New Look / Update Styles

[Crankin]

I might try different brands of pants on in stores, to see if you can order on line. That is, unless you are petite, like me, where they only carry my size on line in a lot of places.
You can't go wrong with black, charcoal, and navy pants, a couple of stretchy button down shirts, and some updated t shirts. Add a blazer or cardigan and you are set.
I honestly like the Gap for jeans. Tons of styles and sizes. Not too expensive, either. Regular pants, on the other hand, I tend to spend more $, because you really can tell the difference in the way they are tailored, especially wool.

[indysteel]

I'm with Crankin about spending more on quality pants. You do tend to get what you pay for. IMO, lined pants generally look much better than unlined. If you're hippy, stay away from tapered pants, too. They came back into fashion over the last couple of years, but I don't think they flatter most figures.

[Crankin]

I agree with Indy on the skirts. Until I switched careers, I almost never wore pants to work. But now, it seems to brand me as as outlier. I wear a dress or skirt 1-2X a week, on days when I am not working with young children. More in the summer, because a dress is much cooler than capris or a skirt.
The people I work with dress like they are in school, although the younger clinicians do it with some style, i.e.scarves, cool boots, sweaters. But, they all wear jeans. One male clinician I work with (my age) wears a button down shirt and tie every day, but he is based at the high school, so maybe that's what the teachers there wear. The other male clinician (young) wears very casual clothes.
Last year, when I was working in a clinic, there were only 2-3 clinicians who regularly wore skirts/dresses. The admin. staff dressed better! I understand the idea of not overdressing when you are working with people struggling with economics, but I feel the mere act of putting a skirt on sort of labels me, more with colleagues than clients. In fact, I've had 1-2 moms say out loud that I am the first therapist they've had who dresses nicely. I never reply back, but I wonder how this got started. And, I am talking about dressing nicely in a way that would be termed business casual.