Work Clothes for Women in IT

Earlier this week I wrote about clothing and grooming for men in IT. I didn’t specify “men,” but it was a male-oriented article in which I mentioned that there were thousand of Web pages with fashion advice for women, and that I saw no point in adding my uninformed opinion to that huge body of advice. Since then, I’ve gotten a couple of emails that said I should at least provide a few links to sites that give sensible clothing and grooming advice to women who are climbing the IT ladder.

• Summer is a’coming in, so an article at Monster.com headlined How to Dress for Success in Warm Weather is obviously something worth reading in June — and not just for women, either. Men may not want to follow this article’s advice on footgear, but ought to check its sensible talk about colors and fabrics.
• WomenForHire.com has an excellent article blandly titled Professional Dress and Appearance that contains both excellent, down-to-earth advice and links to several other useful articles about how to create and maintain a professional image without spending a fortune.
• Need a decent-looking suit, as in for interviews but don’t have big money to spend? An article titled How to Buy a Woman’s Suit…That Doesn’t Look Cheap! can help.
• Good unisex clothing advice from About.com: Clothes Make the Man (or Woman); How to Dress for Work and Interviews. Lots of links in this article, too. Follow them for more specific advice — for both men and women — on how to dress for almost any work or interview situation.
• Journeywoman, a site that calls itself “The Premier Travel Resource for Women,” has an interesting collection of clothing and clothes-packing advice that has as much to offer a traveling man as a traveling woman.

Looking decent takes a little thought for both women and men. But not necessarily a whole lot, especially if you stick to a few basic colors and, in general, try to keep your workday wardrobe simple and practical.