skirting the issue

Jeremy dishes on having to buy an interview suit for Oh See Eye. Beanie adds her thoughts on the separate-but-"equal" dress code for female interviewees.

This isn't the first I've heard of the nebulous, unwritten rule that women attorneys (or at least women who want to be attorneys) must wear skirt suits in order to be considered Properly Attired. Judges have been known to demand that women lawyers wear skirts in the courtroom. And law school career services offices have similarly gone on record with such nudge-nudge advice as "Although pant suits may currently be fashionable, your interview suit should be the traditional skirt suit."

I bought a really nice suit back at the big Macy's sale in July, intending it to be my Oh See Eye fatigues. Alas, it's a pant suit, as are all the suits I own that I actually wear. A dig through my closet revealed a grand total of one skirt suit -- the navy one I wore to on-campus recruiting as a senior in college, back in 1996. My most excellent seamstress might be able to save the jacket in terms of length and lapels, but even she is probably helpless in the face of the obscenely shiny elbows.

Ah well, I thought; I'm probably due to invest in a nice new skirt suit, just so I own one. Oh See Eye only lasts two weeks, and I'm happy to interview in costume if it means making the right impression.

I never got around to skirt suit shopping, though, which turned out to be fortunate.

The other night, husband and I went to the movies to catch a late showing of Tomb Raider (which, incidentally, sucked -- skip it). It was dark out, I was wearing shorts and slippery sandals, and OOPS I somehow slipped off the cobblestone path AAAAAH and wound up on the ground with a loud YOLP.

Damage: significant skin scraped off both palms, a twisted left ankle (thankfully not sprained) which now features a lovely blue bruise, and the prize: a completely blackened right knee that smarted like crazy.

A quick trip to the women's restroom and a wet paper towel unblackened the scrape, but what remained of my knee underneath the dirt was even less attractive. The last time I sustained an injury like this, I was about twelve years old; I'd fallen off my bicycle onto a dirt road, where I parted with a major chunk of my left knee. I still have the scars from that fall. This will probably scar too. Two days later, despite constant applications of Neosporin and gauze, the scrape is still better hidden from the civilized gaze.

More importantly, it will probably still be ugly enough by the time Oh See Eye begins that I'll really have no business wearing a skirt. Which, I guess, solves my skirt-suit problem.

Unless skirts are cut below the knee this year. Are they? Please tell me they're not.

thus spake /jca @ August 20, 2003 05:48 PM