I wouldn’t survive in an office setting where I have to wear heels… my favourite job shoes are my steel toed ones I wear when I have to go to the warehose. Love those! Paired with a chic high-vis vest. Oh, la la!
But even on site things are a bit more casual in pandemic times I think. We’re just a handful of people on site with the rest at home. Everyone wears a standard issue surgical mask on site so no one is going to be pretty anyway…
Expensive or nicer clothes that no longer fit the body or work setting. That’s tricky! Maybe we need a themed monthly challenge and see what we can come up with?
If the clothes are still nice enough to wear, but you don’t fit/need them anymore, there are charities that are looking specifically for business clothes. They help low income people who due to all sorts of circumstances don’t have the right clothes for job interviews. In my town the charity is called Dress for Succes. They also work with a hairdresser and if you get the job, you get to pick two extra outfits.
I don’t have much officewear left. I lost weight and what still looked nice I gave away to my mother, who works for a bank. They all still dress formally even though they work from home. I only have a couple of shirts left and I’ll still wear those after the pandemic.
I don’t know if this is the case for all chapters of Dress for Success or still, but when I donated a bunch of stuff there they would also take non-professional clothes to sell to support their mission. And of course, lots of jobs that have dress codes aren’t as formal as suits or jackets, too!
YES. It makes my heart hurt. I’ve saved all the paper grocery sacks and now I have sacks o’ sacks in my garage. There have to be ways to reuse them! If nothing else, I can papier mache the whole freaking neighborhood.
RIGHT!? I have been able to reuse a few for containing paint overspray or to protect a surface from glue or whatever. I used at least one to wrap a box for shipping that just had so much stuff already written on it. And occasionally to get our morning fire started and yet we STILL have so many. So, so many. I don’t generally even use a bag for much of our produce, but do have net bags from when I do… so now we have a stupid stash of plastic bags going as well. I mean a few of those come in handy now and again, but geez!
Ugh, yes, the plastic ones are even more annoying. A gajillion years ago on C*ster I saw where somebody fused their flimsy plastic grocery sacks together into more durable bags; I did that and those are some of the reusable ones that we still use (and that was like 13 years ago!). Maybe that’s one idea? The worst part is that we all just keep getting more.
I’m living in a carnival stronghold (Cologne is one of the cities famous for carnival in Germany) and I know many people who turn clothes into the most amazing costumes, especially blazers and coats, trousers and skirts. I haven’t tried that yet but I have a lot of ideas though. Well, carnival has been cancelled this year but that only gives me more time to make some costumes - the height of carnival season is a whole week of celebration before Ash Wednesday and you definitely need more than one costume.
You are in Cologne? I’m not very far away in Eindhoven, the Netherlands!
Growing up we always watched Rosenmontag in Cologne on German TV - in my hometown the parade is on Sunday so on Monday we were usually at home during the day. I used to love carnival because of the beautiful costumes but these days it’s mostly about drinking until you fall over and bad music. Not for me.
I am still trying to find carnival-loving friends with kids so I can make costumes and go to kids parties with them! My mum made the most amazing costumes and would get the Burda carnival issue every year for inspiration.
So, at the end of last year a very old - at least 8 year old pair of jeans were going on the inner thigh. I looked ways to mend but the whole area was wearing. I’ve decided they are my indoor work jeans. No-one sees them, so long as I remember the rest of that area could go at any time and not go out in them, it will be fine.
feels like a #lockdown win, #wfhwin,
Stops me wearing sportskit all the time, somehow that happened at the start of the original lockdown here because I was trying not to get bogged down, wanting to exercise, warm weather and we are a casual office generally, except for client meetings.
Hair is always brushed but ponytailed and tied back. But, rarely styled these days.
Eindhoven is quite close actually We always drive past Eindhoven on our way to Texel but I have never been there.
When we are back to “normal” and there is real carnival again you should come and visit me - because if you go to the right places carnival is so much more than just drinking. We moved to Cologne 10 years ago and before all I knew about carnival was that people in ugly costume drink to much beer. Well, now I know better
Of course we could also meet in the off-peak seasons
Oh, and you’re welcome to join me and the kids for a parade or some child-friendly parties
I think you have a point, but I feel like “reduce” is like a “maybe” and “refuse” is like “no.” I could even see reducing as a path to refusing. I have a grocery store that I refuse to buy milk from, because they don’t sell regular milk in a paper carton, only plastic. Of course, I have refused to shop there at all for months, because they don’t enforce the mask mandate.
That makes sense. I guess I see Reduce as an umbrella term that includes refusing some things completely and cutting back on others.
Along those lines, Reuse includes buying used, hand me downs, mending, and refashioning old into new.
Recycling requires more energy to be put into an item via transportation and breaking stuff down into reusable components.
So you could add lots of words. It makes me think of people who list seven colors in the rainbow. If you include Indigo, you should include all the tertiary colors; there all in there, along with every hue in between. Literal Lee strikes again!
Yup! They’re actually listed in the order one should consider - recycling being the last option! I love a good re-purpose, re-imagine, upcycle, etc. I do have strong feelings that “upcycle” must use something that would’ve been thrown away or otherwise wasted AND be better (the up part) than it was before. Otherwise it’s a re-purpose and that is just as awesome!
I need to try to be better about all this stuff! My partner seems to rip his jeans about once a week. so I gotta keep going on fixing those… unfortunately I think my pajama pants are a total loss: 3 of them are completely thread-bare with holes in the butt. I think it’s time for them to retire after about 10-15 years…
My other project: my partner’s coat. I’m sure I have other stuff. We shall see.
Both companies I work for (I do contract work) have totally abandoned dress codes for the pandemic. It hasn’t hurt productivity one bit. So jeans, tshirt, and flannel is my winter go to. I do get fully dressed everyday just so there is no barrier to taking a walk or running an errand. Otherwise I would never budge out of my chair into the great outdoors. I have few enough opportunities these days anyway.
Which means some of those Jean’s are getting thin in the mostly used places…the seat and inner thigh. One pair came out of the dryer with a big hole. I’m not sure they are salvageable for messy project jeans or not.
I mended a Valentine wreath today that needed the hanging loops reattached. Not exciting, definitely not pretty, but no one sees that part and at least now it’s functional. AND it was mended BEFORE the holiday it goes to! I don’t even know who I am right now! haha
We always drive past Eindhoven on our way to Texel but I have never been there.
so I gotta keep going on fixing those… unfortunately I think my pajama pants are a total loss: 3 of them are completely thread-bare with holes in the butt. 
I think it’s time for them to retire after about 10-15 years…