"You should go!"

Because it's so little-known, you get bonus points if you can identify the store whose slogan is this entry's title before you read the rest of this entry.

Okay, so I'm training to be a high school teacher. In one of our group work sessions during orientation last week, a few groups was asked to discuss professionalism among themselves, and as part of this to make a list of things that you need to stop doing as you transition from being a student doing any other university degree to being a student teacher. My group was asked to discuss something else, but at a certain point all the groups had to break up, see what the other groups were discussing, and report back. The member of my group who checked in on one professionalism group came back to us and summed up their list of things to stop doing like this: "Basically you need to stop swearing, stop sleeping in, and stop wearing sexy clothes." Well, I'm not much of a one for swearing (though there are stories about me out there), though not sleeping in is going to be a challenge. That group's third point, however, brings up something that has been in the back of my mind for a while: I need to build myself a teacher's wardrobe. My usual clothes may not fall under the "sexy" category, but they do for the most part fall in the "unprofessional" category...and much of the professional-type stuff do own (the stuff I generally wear to church) needs replacing because I have either had it a long time or someone else owned it before I did or it turned out not to be of as great quality as it originally appeared to be (some great grey pants Jen and I picked out at Reitman's and that I used to love, for example, are suffering from some stitches coming undone down the outside leg seam...boo).

While I've been considering this need to buy clothes, other people's mentioning of clothes-buying has caught my attention more than usual. When Emma mentioned getting a great pair of expensive-but-quality pants at Eddie Bauer, I decided that that was what I was going to aim for this time around...I am going to be willing to spend more money if necessary to get a piece of clothing that is going to stand up to wear and tear and stick around for a while. When someone on one of my e-mail groups mentioned using the tips of a fashion consultant to find clothes that looked good on her body at the local thrift store, it stuck in my mind that you can get decent-looking stuff for not a lot of money, though I was concerned about the quality of such items. When I mentioned to DMIL that I was thinking of checking out the local Eddie Bauer, though, as I wanted to find some quality stuff and was willing to pay a little more to get it, and she mentioned that you can get designer clothes for a lower price at Winner's, I was skeptical but decided it was worth a shot (I could always get back in the car and drive to EB if Winner's didn't work out, after all...ah, the freedom of wheels).

Well, the upshot is that I am pretty happy with what I came home with. I didn't spend as much time there as I might have if I hadn't brought my husband along (who tells me he abhors clothes shopping), but in the time that I did spend there I found a really nice burgundy V-neck sweater and a really, really nice pair of grey pants (to replace my now-disliked-and-falling-apart Reitmans pants). Winner's labels all their clothes with both the price they are selling them for and a "compare at" price--the price you would probably end up paying for the exact same product in a department or specialty store. I'm not sure how accurate the "compare at" prices are...however, to give you an example: the grey pants I got were Liz Claiborne (sp?) and feel to be a good quality product; they were given a "compare at" price of $80, but the Liz Claiborne tag that was still attached listed a suggested retail price of $150. Know how much I paid for this fantastic pair of pants? $40. And I tried 'em on on my return home and they are great (though could use a re-hemming like all my pants). The burgundy V-neck sweater I got was given a "compare at" price of $40 and I got it for $25 (and it also looks great). I didn't see a ton else that I wanted to check out at that particular store, but every store is different, and the merchandise changes every week. Getting that pair of grey pants in particular (and the sweater to a lesser extent) has given me "the thrill of the find" Winner's mentions on its website. I'm not about to become a Winner's-a-holic like some people out there, and I'm not going to overlook places like EB to give me the quality stuff I can't find elsewhere, but I'm not going to turn up my nose at Winner's completely anymore, either.

Phew, that is out of my system now :). Finding that pair of pants really was exciting and I just had to share, but I am feeling better now :). Building up my teaching wardrobe is going to take a little bit of time, seeing as I don't have a ton of funds available even to blow at Winner's, but I am having fun with the process of finding out what looks good on me, acquiring a relatively small set of basic pieces and learning how to mix and match them to extend my professional wardrobe enough so that I won't have to have a ton of clothes yet when my three-week teaching block comes up the kids won't wonder if I really do wear the same outfit every Monday, the same one every Tuesday, and so on. Oh, and hey, if something I'm wearing really doesn't work for me, please do let me know during this experimental phase...or I could end up really liking it and propagating some fashion faux-pas (sp?) throughout the rest of my professional life. Mira, for example, pointed out that I need to wear higher heels with a particular pair of pants or get them hemmed, which solves nicely my constant wondering about why this otherwise great pair of pants was doing so much bunching around my lower legs, and I appreciate that...see, I can be open :).

Alright, I'm off to do other things now (maybe today I will finally be able to get back to Warcraft for a bit!). Hope y'all are enjoying the long weekend!

Edit: (later) I just remembered that it is a good idea to check labels when buying clothes. My "fantastic" pants are dry-clean only. I am going to have to think about this. I could return them, but should I? Hmm. Dry-cleaning isn't that expensive nor is it that inconvenient and the pants are good quality. Well, I'll think about it. Also, my marvelous new sweater is a dry-flat item, but I think I can handle that now that I've actually bought myself a proper sweater-drying rack...I do have other dry-flat stuff and continue to wear it, after all; my only concern would be if it would lose its shape and other marvelousness, but hopefully having a proper dry-flat rack now rather than fakely drying it flat over a chair back will help avoid that. Something to learn from for next time, but I may well have gone ahead and bought these pieces anyway. Oh, and they look great together, too. I could probably even layer the top with a blouse and maybe add a blazer, too, if I wanted to go for a different look. Anyway, I'm off to bed soon but wanted to add that little postscript.