“That outfit is not appropriate for work,” my supervisor said quietly.
“Why?” I demanded.
In retrospect, the question was hilarious. I was wearing a too-short orange tee shirt and black cargo pants with the sides torn and the hems worn out from where I kept stepping on them. But I was furious. I was humiliated. This was my first job out of college, working for a nonprofit I believed in, and I worked really hard, I followed all the rules (I even tore through the employee guidebook searching for rules that my outfit broke), and I expected to be judged for what I did, not how I looked.
That, and other experiences like it, prompted me to study the unspoken parts of what ‘appropriate-for-work’ meant. I wanted to keep my sense of personal style, but I didn’t want to get pulled aside by supervisors anymore. But more specifically, that experience got me near-obsessed with finding a pair of work-appropriate pants I didn’t hate.
So are there pants out there that are work-appropriate, flattering, flexible, soft, durable, lint-resistant, machine-washable, and somewhat affordable? No, not all at once, that’s too much to ask, but you can get a decent subset of those from Ministry of Supply, MM. LaFleur, and to a lesser extent Betabrand. (And since the Betabrand Mondo Anniversary Sale makes their Dress Pant Yoga Pant extra affordable, I wanted to get this up even though I still haven’t gotten some answers back from Ministry of Supply. I’ll update the post when I do.)