The Reasonably Prudent Law Student

As I promised my lovely readers, a fashionable, classy, work-appropriate look for our plus-sized professionals! Again, I apologize for not incorporating such looks into the BCS series earlier, but they’ll be posted more regularly from now on.

One of the biggest challenges in designing plus-sized clothing is that women come in so many different shapes and sizes. Some of us might be top-heavy but have narrow waists and slender legs. Some of us might have a bit of a tummy and be proportional elsewhere. Some of us might have curvier hips and slender legs and normal bust-lines.

To address all these different body shapes, I’ll be creating looks that work for each of them. The first few plus-sized professional looks will be for those of you gals that are better endowed than the rest of us. I’ve been told not to be jealous, and that the back pain is something terrible. (It’s hard not to still be jealous, though.)

Here’s the very first plus-sized professional look!

Midnight Mesa Floral Skirt ………. $38.99
Women’s 3/4 Sleeve Cardigan ………. $19.99
Miss Me Women’s Beatrice-3 Pump in Grey ………. $19.95

If you’ve got a larger bustline, even otherwise modest scoopnecks or v-necks can display too much of the Bobsey twins for comfort. (Can I drop the formalities now? Can I just say boobs? Great.) One of my best friends is tiny like me, but she’s got boobs. So when we go shopping, she thinks twice when she finds a nice v-neck. If it works, she gets it. If it’s deep, she makes sure she has a matching camisole of some sort to go underneath, just in case she’s ever on television and has a wardrobe malfunction that the FCC will reopen several years after all of America has forgotten about it because someone lost the bouncy-ball they use to play jacks and now they’re bored.

The fact of the matter is that those of us girls who are petite all over can wear plunging necklines and not look…trampy, like whoa. But if a girl with D cups wore the same plunging neckline…whoa. I’m not trying to be mean or anything; it’s just the way it is. It’s the difference between, say, Christina Hendricks and Kate Hudson. Apples and oranges, really. (How ’bout them apples? Okay, I’ll stop.)

So, one option if you’ve got boobs out to here is to downplay the effect by wearing a solid on top, and in a darker color, and wearing something more interesting on the bottom. This focuses attention on the other piece and away from Betty and Wilma.

That’s what we’ve done here. We’ve got the floral skirt on the bottom because it’s interesting and work-appropriate. We already had our little discussion about florals, and how to bring them into fall, and this is a great example of that because the print is larger and the navy cools the florals, whereas if these were coral colors in the skirt, it would look too warm for these fall days.

On top, I picked a navy blue cardigan. You’ll probably want to wear something underneath, like this white lace-trim camisole from Old Navy. The navy matches the skirt and has a clean shape without a lot of interest, like embellishments or ruching or ruffles or anything.

For obvious reasons, I didn’t pick black. You don’t want to wear black with navy, generally, because it looks like you didn’t realize your skirt was navy and just thought it was black, and you look mismatched. There are some shades that work with black, but you have to be careful.

So we’ve got the matchy-matchy top and bottom, and now for the shoes. I didn’t want to go with black shoes for the same reason: it looks like you thought your navy was black and you didn’t look any closer. A pale grey or silver would have worked very, very well, but the white makes things tricky.

Because of that, I chose a more medium grey for the pumps. It works well with the navy and the white, without being too matchy-matchy. And the heel’s not that high, either, so that’s always a plus when running around at the office. I see girls at school all the time, wearing jeans and platforms, and then the people scream WHY GOD WHY, Why couldn’t they just wear something less high-maintenance? and no one has an answer.

We’re all very melodramatic at my school.

Anyhoodle, that’s what I came up with for today. Check back for more looks for the busty gal, and for other plus-size ensembles. And, as always, if you have a look in mind, please, contribute!