'Dress for your day'...?

[Baffy]

This is our new policy in work. I really liked the idea at first, so if you have no meetings / just sat at your desk all day then you can wear jeans and trainers if you want.
Big day, important meetings, client meetings, then smart.

But I'm actually fed up of trying to decide what to wear every day - it was easier to just be suited and booted every day!

Any inspiration ideas for someone in their 40s along the smart/casual lines?
I risk either looking like an old corporate dinosaur or copying the teens at this rate

Oh I hate this. I am slowly reverting to my former approach of business casual stuff. I don't wear jeans and I struggle to find the balance so I have given up. Back to having a work wardrobe again.

I find it easier to wear a dress every day. But boring but have 4 work dresses and wear a different one every day. WFH 2 days a work.

It's a really boring approach but at least I feel smart. Can we dressed up or down with trainers or chunky boots or heels

The same dress code was implemented for my office. It hasn’t really taken off: largely, I suspect, because my industry is a traditional, male- and middle class- dominated one and a lot of the men feel positively awkward being in the workplace and not wearing at least a shirt and smart trousers and shoes. And then of course, nobody wants to start doing anything else and be the odd ones out in jeans and trainers!

I wear smart but comfortable dresses and ankle boots mostly. Maxi dresses in summer. Easy and practical. Comfortable crop tops, no bra - I ditched those in March 2020 and am never going back. Keep tailored jackets and jacket-style cardigans to throw on for meetings depending on level of seriousness.

Thanks all. I like the dresses and ankle boots idea, I tend to always wear trousers. Dress shopping it is!

I've just bought some new dresses for work - wore a floral one with a bright jumper over it and a chunky necklace, with black "western" heeled ankle boots and had loads of compliments, which gave me a massive boost.

Dresses are a good shout, it's easy to add a blazer or a jumper depending on how smart/casual you want to be and the same with footwear: trainers/boots/flats/heels.

No-one would bat an eyelid if a man had 4 suits and a similar amount of shirts and ties and wore these on rotation. In fact, most men probably have fewer suits than that.

Saves you from the effort of having to think about what you're going to wear, trying to put an outfit together only to find it doesn't work when you're getting dressed and don't really have time to choose something else.

I'm tending towards the Angela Merkel approach for when I need to look smart. I have a couple of pairs of black trousers that fit well, then I wear a plain black top and a coloured jacket. So far I only have 2 jackets, but I'll probably buy a couple more as I see ones that I like, as sometimes I do week long events so wouldn't want to wear the same one more than a couple of times plus I have to allow for food and drink spillages.

Sounds lovely! Don't think I'd be that brave for work but maybe I should try...

BarbaraofSeville - haha I get the spillages one! Wore a beautiful cream jumper around Christmas time, had mulled wine at lunch time at a staff event. Some of the fruit stuck to the side of the cup and then splashed down as I went to take a drink... cue an afternoon with red splodges all over my chest!!