Fashion Faux-Pas: Professional vs. Personal

I’m struggling with what to wear to work. I need to look professional but I want to remain true to my punk-rock roots. Ok, true, I have no punk-rock roots, I’m from the suburbs, that’s virtually impossible. But I do want to stay style-true; to what’s been deemed my “personal style”.

I’ve been able to wear whatever I wanted for the past two years really, I mean, I still needed to look presentable and able to tell kids what to do with them still taking me seriously. But really, I was able to let my personal style shine through; aka – wear jeans and a t-shirt.

But now I’m a 9 to 5-er, well, since I work in the education sector, I’m a 8 to 4-er.(Although most days, let’s be honest teachers, it’s a 8- 5, 8 – 6, 8 till way too late job) And I work at the front desk of an office, so I not only need to look presentable, but also professional. But I hate to lack style. I was asking one of my male co-workers, cuz he’s a friend and been in the office for sometime now, what the dress code was for us, do we have “casual Fridays”? Answer is no, the headmaster hates casual Fridays (bummer by the way) and his response was “Basically, I wear all the time – khaki pants, and some kind of polo shirt.” Well that’s all fine and good for boys, they got it easy. And I suppose I could do the same thing, but, who wants to own 5 polo shirts? Let alone, wear 5 polo shirts. (Unless they are retro- 70s or 80s stripped polo shirts. But those again, not necessarily “professional”). And I understand; there are other, subtle things I can do to "be me" - jewelery, hair, make-up, shoes (although, that's hard to, I'm struggling with wither or not to give up my sandles, converse, and rocket-dogs).

Mostly, I bring this up, because of my outfit today, which I think I’m going to run home at lunch and change. I have a fabulous skirt, it’s long and black and totally professional, but has some rousing, so it’s still got some style. It’s a million degrees in the office this week (and thus why I am wearing the skirt in the first place), so I want to be able to wear some-kind of tank top with it. This is tricky, mostly because of my ample bust. I can’t wear something too revealing, especially because it’s a high-school and we’re trying to get the teenage girls to not do that either. So, your typical tank is out, I need something that’s higher cut. Which I have, and it’s one of my favorite shirts, it’s blue and got flowers all over it – kind of multi-media, because their printed on and sewn on. But it’s also rather tight. I haven’t even worn it in months, because I felt like I wasn’t really pulling it off. But with the running (6 miles last night), I’m feelin pretty good.

But earlier today, a group of boys were sitting in front of my desk and one whose always funny and you can never tell if he even has a serious side, but at the same time does have a sincere punk-rock side, he said “hey, I like your shirt.” Which, he very well might have meant, but he also could have mean “hey, I like that your rack looks awesome in that shirt.” Hard to tell, could be me over-analyzing and being paranoid. Could be true. Either way, I think I’m gonna go home and put on a white tank under a another white tank just to be safe (and cuz those are the only colors I have). White top & black bottoms – awesome, I’ll look just like a waiter.