Anyone can adjust what’s on the runway for use in their everyday wardrobe. Obviously this is merely waiting to be debuted at your family’s end-of-summer BBQ and this is not even Chanel or couture or anything, but rather a fun and practical beach accessory that anyone can make or wear, but what do you wear when things turn–as they so often do–completely to shit? This column is here to help. Welcome to Runway to (Things Just Got) Real Life. You’re welcome in advance.
What to wear to: Your temp job
You’ve read the thinkpieces. I know you know about the state us MILENNIALS are in. Ugh, all the job-changing and desire for flexible hours and constantly being forced to work for free. 30somethings interning for teenage software geniuses, teenage software geniuses working part-time at McDonald’s to save up enough money to buy a house (condo) at a reasonable age (never). “Social media experts.” It’s tough out there. What’s a woman with three jobs, none of which pay what is legally considered a “living wage” to do?
Why, temp of course! Temping is both a beautiful, relatively simple solution to many modern young person’s financial problems, and a terrible Faustian pact with a bland corporate devil who wants you to wear beige pants every day in exchange for $12 per hour and the slow-but-steady development of something I liked to call “computer chair butt.” It can be fun and exciting, with a rotating few weeks’ array of new environments, coworkers, and “no used mugs in the sink” politics. It can also be fraught with peril, as you don’t usually have enough time to learn anyone’s name properly, most of your coworkers will act like you are invisible/deeply touched in the head, and you will realise about three days in that years of freelance “teaching” “improv” has left you with a closet full of movement clothes and approximately three days of office attire. Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. As always, COUTURE is here to help. Don’t flub your first day on the jub. Don’t get verlkempt on your first at-temp-t! Look good while photocopying things for a boss who asks you to “transmit” those files to his “computer folders” when you’re done with them! Now straighten up your clip on tie and let’s get to bidness. I present to you the four stages of temp attire:
Interview A-game
“What would I say is my greatest weakness? I’m a total perfectionist, almost insanely attentive to detail and overly able to work well individually or as part of a team. Plus I’m TOO committed to any task I am assigned, however menial. Also I look incredible in this fall’s classic, businesslike tweeds and houndstooths… houndsteeth? Here I go again, in-style, on time, and obsessed with factual accuracy. If this was being dictated right now my work would be typo free. 200 words per minute.” – You, while your interviewer circles key words and draws a happy puppy on your CV, because they decided as soon as they saw you. Your initial impression at the interview stage will set the tone for your entire sojourn at xxxxxxx. Dress in your office best. Maybe coordinate your CV paper colour to your shirt?? [NB: this is less impressive if your shirt is white.]
First impression fashions
If you’re anything like me (short, redheaded, currently sitting in your kitchen eating peanut butter off a spoon and hoping the guy mowing your neighbour’s lawn doesn’t look up because you’re not wearing a bra… or a shirt), you do not own a ton of job-ready clothes. In fact, you probably used up the entirety of your “9-to-5 presentable” attire at the interview, in which case it’s time to get creative! There’s almost nothing a cardigan and scarf can’t make work appropriate, for instance, and layering is really happening right now. So is peplum, the business-casual trend that just won’t die, and which is, if my morning commute this week has been any indication, basically young female shorthand for “I have an office, or at least an open-concept work pod.”
Fooling the new temps
When/if if if you stick around for a while, you’ll almost certainly end up showing some new temps or interns around the office. And just like that, you’re not the bottom of the food chain anymore. If you have really polite ones, they’ll be too shy to even ask what your position is, so don’t tell them! They will presume you are more important than them, and who are you to correct some poor noobs? At this point you’ll be wearing basically whatever you have left with sleeves, so send them out for coffee quick before they realise your dress is actually much too short to be worn to work without tights. Quietly feel superior to them as they swan in with something they clearly bought from Zara on the way to work that morning in an attempt to look profesh. Know that you’ll be getting out soon. So soon…
Enough already thank you goodbye
… maybe not soon enough. Get inspired by the punk spirit of the fall runways and straight up quit your job in a blaze of vulgar, studded glory. Wear your rudest shirt and your skankiest kilt and clomp into your boss’ office with a list of reasons s/he can do one. Draw on the F/W13 shows for motivation. Saint Laurent: punk. Balmain: punk. Junya Watanabe, Diane von Furstenberg, Versace: punk, punk, punk. Chuck some grommets on your old DMs and start sending inappropriate DMs to that saucy receptionist man you’ve been awk-smiling at every day, just waiting for him to Halpert you in the stationary cupboard. It’s all happening, dress code be damned.
Because as Dolly Parton so effectively suggests, the 9-to-5 will drive you crazy if you let it. If you need to dip your toes into the daily grind every now and then, you can at least continue to feed the “silly old useless 20somethings” trendpiece mill by adopting a perpetual casual Friday of the mind, and pushing the limits with the ol’ workplace dress code. I have three words for you.
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Monica Heisey is a writer and comedian from Toronto. She has also written for VICE, Huffington Post, and She Does the City. Follow her on Twitter @monicaheisey.
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