks in and I feel like I’ve really found my place. And it’s given me the mental freedom to revisit personal priorities again.
I’m now going into an office to work 5 days a week, which has been a major (but extremely welcome) change of pace! Honestly, it scratches the “novelty” itch that travel also does for me, since I get to exist in the world, and not just my living room, on a regular basis. Because I’m forced out of the house, I’ve also been listening to more music and podcasts, trying new restaurants, and talking to more people. It’s been invigorating!
I’ve also been having fun planning work outfits! I never quite loved the “nice top with sweatpants” WFH uniform, but at some point in the drudgery of my old job, I got lazy and went that route. Now, I get to wear a lot more of the fun pieces I’ve added to my closet! So, inspired by
’s corporate office outfit diary series and @passingwhimsies’ “What I’ve been wearing as a 30-something trying to (re)find my style” series on Instagram — here’s my take!Welcome to What I Wore to Work!
A little bit about me:
Size: 2X/20
Height: 5’3”
I described my style to a friend this week as “professional, but weird enough that people know I’m not boring.”
Monday: I overslept my alarm by 45 minutes. This never happens, and infuses a lot of stress into my morning. This is mostly the outfit I meant to wear, except I planned to put a denim vest over the dress since the straps are a little loose, and indeed kept slipping down throughout the day. Annoying, even more so because I had a plan to avoid this. Eventually I’ll cycle back to this dress and wear it as intended!
Tuesday: I had the idea to play around with neutrals in my closet, and especially wanted to figure out if I could wear this tank top to work. I think it worked! Yet again, this was not exactly the outfit I wanted to wear, but I could only find one of my white platform sandals in the morning so I grabbed these shoes instead.
Wednesday: I went through my basket of hair things and built an outfit around this bandana that I don’t wear often enough. I love this linen jumpsuit that I got last summer! It matches the bandana perfectly and I had fun pairing it with my metallic pink Birks and strawberry cow Squishmallow earrings to really lean into the theme. This was my favorite outfit of the week!
Thursday: It was going to be hot, so I wanted to wear linen again. I wasn’t sure how I felt about these capris heading into the season as they sometimes feel like too much. I paired them with a similarly textured shirt and my new fisherman sandals that I LOVE. Despite being black pants, these are definitely a remarkable component of any outfit and work best when paired with other neutral items to let their shape be the focus. This outfit would have been a little cuter without ankle braces, but such is life.
It’s a short week because of the July 4th holiday. I’ll be back soon with another installment as I work through my closet and continue figuring out what I like to wear to work!